Khovrino Hospital, Moscow

"Good afternoon Mr...?" Ebun asked with a smile after being able to finally pause her seemingly endless laughing session. Obviously, she knew the bastard's name, but oh well, Ebun was a doctor who loved to follow protocols.

"Gilbert," The rapist confirmed his name, groaning as he clutched his right cheek. He moved hither and thither on the seat in the waiting room. The excruciating pain from his ailing tooth made him restless. Tiny droplets of blood were beginning to drip down from the affected area.

It was still hard for Ebun to believe that she'd found one of her rapists in a country like this. The incidence had taken place in Nigeria, so what was her rapist doing in Russia? Even though Sean had assured her that her coming to Russia would pay off, it was still hard to accept this coincidence even now, that it seemed to be paying off finally.

But then she remembered that her sister, Yemisi, had told her that she had found one of her rapists in Germany. If one of her rapists had been in Germany, then perhaps the occurrence of finding another in Russia wasn't wholly unreasonable. She'd probably get a convincing answer to her question later on.

For now, one of her rapists was here, right beneath her claws — and that was all that mattered.

"You have a tooth problem, right?" Ebun asked with mirth and sarcasm properly injected into her question as she observed him. Then she went to answer the question before he could. "Well, obviously you do. That's why you came here – to Khovrino Hospital. Welcome, Mr. Gilbert!" Ebun said with heightened euphoria and then roared into another session of cackling.

"Excuse me, madam," Gilbert blinked in disbelief and adjusted his posture on the seat. "What's so funny here? I have a terrible toothache, and I walk into the hospital with the expectation of getting immediate treatment, and you are laughing? Tell me what's so funny!"

By the time he repeated the question, Gilbert got on his feet and began to grab Ebun by her shoulders, digging his fingernails deeply into her skin. Then he began to shake her vigorously. As he continuously asked the question with rage, Ebun didn't cease laughing.

Then she stopped laughing and silenced the yelling man with a straightforward question.

"Mr. Gilbert, do you remember me?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Huh? What? What are you talking about?" Gilbert released his grip on her shoulder and paused for a few moments to look deeply into her eyes, to see if the brownness of her orbs reminded him of someone he knew. But after staring for a while,  his confusion heightened. He couldn't recognize her.

"Oh, my apologies! I forgot to take off my nose mask," Ebun joined her hands together in a mock demonstration of an apology. Then she pulled the nose mask to sit below her chin, revealing a full view of her face.

"Do you remember this face now?" Ebun squinted her eyes as her grin broadened.

"N-no, doctor, I have never seen you before," Gilbert insisted after having a second look, but his defiance didn't match the hesitation that reflected in his body language. He'd stuttered and had even taken a step backward — as though he'd realized something — a clue but was choosing to deny it by all means.

Ebun noticed the progression in his body language and rolled her eyes. She didn't have this sort of patience to take him down memory lane. What was with rapist bastards and sudden memory loss?

"This scar," Ebun tried again as she trailed her finger through the mark on her lower lip down to her chin. "Doesn't it remind you of one bright afternoon thirteen years ago? One afternoon where you had the time of your life with a certain little girl of twelve years old with a group of about five other men?"

Gilbert's eyes shone with full realization now. It was impossible for him to even deny the factual information before him. As soon as the actualization dawned in his brain, his body received the stimuli, and he began to react in alignment to the gravity of what he'd just been told.

"What?" Sweat broke out from his skin pores and dripped down his temples. "It... It can't be. It c-can't be you! It's not possible!" Gilbert began to take a few more steps backward, shaking profusely as though he'd been electrocuted.

When he nearly slipped to the ground, he grabbed the handle of the chair to gain his balance. When he did, he straightened and made a move to run away. Ebun allowed him. She watched the film show before her unfold, with her hands standing akimbo by her waist.

He ran as far as he could until he got to the door. Nurse Zoya appeared from behind with a medium-sized black sack and a rope. He couldn't get beyond the door because the petite nurse had already kicked him in a manner that caused him to fall harshly to the ground. Then she covered his face with the black sack and tied his hands and legs with the rope.

Ebun smiled, clearly entertained by the plot twist occurring from the blockbuster drama before her. She felt genuinely thankful that Nurse Zoya always knew what to do with demonic scumbags like Gilbert without being told what to do. It made the operation of things smooth like butter.

When Gilbert was immobile and unable to escape through the door by any means, Nurse Zoya looked at Ebun, awaiting her next order. Gladly, Ebun gave it to her.

"Take him to the cellar."

*^*^*

Three days later.

Nurse Zoya barged into Ebun's office, panting. Ebun was so frustrated that she didn't even force a smile on her face upon seeing that it was her favorite nurse who'd just entered her office.

"What is it?"

"I tink ze repist in ze basement ees ready to confess now."

