Chapter 22: Pipsqueak Again.

Alex expected the three of them to remain silent throughout the ordeal. He thought that silence was a foregone conclusion because he didn’t have anything to say to them. But as it turned out, one of them had something to say to him.

Barnabas called out to Alex, saying, "Hey. Hey. Hey!"

Alex didn’t respond because he kept his eyes closed and tried to focus inward.

So Barnabas raised his voice, "Pipsqueak, I’m calling you."

Finally, he heard Barnabas. When he opened his eyes, they were cold, and his expression was frigid.

His voice was laced with irritation as he said, "I am not, pipsqueak."

"Whatever," Barnabas said, dismissing his words.

Then he asked Alex, "You don’t like eating meat, right?"

"Why do you ask?" Alex asked in return, looking at the biggest among them.

As his eyes roamed across his body, he noticed that Barnabas was shaking. He thought it was odd, since the water was warm.

"Since you don’t like eating meat, you should give up early," Barnabas said, answering his question.

"Did you miss the part where she will cut off 10% of my body?" Alex asked with a frown.

"It will only hurt a little bit," Barnabas said, dismissing his concerns.

But Barnabas was wrong. Losing an arm or foot was not only about a little pain. His body would need a lot of energy to heal that kind of injury, which would deprive him of Life Energy to complete the fourth Life Anchor.

Not only that, but the loss of energy would also put the worm in an irrational mood where it would be clamoring for food and trying to take control of his body every chance it got to eat.

Throughout today, the worm had been relatively mellow and hadn’t tried to take control of his body once. It seemed that being well fed had put it in a mood to behave well.

He liked this state where he fed his inner demon and his inner demon left him alone to his whims. He didn’t want to wrestle with his worm every time he met food just because someone whose face he wanted to smash in asked him to.

So without thinking about the offer, he said, "I’m not interested."

Then he closed his eyes and tried to shut out the world around him. He even let his consciousness retreat all the way to the Life Forge, thereby dulling his perception of the world.

He cut off his perception because he didn’t want to focus on Robert and Barnabas beside him. Being so close and easily accessible was tempting him to take a bite out of them.

So he wanted to ignore them and avoid being tempted. But when his consciousness settled beyond his mind, he realized that it also dulled the pain of the hot pot on his buttocks.

Unfortunately, Barnabas wasn’t willing to let it go. The big guy sniggered and said, "Are you scared of a little pain?" ℯℯ𝘭.

"I should have known. You’re weak. You’re just a little bitch."

Barnabas kept talking, insulting and taunting him. He heard everything the big guy said, but he ignored it and behaved like he was deaf.

After a while, Barnabas saw that he wasn’t moved and lost interest. The big guy glanced at Robert only to receive a glare in response.

Robert had been glaring at Barnabas all along. Apparently, he hated Barnabas with the bottom of his heart. If not for the rule that they couldn’t fight, Robert would have tried to tear him apart.

Barnabas didn’t even think about asking Robert to give up. But he did snort and say, "What are you looking at?"

When Robert didn’t say anything, Barnabas chuckled and said, "If you want to hit me, just do so. Don’t tell me you’re a wuss like that pipsqueak."

But Robert didn’t respond. The young man only snarled, displaying his three-headed tongue. It seemed both he and his worm agreed on their interest in visiting violence upon Barnabas.

After a round of taunting, Barnabas lost interest. He had hoped to force Alex to give up or taunt one of them into hitting him, earning a beating that would make them quit early. But his attempts failed, and he grew frustrated.

The part where Alex had ignored him in particular tasted bitter on his tongue. Anytime he looked at Alex, he remembered how this runt he used to bully had denied him his request, and his frustration spiked into something else.

He was already mentally unstable, fidgeting and shaking all over. He wanted to eat at all costs, as hunger consumed him from within. The hunger then combined with his frustration and festered into resentment.

He resented Tessa for not giving him all the food he wanted, and for always beating him whenever he tried to get more.

He also resented Alex for not doing what he wanted. But most of all, he resented Alex and Robert for not letting him eat them.

’If they give me just a bite, I will be fine. But they are being selfish. They are hoarding their flesh and being greedy,’ he thought in anger.

’Yes. They evil. Must remove,’ the worm in his mind said in encouragement.

The hotter the water around him became, the more intense his emotions got. It was as if the heat was cooking both his flesh and his emotions.

The dual cooking of flesh and emotions wasn’t far from the truth, though. As the water began to boil, it cooked his flesh. His body had to heal the injury, which expended his energy. This, in turn, starved his body, irritated the worm, and intensified his hunger.

Tessa was saying, "This is a test in delayed gratification. Use the hunger within you to motivate you to endure the pain of the boiling water."

"If you endure long enough, you’ll realize that the pain of hunger is fake and can’t compare to real pain like being cooked alive. And if you can endure the pain of being cooked alive, you’ll be able to endure the pain of hunger."