A Small Respite

Darkness - His Story

Warning for dark themes, gore, torture, etc. 

~

Watch what you think, he can read your mind.

 ~

A faint smell of cold stone and dampness clings to the air as if it had no means of escape. The darkness of the room seemed to clot every available corner and leech itself into every surface including the boy seated in the centre of the room. A rattling of chains knock against the chair arms and legs as the boy shifts his weight from side to side, trying to force blood back into his immobilized limbs. His head hangs downwards towards the floor, tilted to one side, listening for inevitable footsteps.

 ~

The boy tightens his grip on the left arm of the chair, trying to loosen the biting chains enough to slip his hand through. He no longer cares about damaging himself in the process.

“There’s no point trying to escape.” A disembodied voice floats through the darkness.

            The boy stops abruptly. It feels as if his blood turned cold and froze right in his veins, his heart-stopping for fear of being heard aloud.

“Please, continue to struggle, I was enjoying myself.” The voice murmured contently.

            The boy listened. Shallow breathes burned in his chest as he braced himself for what was to come next. No amount of preparation could help him, but delaying the final outcome had become his only focus.

            A sound came from the far right corner of the room which caught the boy’s attention. Clanking of metal on metal shot through the boy’s ears like nails being driven into his head.

“You know this hurts me more than it hurts you right? Just tell me what I want to know and I can end this.” The voice was bemused.

I don’t believe you.

            Chuckling came from the corner and the boy recoiled at the sound. Careful footsteps began to draw closer and closer towards the centre of the room, enclosing on the boy.

“You know me too well.” The voice whispered in the boy’s ear. A delicate hand drew faint lines down the side of the boy’s face and along his throat tracing across his left shoulder.

Fingers gently cupped the top of the boy’s shoulder as an adept thumb sketched his collarbone from side to side. The boy’s breath quickened in anticipation, trying to match the rhythm of the moving appendage.  The boy could see nothing in the utter darkness that surrounded them; he could only feel the movement across his skin until finally.

Crack.

Searing pain shot through the boy’s shoulder as it slowly radiated along his chest, arms and penetrated deep inside his mind.

“Shh breathe, breathe.” The voice cooed. “You were right, I don’t want you to tell me anything, I only want to play.”

 ~           

Sounds seemed to bound off the stone walls of the darkroom they occupied. The darkness amplified every event and cruelly held those memories within its clutches for the boy to relive over and over and over. Cold stone embraced the boy as he began to stir out of the darkness. He had been moved from the chair at the centre of the room to being chained up against one of its walls.

~ 

“You’re awake. I was afraid that we weren’t having enough fun if you just fall asleep like that.” The voice sounded foggy.

            The boy felt the cold stone pressed up against his back as he tried to regain his senses. His arms were pulled above his head, angled in opposite directions threatening to be pulled out of their sockets. His head pounded in agony from lingering past pain, phantom triggers prickled along the nerves of his body. The boy went to pull at the chains gripping his wrists when his heart began to race and a cold sweat broke out along his skin.

I can’t move.

            The boy tried to force his limbs to move. He struggled to shake his head or stomp his foot but to no avail. He concentrated on trying to move a single finger but no matter what he did his body would not listen to him. His heart thumped heavily in his chest as if it were trying to jump out of the cage which contained it. A part of him hoped his heart had the courage to take a leap of faith, to jump out of his chest and put him out of his misery.

“Now we can’t have that, can we? I wanted to have a nice conversation with you but I’m hurt you tried to run from me.” The voice moved slowly towards the boy. He could feel the air in the room shifting as if parting like black water.

How could I run?

“You ran from me. You ran into your mind, a place I cannot reach. Well, could not reach.” A hand pressed against the boy’s chest and he shuttered. It was as cold as ice, slender and delicate but promised unimaginable terror.

~ 

The boy could only concentrate on the hand placed against him. His mind was racing as he tried to swallow the words given to him. He could no longer run, what did that mean? He couldn’t move a fraction of his body but nothing had changed. He was still chained up in this dark and horror-filled room how would he ever be able to escape? The boy couldn’t think clearly. Thoughts drifted back to the presence in front of him. He tried to pull away but it was as if the one standing in front of him had a grip on his mind. It was if he was bound.

