Chapter 5: A Pound of Flesh

Chapter 5: A Pound of Flesh

The jingle didn’t stop. It was a constant, tinny counterpoint to the city's hum, a cheerful parasite that had burrowed into the very frame of his car. Aaron slammed the trunk shut, but the sound was only slightly muffled, a maddening, incessant tune that promised either torment or release. He knew, with the chilling certainty of a condemned man, that the only way to silence it was to answer its call. Running was a fantasy. Survival was the only reality left, and its price was participation.

He drove back to his own apartment, the building a monument to the mundane life he no longer had. The steak knife, his pathetic symbol of defiance, lay on the passenger seat. He picked it up, the handle cool and familiar in his grip, before getting out. This time, it wasn't a weapon; it was a reminder of what had been done to him, of the blood he had been forced to spill.

His hands were steady as he unlocked his front door. The apartment was stale and silent, save for the phantom echo of the jingle in his ears. He walked directly to the kitchen, his gaze fixed on the pantry door. It was just wood and paint, but it represented the single most terrifying thing in his world. He took a breath, turned the knob, and opened it.

The familiar, nauseating lurch of reality shifting washed over him. He was back on the polished gold stage, the velvet curtains drawn, the spotlights blinding. Lugh stood in the center, looking impossibly pleased with himself, the golden microphone in his hand.

“Welcome back, Aaron!” he boomed, the canned applause roaring from nowhere. “I see you’re looking well. Our little investment is paying off beautifully, isn’t it? That youthful glow really suits you.”

Aaron’s jaw tightened. He didn’t raise the knife. He knew better now. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice flat, devoid of the fury that had driven him before. All that was left was a grim, hollow resolve.

“Eager to play! I love that in a contestant,” Lugh said with a laugh. “Today’s game is a scavenger hunt. A simple acquisition. We require an item of great sentimental value. Not to you, necessarily. That would be too easy.”

Lugh’s glowing eyes narrowed, his perfect smile taking on a razor’s edge. “We want your late father’s wristwatch. The one your brother, Ethan, now keeps in a box on his dresser.”

The words struck Aaron like a physical blow, knocking the air from his lungs. Of all the things in the world Lugh could have asked for, he’d chosen that. The watch was an old, simple thing with a worn leather strap, its monetary value negligible. But it was the only thing their father had owned that felt like a part of him. Ethan cherished it. It was a sacred object, a tangible link to a man they both missed with a raw, constant ache.

“No,” Aaron whispered, the word a ghost in the vast, artificial space.

“Oh, it’s not a request,” Lugh purred, his voice losing its jovial tone and dropping into a cold, silken command that slid directly into Aaron’s mind. It was the same compulsion as before, but weaker this time, as if the part of him that was now Lugh’s property recognized the order but the human part still fought it. He could resist, but he knew with sickening certainty what the consequences would be. The jingle would never stop. The game would find other, more brutal ways to make him comply.

“Bring it to us, Aaron,” Lugh commanded. “How you get it is part of the game. That’s your challenge. Make it a good show.”

The stage dissolved. Aaron was back in his kitchen, the smell of dust and old coffee replacing the ozone of Lugh’s pocket dimension. He was shaking, not with fear, but with a profound, soul-deep revulsion. He was being asked to commit a sacrilege, to not just betray his brother, but to desecrate the memory of his father.

He had no choice.

He found Ethan at his apartment, having called him with a fabricated story about his car breaking down for good. When Ethan opened the door, the look on his face was a painful mix of relief and wary distrust.

“You came back,” Ethan said, his voice flat.

“I need your help,” Aaron said, the lie already forming on his tongue, thick and vile. He couldn't meet his brother's eyes. “I’m in trouble, Ethan. Real trouble.”

He spun a desperate, ugly tale about a gambling debt to a loan shark, a story that felt as cheap and flimsy as his own moral fiber. He watched the skepticism on Ethan’s face harden into disappointment.

“Gambling? Aaron, that’s not you.”

“People change!” Aaron snapped, channeling his self-loathing into aggression. “I screwed up, okay? I screwed up bad. These guys… they’re not messing around. I just need to give them something as collateral. Something that looks valuable.”

“So you want money.”

“No!” Aaron said, the truth of that single word making the rest of the lie even worse. “They don’t want money. They want… something to hold over me. Something personal.” He finally looked up, forcing fake tears to well in his eyes. “Dad’s watch.”

Ethan recoiled as if he’d been slapped. “Absolutely not.”

“Please, Ethan! Just for a few days! I swear I’ll get it back.”

“The watch is all I have left of him,” Ethan said, his voice cracking with a hurt that was far deeper than Aaron’s feigned desperation. He looked at Aaron’s face—this new, healthy, liar’s face—and something inside him seemed to break. “I don’t know who you are anymore. You vanish, you lie, you show up looking like a different person, and now you want to sell our father’s memory to a loan shark?”

“I’m not selling it!”

“Aren’t you?” Ethan’s voice was cold. He walked away, disappearing into his bedroom. For a moment, Aaron thought he had failed. He was simultaneously flooded with relief and terror. But Ethan returned, holding the small, polished wooden box. He didn't hand it to Aaron. He placed it on the table between them, a final, severing gesture.

“Take it,” Ethan said, his voice dead. “And then get out. Don’t call me until you figure out how to be a brother again.”

Aaron’s hand trembled as he reached for the box. The wood was cool beneath his fingertips. He had won the game, but the cost was everything. He had shattered the most important bond in his life. He looked up at his brother, wanting to scream the truth, to beg for forgiveness, but all he could manage was a choked, “Thank you.”

He fled, the box clutched in his hand like a burning coal, his brother’s final, disgusted look branded into his memory.

Back in his own apartment, he opened the pantry without hesitation. Lugh was waiting, a connoisseur’s smirk on his face. Aaron walked forward and held out the box.

“A stellar performance,” Lugh said, taking it. He opened the lid, glanced at the watch for a fraction of a second, and then tossed the box over his shoulder. It vanished before it hit the ground. “The object is so rarely the point.”

Aaron felt a wave of nausea. All that pain, all that destruction, for nothing. “What’s the reward?” he asked, his voice a husk.

Lugh’s smile widened into a full-blown, predatory grin. “Oh, it’s a good one. A real prize.” He snapped his fingers.

One of the velvet curtains behind him pulled back, revealing not an object, but a person. A young woman, no older than him, was tied to a chair. She had wide, terrified eyes and was struggling against her bonds, a gag silencing her frantic screams. She looked like an ordinary person—a student, a barista, someone snatched from a life that made sense.

“Aaron, meet our newest contestant!” Lugh announced grandly. “She was pulled right out of a library archive room. Another lonely soul looking for a little excitement.”

Aaron stared in horror. This was his reward? Another victim?

“You’re no longer just a player, Aaron. You’ve been promoted!” Lugh continued, his voice dripping with sadistic glee. “You’re part of the production now. And your first official duty is to choose her game.”

Two ethereal, glowing cards appeared in the air in front of Aaron. He could read the words printed on them in shimmering gold script.

One read: A Pound of Flesh. She must carve a pound of her own flesh from her body.

The other read: A Treasured Memory. She must give up her most cherished childhood memory, forgetting it and the person in it, forever.

“So, what will it be?” Lugh asked, his voice a jovial whisper in the face of absolute horror. “Physical torment or spiritual annihilation? Choose wisely. Her suffering is your reward.”