1.1 - In Search of Sanity - Prison of the Mind

The monster screeches and lunges towards Iosef. As its weapon buries itself into his body, Iosef feels everything go numb, then his vision fades to black.

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One by one you all regain consciousness, finding yourselves in grimy cells with enough room to comfortably fit maybe two of you. Unfortunately, whatever circumstance placed you here didn't seem to be thinking of your comfort. While Grim, Elias, and Axon occupy one cramped cell, the other two cells each only contain one person each between Iosef and Razhel. You realize none of your equipment is with you, except the clothes on your back.

You each remember the events of the dream, but aside from minor headaches and sore muscles, you don't seem to have suffered any lasting effects of that horrific experience. That said, you can't shake the feeling that it was more than a normal dream, as you keenly remember the feeling of dying in a way that haunts you.

Your time to peacefully collect yourselves and welcome the real world is cut short, however. As you groggily awake, a voice cuts through the room. "Wake up, damn it!" Bars separate all of you from the stranger, a struggling human with split lips and skin covered in a mapwork of fresh red lines. Heavy ropes lash the man to a splintery worktable.

Another figure, unsettlingly thin and wearing a blood-smeared doctor’s coat, circles the table casually—stopping every so often to scrutinize one of the man’s wounds or select a different object from a sideboard of shiny blades. Currently, she spins one blade of a broken pair of pruning shears, which glints in the dull light of the lamp suspended overhead. With careless cruelty, the doctor draws the blade across the bound man’s bare thigh, releasing a tortured wail.

A small, nearby table displays a number of sharp instruments: a gardening trowel, forks, several long pieces of broken glass and metal, and the other place of the tormentor's shears.

As you gain your bearings, you realize you recognize nobody in the room, except your cellmates and only from the dream you just had. You also realize you have no idea how you got here, or even where here is. Each of you have some foggy memory of a life you must have once experienced, but details such as your name, where you're from, any family you might have, are all just beyond your ability to remember. You're not entirely sure of the extent of this memory loss, but one thing you're sure of - you're not in a safe or happy place now.

The one dressed in the doctor's coat makes another slow cut on the man's forearm and pauses as he screams, "Save me!"