Ebun's eyes shone with meaning and glee. Finally, a piece of news that was completely worth it and pleasing enough to ease her of her distress. Immediately, she rose from her seat and took off her laboratory coat, flinging it across her swivel chair.

"Get the meal ready in case he does or says anything funny."

"Yes, ma'am!"

Ebun walked towards the shelf at the right end of her office. Gently, she pushed the wooden furniture of books aside, and a plain, white wall came into view. It didn't look spectacular since the walls of her office were painted in white. But when she tapped on the wall twice, it solidified all of a sudden and formed into a door. The door opened upon recognizing her fingerprint. Then she entered through the door.

Inside the secret place hidden behind the walls of her office, there was a staircase that spiraled downwards. The cellar was lightened in bright red colors with a long rope dangling from the end of the high walls. In between the long rope were clipped photographs of all the rapists she'd killed in the cellar.

Ebun smiled with a conniving expression as she played her fingers through the rows of pictures. When she got to the last step of the stairway, she saw Gilbert tied to the back of the chair with a rope that bounded his hands and legs. His head was slanted to the side. His face was barely vacant of thick, gruesome scars, and one of his cheeks had swollen up.

Three days earlier, Ebun had tried several ways without succeeding to get Gilbert to confess and release information about the leader of the rapists. She'd tried several methods. She'd led him on, asking him questions that could manipulate him to rat out information about the masked guy accidentally. She subjected him to electric shocks and did all imaginable things towards a criminal during an investigation.

But Gilbert refused to say a word. He endured all the pain she made him go through because keeping his mouth shut was the more valuable option. Now, it seemed like he was ready to betray his master at the expense of satisfying his stomach. The pain from the hunger and the toothache were torturing him beyond deep depths.

It was silly that he'd been scared of her three days earlier and now he was refusing to do what she wanted.

Beside the chair where Gilbert sat was a floor filled with rotten skulls and ribs littered scantily. In the far end of the red room was a vat of bubbling acid. The basement smelled of decomposing dead bodies as usual. When Ebun approached Gilbert, weak and almost immobile on the chair he was sitting in, she tipped his chin so he could turn his slanting head to face her.

"I'm not here to waste any time. I heard you are ready to confess now. So tell me, who is the guy behind the white mask? Who is the leader of your gang, and where is he right now?" Ebun's voice rose in a higher pitch with each question she asked.

Gilbert didn't respond. Instead, he stared at her with deadpan eyes, and then a small smirk broke out from the corner of his lips. The effect of the red lighting on his face made him look like a grotesque demon from the ninth circle of hell.

"Are we playing this game again? Look, I'm not willing to waste time — unless you are, which is alright. You will die from that toothache and excruciating hunger that you feel. And that vat of acid you can see over there will be used to dissolve your body after you are long gone. If you tell me who the masked guy is, I can give you the cure to your toothache and let you go."

Ebun brought out a white bottle from the pocket of her jeans and raised it high in the air so that he could see it. It had been her initial plan to spare Gilbert's life if he was willing to tell her who the leader of the rapists was. She needed to keep one of the rapists alive so he could help her find the masked guy. Now though, she was using the offer as bait to see if it would lure him into confessing. Criminals usually liked offers that could guarantee their liberation.

She could not have been more wrong.

"You want to know who he is?" Gilbert laughed for a long time to show that her foolishness was genuinely amusing to him. "You can never know him or find him. The suspense will torment you forever till you rot in your grave."

"You bastard!" Ebun screamed and kicked the chair. He fell to the ground along with the chair. His head hit the ground with a harsh sound, and blood started to pour out of his mouth. He'd fallen on the side where his cheek was swollen, where his tooth was hurting. So he groaned and wheezed from the effect of the further damage that Ebun had done to his teeth.

Gilbert repeatedly coughed for some minutes before he opened his mouth to speak.

"I'm just going to give you a little piece of advice. You see," Gilbert coughed again. "The world is a dangerous and an unfair place. The concept of justice is bullshit and complete horse manure. Justice?" he repeated the word and then laughed. His teeth were lubricated with dripping blood. "Do not ever venture into a business that's not yours to deal with — especially if it's for the sake of dispensing justice."

"You see, if you had never punched that guy who was trying to mess with Josephine, your life would have continued to sail in total bliss. You would have been a happy little girl. There would not have been a need for six strange lads to show up at your place."

"Shut up, you scumbag! Josephine needed help on that day!" Ebun argued, deeply annoyed.

Tears were beginning to formulate around her eyes as memories of that afternoon in the corridor flooded her mind. Truthfully, there were many times when she wished she hadn't interfered. But she was only holding on to the fact that she'd stopped something terrible from happening, which was a good thing.

"Help?" Gilbert scoffed, blinking rapidly in incredulity. "Do you even know the kind of person Josephine is? You naive little weasel! Josephine herself was a rapist." Gilbert tried to move, but the rope that tied him to the back of the chair restricted him.

