In a space that could not be described in human terms, Thames felt light and weightless. Like a Leaf floating around in a summer breeze. It was euphoric and it just felt right.
Wondering where he was and how he could exist without a body, he was about to speak when the illusionary world rippled and he felt a force pulling him down with great speed.
SPLASH!!
Thames eyes opened abruptly, darting around, trying to take in their surroundings, making out vague figures through a wall of liquid.
"What-" the words caught on his throat as feeling returned to his body. He felt the liquid he was floating around in. It felt way too slimy to be water.
His head reeling as he took in his surroundings, he was suspended in mystery liquid, a breathing apparatus practically sewn to his mouth, with another part of it which was way too deep in his throat giving him a continuous gag reflex.
There was a large cable connected to the base of his skull and the back of his dark abode. He moved his arms around, feeling the dark walls around him, the veiny structures on them sending a shiver through his spine. Pulling on the cable, he deduced it continued out of the capsule.
Thames looked outside the small opening at the top of what had become his dark abode, seeing vague figures moving around. He drained his ear to try and glean some information from outside.
That turned out to be futile, the slimy liquid acting as an insulant against the outside noise. Thames found himself unusually calm, he felt like he was supposed to be freaking out, no, he was freaking out, but the weird gas coming from the breathing apparatus suppressed his nerves and cleared his mind.
"Yep, drugs, I am definitely being fed drugs". Thames felt exasperated, or at least he tried to, the weird gas still doing it's thing.
He couldn't do anything, and he wouldn't be able to access the system until he was done with the Trial, so he decided to take mental notes of the things he could at least see outside his dark prison.
Squinting his eyes, he tried to look outside and all he could make out were the same vague figures. He counted around 10, at least from the small opening he could see through. They moved around slowly and purposefully, checking on what could only be a weird machine with multiple monitors, none of which radiated any lights like they were being used, but they were able to read them fine.
Just then, the figures movements became erratic as they crowded around the machine in the middle (or what Thames thought to be the middle anyway) of the room.
Their movements became erratic and they started to do something to the machines. As Thames tried to get a hint of what they where doing, his head was yanked back by the cable it was connected to.Thames was shocked, trying to reach back to the cable and trying to steady his breathing tube, when he felt it.
An increased volume of the gas forcing it's way into his nostrils and the forceful pouring of a liquid into his gut. 'Oh shi-', he tried to think, as he felt his whole body become numb, his brain activity actively decreasing as his next thought died before it could come to fruition.
His pupils dilated and breathing slowed down.
Then it happened.
Excruciating Pain in his Head. It felt like his nerve pathways where being burned into his brain
Like someone took a fire and directly stuffed it into his head.
He tried to scream in horror but all that could escape his mouth was a little vomit of the sludge in his gut, and it was forced back down with the rest of the new sludge incoming.
The surge of pure agony was worse than anything he had ever felt in his life.
The myriad of scrapes and bruises he suffering during spars with his mates or when running from the Sheriff paled in comparison.
The pain increased in intensity till it felt like everywhere was in pain. It became omnipresent.
It was a nonsensical amount of pain, something that could only be felt in a nightmare or fiction.
His nerves felt like they were being rearranged, broken down and built back up.
The slimy feeling of the liquid had disappeared. He couldn't feel anything or even notice anything.
Then in the midst of the pain, information surged into his head. Techniques to wield various weapons imprinting into his neural pathways. Weaknesses of Different Creatures he had never seen before. Army Soldiers
Thames tried to cry out in agony, the weight of the information feeling like it would tear his brain apart.
Suddenly a change occurred.
The pain localized to his body. The liquid applying pressure in some parts of his body and corroding others, the substances he had ingested healing and fixing the damage that had been caused.
He couldn't know how much time had passed within the chamber. Any number of seconds, minutes or days could have passed. His brain overwhelmed by the intense signals the body was giving it. And it couldn't process them as it was still reeling from the information it has been forcefully fed.
After a period of time, the pain began to move inward to his internal organs
"MMMMMMF". Thames screams of Agony where muffled by the breathing tube. The pain focused on his body systems and their corresponding organs one by one. Every one of his cells felt like they were on fire.
Admist that pain, Thames started to feel a surge of power unlike anything he had experienced. He could feel the pain purifing all the weakness in his body and leaving it with strength that transcended human limits.
Thames trashed around in the chamber, trying to use his newfound strength to break through the chamber to no avail. Whatever the it was made out of was strong enough to block his hits.
It seemed like he was cursed to be here forever trapped in an inescapable hellscape of pain. No sooner had he finished that thought when he felt the pain receding way faster than it has come.
'Wha-' he tried to say, when the tube was removed itself from his mouth and the cable connected to his head disconnected itself from him.
His senses returned to him, first his hearing has the heard the mechanical hiss of whatever machine the figures where working on. The weird liquid receded from the capsule leaving him to feel the cold hard floor of his prison.
HISSSSS.
The mechanical sound seemed to come from beside him now as his capsule opened and he slid out of it still wet and disoriented.
The blinding lights of wherever his pod was located in strained his eyes and he tried to move but his body was still numb from the pain.
A shadow loomed over him blocking the light stinging his eyes. It lifted him up and places in a gurney-looking apparatus. It binded Thames to the gurney and wheeled him to another branch of the large hall.
"Uugh". Thames tried to move, fighting weakly against the bindings when the creature's hand grabbed his face, making inhuman sounds that hurt his ears.
Eventually he couldn't handle the pain and he blacked out. Darkness filling his vision