What did you do to me…?

“Oh, I knew you would be able to fight it, if only slightly.” The voice flowed across the boy’s body as if it were made of razors. The boy tried to scream against the pain but no sound emerged.

“You can only scream if I let you. If I want you to be silent you will be. You do not have my permission to release your pain just yet.” The hand moved away from the boy’s chest as the voice backed away from the wall.

            The boy tried to understand what was happening to him. Somehow the voice had finally accomplished it; his mind had been taken over. The boy could only think of what he was told, he could not move, he could not think of anything, he could not escape. The boy wanted to cry, scream, tear at his chains but nothing happened. Nothing would ever happen.

“I am going to ask you one more time just for the sake of it. Tell me what I want to know.” A clank came from off to the right where the voice was. He has picked up something.

You’re going to hurt me anyway.

“You are right. I am.”

~ 

The sound of scraping filled the darkness which surrounded them. Every single sound was impossibly crystal clear for the boy to hear, as he had been told. A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face as he tried to concentrate on something, anything else other than what was happening to him. The gentle hand rested against the boy’s left hip bone as the knife in his right peeled away layer after layer of skin from his chest. The voice was humming softly which filled the darkness in a sweet familiarity. The boy tried to concentrate on the sound filling the room. He tried to guess what song was being hummed to take his mind off the trickling blood flowing down his stomach, his legs and pooling in a warm puddle at his feet.

~ 

“Your mind loves to wander doesn’t it?” The voice stated. “You only need to pay attention to me.” The voice leaned in closer as a knife slide along the underside of the boy’s ribcage, playing along the edge of his distended ribs before being thrust upwards and underneath the bones.

Stop, please I’ll talk please just. Stop.

            The knife that had been thrust upwards under the boy’s ribcage faltered for a moment before slowly drawing back and finally being pulled out in a sickeningly wet tug.

“Speak. Speak for me and I’ll stop. I promise I will stop.” The voice leaned into the boy’s face and whispered softly. He could feel the air in the room turn warm against his remaining skin.

What you have wanted from me all this time, what I am to you. I will-

“I told you to speak” The voice shouted at the boy.

I am. I’m trying to tell you what you want to hear.

“No no no. I specifically said that you needed to speak before I would stop.” The voice closed the distance towards the boy and the tip of the knife scored down the boy’s arm from the wrist to his shoulder, opening him up to bleed.

I am speaking! I’m talking to you right now why won’t you listen!

“There is one thing you don’t seem to understand.” The voice drew back and chuckled slightly. “I didn’t just break your mind; it has been broken since the beginning.” The voice laughed deeply and loudly as the boy felt the piercing knife tear into his other arm. Unlike the first time, this arm was being cut to ribbons over and over and over as if the voice could never be satisfied.

~ 

The boy could not understand what was happening as the voice began to play again. His bones broke under the force of crunching blows. His skin bubbled and sloughed off from being repeatedly burned with a white-hot branding iron. The boy tried to scream and fight against the horrors unfolding around him but no matter what he tried nothing changed. The voice continued to play with the boy with no end in sight until it all abruptly stopped.

“Your mind is weak this time around.” The voice sighed in frustration. “You used to understand so much quicker in the past.”

            The boy didn’t understand what was happening he was just relieved for a break in his torture.

“What do you see?” The voice asked innocently.

            The question confused the boy as he tried to think of an answer. That all too familiar hand slid along the right side of the boy’s face until it cupped his chin and tilted his head upwards seemingly to gaze into his eyes. Only that the boy could not see anything through the darkness.

“It is not the darkness you see but yourself.” The voice seemed to smile as those words were spoken.

            The boy thought for a moment. A single moment to connect all of the events which had happened to him. To finally understand what was unfolding.

How can you see me?

            The boy already knew the answer.

“Finally.” The voice let out a sigh of relief or possibly exuberance, the boy was not sure. “I assure you I can see you quite well, it is you that cannot see me.”

