Path Of The Broken

10. Madness

10

Madness

Before The Sundered War

Colin screamed, struggling against the bonds that held him strapped to the bed deep in the heart of the Healers’ Guild. At first, the medication that the healer had given him had seemed to help. He'd been a willing participant in the trial. It had cut his access to the veil, and had appeared to be a blessing. The healers had told him that with the control of his medication, they would introduce him slowly back to the power of the veil. That he would be able to learn control gradually, instead of just being opened wide to the energy as those who regularly went through transition were, as his sister had been—she had gone off into the wilds, lost time, and killed. She had eventually come back to herself, yet she had never forgiven herself for what she knew she had done during her transition.

He had been terrified that he too would be unable to cope during the transition. Everyone said the madness was due to going through the transition, and that those who broke ran in families, so he had been only too glad to agree to this trial. Yet something had changed. He begged the healers, pleaded with them to stop. The medication wasn't working as they said it would. Every time the antidote cut out, the power of the veil shot through his body in excruciating pain. It surged, along with the voices of the others around him, somehow amplified and worse than what he remembered. He found himself screaming in pain, begging for the tormentor to stop. Yet they didn't listen. They didn't stop. They continued with their trial.

Until now. Colin didn't know what had happened, but he hadn't been given his medication this day. He felt like his body was on fire; he felt sick, his body going into convulsion as the power was suddenly able to run through him. Even if they came and forced their treatment on him, it was too late, it would cause him excruciating pain. Where before his power had been steady and increasing, now he felt like his brain was erupting as the power surge off and on, totally out of his ability to control.

As power racked his body, he felt his back arch. He screamed his pain out into the veil as he heaved at the bonds, and a crack echoed around the room as this time they snapped. Colin leapt from the bed and staggered along the row of others like him, all of them begging to be released. Falling to his knees as pain racked him again, he grabbed his temples, screaming into the void with tears running down his face.

Colin felt himself be sick again, leaving a mess on the floor, but his stomach continuing to heave even when there was nothing for him to bring up. He staggered to his feet, making his way to one bed after the other, freeing those strapped down on the beds. They didn't stop, they didn't wait or help; some ran staggering from the room, while others seemed to have enough control to draw the veil to them, disappearing into the veiled world. As Colin released the last of those that had been in the healer's torture room, he looked around when the door opened to see the young medical student who'd been dosing them with the medication come in. The healer got halfway across the room before he realised that something was wrong. He stopped, looking up, startled to see Colin standing there. The young medical trainee dropped the tray, the medication smashing, spreading across the floor. He turned and started running towards the door. Feeling the surge of power, Colin grappled with it, then pitched himself forward to grab the trainee and snap his neck. Letting the broken healer fall to the ground, Colin threw his head up and screamed, releasing his pent-up pain and anger into the veil before transitioning into the veiled world to escape.