Captive I

"I'm… cold…"

"I don't like him…"

"...you promise?"

"Why won't you come home?"

Irwin awoke to escape the sounds of his nightmares. But, if he was being truthful, the reality was not that much different from his terrifying dreams.

Strapped on a metal gurney and placed on a dimly lit dungeon, Irwin could the very air turn cold as it assaulted his bare body. Every wound, no matter how small, contracted simultaneously, causing him to spasm in pain.

His breath hitched up, suffocating his already strained lungs. If he was not dehydrated, then tears would have flowed down his cheeks like a waterfall.

He tried to get out of his bondage, but the leather yoke with which bound his ankles and wrists was stronger than he currently was. Although made out of worn leather, the sheer tenacity it strained against his limbs astonished and frightened him.

He did not have time to inspect his surroundings nor to accustom himself to the continuous pain plaguing his body. However, as a loud bang interrupted his solitude, a bright light appeared to his left and up.

Then came the procession of demons, each of whom was stronger than the last, surrounding him and mocking him without any regard. Just when he thought that they were finished parading their might, then Dagon entered.

Now in an all-black leather clothing, Dagon revealed a grin full of bristling white teeth.

She clicked her tongue, wistfully shaking her head as she descended the stairs and loomed in front of him.

"Leave us alone." Her orders were absolute. Yet, as the demons piled up the stairs, they could not help but lick their lips in disappointment. An act that Dagon saw and approved of.

"Look at that," She said, a smirk on her face. "If I'd left you here, then you would have been cleaned to the bone."

"W-what do you want from me?" He asked, gulping down a miniscule amount of saliva. His throat was as barren as the Sahara, even a sliver of liquid was enough to quench the pain emanating from his mouth and lips.

She grinned, eyes dangerously swirling around a deep black pool. "Everything."

His body trembled under the terrible pressure Dagon enveloped around him. It would be easy for her to kill him, but she did not. She was sadistic as she was hedonistic, pain exudes joy from her. And, as of this moment, there was nothing funnier than a demon hunter cowering in fear of her.

Irwin knew that, so he tried his best to steady his mind, even when her long fingernails traced his biceps. The way her touch sent euphoric signals to his mind boggled him as his heart kept interrupting with beats hard enough to move his pectoral muscles.

Her head quickly bent down to his neck, burying her nose in his bloody skin. Intermittent sniffs and joyful giggles erupted out of her mouth, all outside of Irwin's purview. 

She growled near his ear. "I… smell an essence in you. I like it so much. I need it so much. Will you give it to me?"

"I-I don't know that the fuck you're talking about! Alright? What the fuck are you talking about?" Irwin resisted her touch and tried to smack his head against her forehead. But the moment the thought entered his mind, a leather yoke slipped past his nape and cuffed his neck against the frame of the gurney.

The yoke tightened ever so slowly, choking him by the second.

Dagon chortled, rolling her eyes at his response. She whistled to the tune of her favorite human show. All the while, Irwin strained and thrashed against the tightening noose around his neck.

His face had become blue, so did his hands and feet, slowly being deprived of oxygen.

"Enough."

As soon as her words reached the air, the leather cuffs loosened their restraints, allowing him to gasp and receive the air that was once taken from him. For a minute, all that could be heard was Irwin's heavy breathing and Dagon's whistles.

She giggled at his form, clicking her tongue as she, once more, pushed her head in front of him. Showing off her lips, red as the blood that he bled, her toothful smile, white as the bone that broke from his beat downs, and her swirling void-like eyes, dark as the days that would come.

What was once a fixture of haughtiness and seduction was now an omen of agony and destruction.

"Don't be coy now…" She trailed off, her tongue tracing the bridge of her nose as her light body bore down upon his numbed torso. "It's alright. We're gonna have some fun here. We have a lot of time."

Her face was the last thing he saw before darkness covered his sight. Her heavy breathing, some might describe as sultry, was the last thing he heard before silence enamored him with its echoes.

Her touch, so sensual yet so dangerous, was the last thing he felt before numbness intruded upon his body. Her odor, wafting of roses and death, was the last thing he smelled before nothingness pervaded his nose.

Blood and dry drool were the last thing he tasted before all of his senses halted its work.

He could not feel, see, smell, hear, nor taste anything. Neither light nor sound could pierce through the veil of darkness that enveloped his body. If he indeed still has one.

He didn't know how long it had been since he last saw anything but darkness. It might have been ten minutes, seven hours, a week, or, if Chuck was really fucking with him, a year.

He figured his body could last without any sustenance more than normal humans. Maybe half a year without water or food, but by that point, wouldn't his mind be the first thing to go?

Time ticked by, as low as it could be. He did not know if his body was regenerating as normal, or if the demons were currently feasting upon his flesh and blood.

He was irked by how stupid he was, gallivanting on to the next adventure as if he was some sort of invisible war god. Like he had nothing to lose.