            That adept hand capable of such gentleness and pain drew up from the boy’s chin. Something moved within a hair’s breadth of the boy’s face as he felt another hand being placed on the opposite side. Two hands mirrored each other as they slowly, carefully traced along the nose and cheekbones of the boy. Thumbs moved back and forth against his skin in a comforting gesture that only made the boy sick to his stomach, and he knew exactly why.

“Will you finally accept me?” The voice spoke into the darkness.

            Before the boy could answer the thumbs that had been caressing his cheekbones slowly moved upwards and straight into the empty sockets where his eyes had been. The boy drew in a quick breath, almost a whimper, as the voice exhales in what could only be described as pleasure.

“Now you understand. I can see everything there is about you. There is nothing I do not know, nothing I cannot control about you.” The voice spoke under his breath as it continued to search for some purpose in the boy’s empty sockets.

~ 

Endless thoughts raced through the mind of the boy as he began to understand what was happening to him. Chained to the wall in the cold stone room he could not see, he was at the mercy on the owner of the voice. As fear began to swell deep within the boy’s chest a whispered thought blew through his mind like a cool breeze. The boy calmed his heart and realized he had stopped breathing. He let out a long and heavy sigh along with releasing the tension that raked his body.

Can you hear me?

            The boy directed the question at no one in particular, he was not entirely sure that he wasn’t just asking himself the question.

“Of course I can hear you, I can always hear you.” The voice breathed gently.

            Hands were continuously tracing the boy’s face over and over as if it was in need of memorization. The boy relaxed under the fingers dancing over his face, he allowed his empty eyes to be poked and probed over and over, no longer being bothered by the perversion.

I wish to speak to you as only I can.

            The hands stopped completely. The boy could feel a palpable shift in the room after he had spoken such words.

“Do you… remember?” The voice chuckled warmly. “Oh, how I have waited.”

~ 

The chains which held the boy to the wall clanked and shifted as the boy regained his ability to move. Cold hands were placed on the boy’s chest pushing him firmly into the jagged stone. The boy twisted his head from side to side, trying to regain some composure among his overwhelmed thoughts. The hands began to slowly migrate up the boy’s chest with a feather-light touch which brought shivers down his spine. The hands continued along the tops of his shoulders, brushing each side of his throat as the boy angled his head slightly upwards. The hands pressed into the sides of the boy’s throat as they began to slowly squeeze the flesh they held.

“Will you speak to me now?” The voice asked in anticipation as the hands squeezed tighter.

            The boy knew what he needed to do. He shallowed his breathing and pushed himself off the wall and into the grip of the awaiting hands. They seemed to hesitate slightly but it was not long before the voice let out a sigh and pulled the boy’s neck even further into his grasp.

“Let me in.” The voice was barely a whisper against the boy’s face.

            The boy closed their impossibly close distance to the voice with parted lips and bated breath. The hands around his throat loosened their grip as warmth flooded the boy’s mouth. As if swallowing lava the warmth poured into the boy and through his entire being.

I can read your mind.

~ 

The boy fell back against the wall pulling ragged breaths into his air-deprived body. Pain shot through his being as tried to calm himself.

“It’s taking me too long now to figure out this game. Our game.” The boy whispered to the empty room.

You were the one that wanted to play.

            A voice chuckled softly from deep inside the mind of the boy. His voice. The boy smiled softly to himself as he leaned his head back against the cold stone wall.

“One of us will have to finish this game but I guess it won’t be this time.” The boy felt his limbs become heavy as lead weights, pulling down against gravity.

What do you wish of me?

            The boy thought for a moment before answering. He had known what to do for quite some time now but did not have the will to proceed. He had finally decided.

“As you are me I trust you know what I wish. Stay with me until the end as I fear being left alone.” The boy’s voice caught in his throat, choking on his words.

            The everlasting darkness seemed to writhe and creep towards the boy. Tendrils of darkness lashed at his feet as they slowly climbed up his legs, wrapping his body in unnatural warmth. The boy’s head hung downwards as he could no longer hold it up by his own will, tears streaked his face as he contemplated the mistaken words he had just uttered.

Fear not for I shall never abandon you. I shall always and forever follow you into the darkness.

~ 

Darkness enclosed the boy as he slipped into death once more.

~