"There was a particular little boy that Josephine always loved to molest. The little kid was her spec. He had the features of young little boys that always turned her on — small penises that she could joyfully toy with. Josephine deserved to be raped on that day in the corridor, but you, being the stupid girl that you are, intervened and changed her fate. So it was only natural that you suffer for the sins of another person."

"W-what?" Ebun's voice lost its cadence, and her vision became foggy as tears quickly clouded them. She took a few staggering steps backward as she tried to process what Gilbert had just told her.

It was unbelievable and completely nuts. Josephine had been a rapist herself. Hence her advocacy on that day had been vain. Now Ebun could see the reason why Josephine had been so mad at her for saving her on that day. It was perhaps, even the reason why Josephine had helped her with some cheat codes for her examination – so that Ebun could ace her exams, leave the school and be far from potential danger.

The world was full of inhumane psychopaths. This was a fact that Ebun already knew, but this new dimension of insanity was new to her and highly overwhelming. The information raised new and urgent questions.

Who was the leader of the guys that raped her? Who was this guy that had an influence so strong that his subordinates were willing to die rather than betray him? Was it the little boy's older brother that Josephine loved to molest? Was the brother of the little boy the guy she'd seen on the corridor that day? Was he the one who wore the white mask? Was he the guy that gathered his gang members to take out his anger on her?

Initially, she used to think that the guy from the corridor wasn't the leader of the rapists, but now, she had to re-examine that assumption. The uncertainty of everything made her head throb. The more she tried to figure it out, the harder it got. There were so many missing pieces of the puzzle.

"Who is he? WHO IS HE?!" Ebun screamed, repeating the questions. As she did, she kept kicking Gilbert in his knee, eliciting painful groans from him. When the patch of his trouser tore open from the effect of her kicks, a thick clot of blood appeared on Gilbert's knee. "WHO IS HE? WHO IS HE? WHO IS HEEEE?! As she kept kicking, Gilbert laughed, not responding to her question.

His laughter increased in depth, intensity, and volume. When Ebun saw that Gilbert wasn't going to say more than he'd already said, she figured it was time to kill him.

"Zoya!" Ebun screamed. Immediately, the door to the basement opened, revealing the petite nurse holding a steel tray in hand. She began to descend the stairs.

When she got closer to Ebun, she dropped the food tray on the stool. Ebun wiped her tears away, smoothened her hair, and wore a wry smile. She picked Gilbert up from the ground so he could sit properly.

"It's time to eat. You've not had any food in three days, have you?"

Ebun picked up the tray and opened the plate's lid, revealing a small, cooked meal of fugu in the ceramic plate. Ebun sat on the stool. Then she picked up a spoon and cut out a small piece of the pufferfish.

"This meal will cure my toothache, right?"

"Ah, of course, it will. After all, you gave me a little bit of information. You even gave me a piece of advice. Why shall I not repay you with a little meal? It might be a bit hard for you to chew, though. Your cheek is swollen, but you could still try to chew to the best of your ability. It will cure you," Ebun smiled, playing along with the sarcasm.

Obviously, Gilbert wasn't so stupid.

Voluntarily, Gilbert opened his mouth for Ebun to feed him. Ebun was so shocked that for a moment, she didn't move. Then she began to feed him — morsel by morsel. Ebun's hands were shaking with an indecipherable tempo as she fed him.

She was feeling several sentiments. Both the expected and unexpected emotions. It felt good to see that she was winning, that she'd found one of her rapists after thirteen years. Having this bastard under her control felt great. But it wasn't as great as she'd anticipated it to be for so many years. Now, the feeling of unease was diluting the pure happiness she was supposed to feel.

Ebun was now itching to find the leader of the rapists. The uncertainty and the suspense of the masked guy's identity pricked at her soul like a bed of thorns. There was still more to do.

Ebun finished feeding Gilbert his meal. Gilbert licked his lips to signify that he'd enjoyed the meal. Then he said something daunting.

"Even if you kill me, You still won't be happy. That I assure you."

Ebun balled her hands into tight fists, infuriated with what he'd said because there was a feeling deep down in her subconscious that he was right.

"But at least, it will be worth the thrill to watch you die."

A couple of minutes after Gilbert had finished his meal, he began to feel dizzy and was holding his forehead as though it would fall off if he didn't support it with his hand. Because his hand was still tied to the rope, his attempt I hold his head was counterproductive, so he ended up falling to the ground.

Then Gilbert began to asphyxiate, gasping for any form of air. He was choking and mouthing incoherent words. It was as though the limbs of an octopus had clamped his throat.

After a while of watching Gilbert fight for his life and seeing his face take on different colors of the rainbow, Ebun said her final words.

"You see, the best thing about eating the pufferfish is, you don't lose consciousness. You are fully aware of your body's betrayal. I hope you enjoyed your snack time, though, because this is about to be your last meal."