James begged Johan to not do what Johan just did to Jason. But Johan didn't listen to a word of his; he first punched him in the face to shut him up and then checked the chains to see whether they had gotten loose or not.
After tightening the chains a bit more. He began; he started to pluck James's nails, all twenty-one, one by one. While James was screaming in pain to the point where he was starting to lose his voice, Johan said to him.
"Did you know that the most painful way to die, other than getting tortured to death, of course, was getting burnt alive?... When we reach stage three, or even now, you will wish for that – getting burnt alive."
James thought to himself that maybe even getting burnt to death would be good; he just wanted to let it all end. His mind was shattered; after Johan was done with him, James and Jason had now been completely broken. They couldn't be brought back to normal now.
But Johan was still not done with them; now he proceeded to the last stage of torture. While James had got unconscious due to the shock from intense pain, Johan now went to Jason; when he opened the door, he was surprised to see that Jason had healed more than he had expected.
Johan then, by using a hook, lifted his arms and body in the air and removed the chair. He then tied his hands together while Jason was still unconscious; both James and Jason were already stripped naked.
Johan now took out another item from the box. Johan took a chair nearby and sat on it while facing Jason, waiting for him to wake up. After a few minutes Jason woke up; he noticed that he was now standing, but he was still tied tightly. Maybe for them, after everything that had been done to them, they lost their will to escape, and maybe now they just wanted to die.
"Ah, you're awake now. Good timing; I just sat down to wait for you to wake up." Johan said to Jason and stood up from the chair; he then said to him.
"Don't worry, kid; now only the last few hours of suffering remain for you and your enemy." Johan said to him while placing the item he had in his hand on Jason's stomach.
Jason felt something sharp on his stomach; he gazed at the object and now was even more terrified of what was going to be done to him. The only possibility he thought of was that Johan was going to skin him alive.
The object Johan was holding was looking like... A fruit peeler, but that peeler was made specially for humans...it was made to skin humans, mainly the power users whose external bodies were much tougher than that of ordinary humans.
Johan then slowly, to put Jason in more pain, started peeling the skin from his stomach, one centimetre per second; he stopped after removing a few centimetres. Johan was now getting annoyed by his screaming, so he decided to do something.
With the peeler he decided to peel out Jason's tongue completely. He reached out his hand to bring Jason's tongue out, but Jason, after seeing the peeler coming towards his face, closed his mouth shut and looked away to avoid getting his face skinned, but he didn't know that it was his tongue that was to be skinned, not his face.
Jason was too tired to resist Johan's strength, so he succumbed to it. But he saw something shiny; it was coming toward his face, and suddenly he felt that his jaw was dislocated, and then a sharp burning pain came.
Johan had cut open his mouth with a sharp knife; there was blood dripping from Jason's mouth, and his lower jaw was separated from his upper jaw. Jason started crying from the pain; he tried to beg him to stop, but he couldn't speak anymore.
"Ah, wait, I cut the tongue too. Shit, man, I was going to peel it layer by layer. I guess you got lucky," Johan said to him.
Johan then plucked out his hanging jaw, and Jason cried out in an awful muffled scream. He was crying nonstop from the pain; an ordinary human would have died from the pain and shock, but the inhuman bodies have always turned into a curse when a power user faces the vanquisher.
Johan violently grabbed his face and told him.
"WHO THE FUCK ALLOWED YOU TO CRY, HUH? AFTER EVERYTHING YOU HAVE DONE, AFTER EVERYONE YOU HAVE KILLED, YOU STILL HAVE THE AUDACITY TO CRY? IMAGINE THE PAIN THEIR FAMILIES WENT THROUGH!! THEY CRIED TOO!"
Jason tried to speak but couldn't. Then Johan told him.
"If you don't stop crying... I will gouge out your eyeballs too."
The moment Jason heard this, he immideatly stopped crying, like a child who is scolded by his mother to stop crying. Jason stopped, but Johan didn't; he kept peeling his skin. Every hour a part of his skin from a part of his body was stripped.
First the stomach, then the chest, then his arms and legs, then the parts where the most amount of nerve endings are: the feet and the armpits. Jason wanted to scream; he wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, but he couldn't. He was scared of what Johan would do to him if he made a noise.
The psychological damage done to them was now irreparable. Johan was now done with Jason. He proceeded to do the same with James as well, but the only difference was that he didn't cut out his tongue and jaw. Because James was not able to feel anything now, he was able to feel that there was pain, but his brain was shut down; he couldn't speak, he couldn't cry, and he had become a vegetable.
Johan was bored by his unresponsiveness.
"Man... This is now boring. Skinning Jason was much more enjoyable, but...in your case...hah, I don't even think you know your name anymore. You got the easy way out, I guess."
Johan now began to prepare for their final punishment, which was...burning them alive. Though the condition they were in couldn't be called alive.
First up was James, Johan left the best for last, he wanted to get rid of him first.
He decided to burn them where they were, in their respective warehouses.
He prepared two big gasoline containers for each of them, put a few little sticks underneath them and covered them with cotton.
He first poured the gasoline on James, and before lighting him up, he asked.
"Even though a waste of oxygen doesnt deserve it but... Any last words You vegetable?"
There was no reply; Johan giggled a bit and then lit him. There was not a single scream. What Johan had said was indeed true for them; burning to death was less painful for them now.
After lighting James up in flames, Johan now went to Jason. He expected Jason to react to the flames and scream in agony, but the feeling he saw in Jason's eyes when he was coating him in gasoline was not of despair or fright; it was of hope. His eyes were relaxed.
Johan then lit him as well but was disappointed because he didn't scream in agony either. Then suddenly Johan heard someone screaming; the voice was oddly familiar.
The one screaming was none other than Johan himself; it was supposed to be them screaming in pain in the end, but the one in pain was now Johan. Not because he was feeling bad for them; he was feeling bad for the people and the two kids they had killed.
Johan believed that James and Jason should be put in utmost pain for the souls killed by them to receive salvation, but he had now failed to do so. (This is what HE had thought would give salvation to their souls.)
He wanted James and Jason to feel the pain of everyone they had killed. The death that motivated Johan to go this far was the death of the two kids.
Johan spoke.
"Why? WHY DID YOU BOTH GET THE EASY WAY OUT WHILE YOUR VICTIMS DID NOT!!...YOU SHOULD HAVE SUFFERED MORE AND MORE!!"
After a while Johan calmed himself down; he went outside, away from the warehouses, which were seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It was early in the morning; the next day had come. All of it happened in just one night.
Johan was not happy with the result but was still a bit relieved when he thought about all the people he had saved by killing James and Jason before they got more people killed in their trivial rivalry.
Johan then called Elesie.
"Its me, i am done, its all over now. I believe you can handle the clean up now right?"
"Yes, for sure, sir, you can go back home and get some sleep, I promise. As the current branch manager of the organisation, I will handle the rest."
Elesie replied to him.
"Ah, wait, I didn't mean to handle Noah, though; I will take care of that kid myself if he comes for me," said Johan.
"WHAT? NO, I am not letting you fight the world's third strongest power user! "Me and Mr Werner will handle—"
Elesie then proceeded to scold him some more, and then Johan just hung up while she was talking.
"Her temper is still as bad as it was back in the day," Johan thought to himself.
Johan then called his mom. His mom was still at work since yesterday morning; he wanted to see if she had got home. He called, but there was no answer, which meant that she was still working.
Johan went back to his home and to his room and slept like a baby all day long.
Chapter 7
Completed