He did not even bother to update Ella before heading to Hawaii. Not even an afterthought when he saw how dangerously fortified the island was.

He had let his recklessness be his undoing; Both in this life and in the last.

Just as he was berating himself upon his dastardly stupid decisions, a whisper echoed in his ears. 

"Tell me your name." It said,

And, just like that, all control of his senses came back to him. The cacophony of noises, smells, colors, and sensations assaulted him like a freight train. 

The excessive stimulation caused agony beyond relief. His body spasmed as if to escape his body and find relief beyond life.

"ARGH!"

The light, which back then was harmlessly dim, was not like the sun, unbending to his will and scorching to his eyes. The damp smell of the dungeon soon soured his nose and forced him to vomit out what was left of his stomach and some of his own organs.

He tried to tilt his neck so as to not choke on his own vomit, but the leather noose accidentally tightened and combined forces with the vomit to suffocate him to death.

His limbs spasmed uncontrollably as his eyes turned white, face becoming purple.

"Oh, you poor thing…" The voice echoed once more, but Irwin was much too focused on becoming alive to care.

Blood dripped from his eyes, yellow bile flying everywhere as he strained against the gurney.

Just as his life began flashing before his eyes, the vomit was gone and so were his five senses.

Now back in the same darkness that had accompanied him for what seemed to be days.

The pain was gone and so was the hope of ever escaping from this hell.

He tried to shout, plead, intimidate, and even seduce her with his words, but none came even close to a response. Just as he was losing more than hope, a whisper echoed in his ears once more.

"Tell me your name."

A flicker of hope, an ember of what it once was, bloomed within the darkness.

He did not know where his mouth was, but he made sure that he used it to the best of his abilities. 

"I AM RICH-Argh!"

Dagon extended her hand and brought her forefinger and thumb together, emitting a clear and crisp snap.

Dark flames suddenly erupted out of Irwin's clothing, completely engulfing his body in a hellish blaze. Pain soon erupted out of his very skin, every muscle fiber and nerve endings tearing apart string by string.

He could feel his skin melting, his blood boiling, his every fat and muscles roasting from the sheer torrid temperature of Dagon's flames.

It was by that point that he noticed that he could control his senses once more–a paltry victory compared to the agony his body was experiencing.

"You're not playing fair." Dagon's smile was more devious than ever. "First, you deny your existence. Then, by Lucifer's dick, you don't tell me your name. Have I been a poor host to deserve such… inconvenience?"

"P-please… I'm tell-Argh!" His pleading was going nowhere, but the efficiency with which she operated her flames prevented Irwin from even activating his system. Unable to escape or even fight back, he thought of the worse case scenario.

The tears on his eyes immediately dissipated to smoke as he opened his mouth for the truth. "I-I… Irwin Bellios! My name is Irwin Bellios!"

"Now we're going somewhere!" Dagon was absolutely giddy with excitement, evident by the huge smile on her face. "Now, how did you come to be?"

The flames dying down to nothing but embers, that is, as long as Irwin answered her questions to the best of his abilities.

"I-I died… I died horribly." He responded, breathing in a mouthful of air to supply his suffocating lungs.

The pain was beyond measure. Every movement, every answer, was instinctive, he did so only to relieve himself of the everlasting pain.

"How did you die?" Dagon had a mischievous smile on her face, reveling in Irwin's humiliating honesty.

He took time to answer, not out of pain, but out of guilt. Something he had thought to be far behind him. "I-I killed myself…"

What had become embers now flourished under the guidance of their creator. The smell of burning flesh hungered the demons, earning to partake in the feast of the horrifying bounty.

She spoke with a childish tone, as if to mirthfully bash a friend. "We were so close, Irwin! Why the fuck would you do this to yourself?"

He didn't want to say it, but he had to because the pain would kill him soon.

"Please…"

Dagon chortled at Irwin's pleading. "Is that an attempt for mercy? Or are you hiding something from me?"

Dagon's footsteps were like the marching of a war band as she kneeled down to Irwin's singed ears, the flames removing itself from that body part, and whispered lovingly.

"Confess your sins. Pretty please?"

The memories soon flooded his mind, resurfacing the most heinous crimes he had committed before he took his own life. 

It was a mortal sin, Doctor Giselle had once mentioned, to commit suicide. Depriving the life that was gifted upon humanity by God himself.

Those who did so, the church and most advent believers, believed that one would not enter the gates of Heaven and would soon be delivered into the bowels of Hell.

He had questioned it at times, when he was alone at night or recuperating from his numerous fatal injuries, if his entrance into this world was a second chance or his own personal hell.

To be a plaything, a character from a novel, inducted by a malevolent and callous creator. Was it truly his destiny to satisfy his every whim, fancy, and cravings? A special being picked out of billions and millions or merely an unlucky fellow alongside other unlucky people?

He clenched his badly burned fists, the sins of the past catching up to him now.

"I k-killed my s-sister and the only friend I had to escape my life sentence!"