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Pain.
That was the only thing Vox could feel at the moment.
Unbridled, mind-shattering pain.
He clutched the covers of his bed fiercely, his claws inches away from tearing through the fabric. He wiped his face with it, frantic, desperate, mindless as he dried away the tears, a feeble, vain attempt to alleviate the agony.
But, no matter how hard he tried to assuage it, or how fiercely he soaked the tears from his eyes, the pain still persisted, unremitting, incessant.
Vox had always been tipsy on the emotions scale, despite the ardor and determination he invested in always upholding a stoic, unshakeable façade. It was the perfect curse for him. The most ideally, intricately formulated affliction reserved for one of Hell's most evil, vile and malicious inhabitants. To have nature contradict itself by giving him a biomechanical body that would react, fizzle and howl whenever he cried.
The water had seeped into his circuitry, sizzling his wires and sending unmanageable, scorching waves of fire through his head.
"Fuck-!"
The noises he was making evaded his ears, already desensitized from their repetition, dulled to an incomprehensible, distant wail that resounded from somewhere far, far away. His screen buffered and glitched uncontrollably, the flashes dancing across his room in an erratic, dizzying manner.
He couldn't remember why he was crying in the first place. All he knew was that these isolating, avoidant sessions where he would writhe and scream from the torturous, crippling suffering - courtesy of the greatest, cruelest punishment Hell had bestowed upon him - were increasing in frequency ever since Alastor had graced everyone with his return.
He turned over in his bed, jerking his head sharply in a panicked, hopeless attempt to shake off the water.
He. Still. Couldn't. Stop. Crying.
Why couldn't he overpower his own feelings? Why was it always so achingly impossible to tamp down that dense, impenetrable bubble clawing it's way up his throat and squeezing the very breath out of him? He was a renowned, infamous Overlord, feared and dreaded throughout the entire city. His name alone was sufficient in instilling terror in the hearts of thousands, people who had met him and regretted the interaction with every cell in their body, people who had affiliated themselves with him and learned to keep their mouths shut lest risk their own destruction, people who had only ever heard of him, but knew in the deepest, darkest crevices of their souls to be infinitely wary.
And yet, he was utterly helpless in his battle against this monster.
There was no running from it. There was no fighting it, or reasoning with it, or bribing it, or threatening it. How could he escape something that was inside of him?
His throat was ragged and bruised from how loudly he had been screaming at this point. It could have only been a few minutes or it could have been hours. Time was reduced to nothing but an airy, insubstantial speck of dust blowing in the wind, lost, aimless in the vast sea of eternal pain.
"Fuck... fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"
It wouldn't stop.
It just wouldn't stop.
No matter which way he twisted, or how he whirled, the insurmountable agony remained, relentless, merciless as the horrendous electric shocks stunned his nerves, fraying their ends and plunging his mind into an endless, daunting labyrinth of odious, biting darkness.
He could feel his chest throbbing in sporadic, rapid heaves as he fought to inhale air. His entire body felt sore, zapping, brisk bolts traversed between his antennas, a stark, blaring indicator of the inner, savage turmoil in his mind. Beads of sweat had sprung up across every inch of his skin, causing his clothes to stick irritatingly. His muscles spasmed and convulsed in random, unpredictable intervals, beyond Vox's control as all of his attention was stolen by the ceaseless, billowing storm raging in his head.
"Stop... fucking idiot, just stop!"
Coherent sentences were beyond his grasp, evasive, unreachable. He didn't even care what profanities he had been continuously spewing with no reservation or concern.
Tears still streamed down his face, further aided by the remorseless, undiluted pain gnawing at his very bones and turning them into jelly, a never-ending cycle, spinning around and around until eventually it broke.
"...please."
His body had grown limp, tired. His eyes glistening, dazed as they stared in the distance, vacant, lost, as his vision refused to clear itself of the encompassing blur. His pillow was ruined, damp patches littering across its surface, covered with feathers strewn around chaotically. The blanket had been tossed aside haphazardly as it lay neglected, useless.
His fingers were twitching, their efforts to hamper his tears unsuccessful. His screen was slick with them, but Vox knew the damage hiding underneath it was far more gruesome and devastating.
It always ended this way.
He had lost again, and now he could feel that unforgiving, lifeless void slowly creeping in on his consciousness. A frail, delicate promise that would finally free him of this pernicious, overbearing anguish.
Vox welcomed it. Defeated, he allowed his eyes to droop closed, worn out, devitalized as his body gradually began to sink into the mattress, eager to temporarily depart from this reality.
As he surrendered to that unyielding, intimidating void inching its way into his world and snaking through all of his senses, a single thought ran recurrently through his mind:
Alastor.