Kapitel 44: Chapter 44: Suffering

Zane fluttered his eyelids. A feeling of numbness grabbing hold of his body. His eyes filled with cloudiness and a slight pain ringing through his head.

He groaned as he tried to remember what had happened to him. He remembered being told to get into the front of the truck by Layla. But what had happened after that?

He raised his head hoping to see someone he could ask. To Zane's horrific astonishment, his eyes met upon a creepy dark-grey room. It was poorly lit, with large cobwebs forming at the sides. A few tables were present in the middle, with tools such as; pliers, saws, scissors and other horrible equipment tainted with blood. He jumped in fright, not recalling how he had gotten in such a horrible place.

He tried picking himself up to run, only to hear the rattling of chains. He was somehow fastened to an iron chair.

He took a horrified look on himself; his hands and feet were tied down on the chair with rusty iron chains. They squeezed his skin tightly— surely to leave tons of bruises.

He began rattling himself violently, hoping he could get himself free. Fear seeping into his soul. Gradually, the pitch of his voice began to raise; from a low groan to a high, horrified scream.

"Shit! No! No! No! Where the hell am I??"

Zane had to calm down. Panicking would not help him in such a situation. He was scared and had no idea how he had found himself in such a predicament.

He took a deep breath— hoping to calm down enough to think of a way out. However, instead of calming down, his nose picked up on an awful scent. The smell was rancid, smelling as if something had died. Simply, it was the smell of death.

Zane didn't want to know where the awful scent originated from. But curiosity got the better of him. He followed the scent with his nose, until his eyes met upon a very disturbing sight.

Not too far from him, on the other end of the room, were two other metallic chairs. On the chairs, sat two decaying human bodies. One was bald with tiny white hairs protruding from the scalp and had an ash-grey skin color. The eyeballs were sunk into the back of the head and the body had small holes over it, as if maggots were tunneling their way through.

Zane wanted to scream and run away as fast as he could. The scene was way too much for him to stomach. To make it worse, his eyes drifted over to the second corpse. It was seemingly a female. It wasn't much different from the other corpse, but it had more hair. The few strands of pale white hair that remained, drooped over a sunken face. The eyeballs and teeth were all gone. It was everything, but pleasant.

"Help me!" cried Zane; taking deep breaths with each plead for help.

Just then, a voice answered him that was filled with joy.

"Zaney! Are you awake??"

Zane immediately recognized the voice. His memories rushing back to him like a flood. Ellie had drugged him and somehow managed to kidnap him. She was probably the reason he was tied down in his chair.

Slowly, he watched as Ellie appeared from the darkness. Behind her, she was pulling something. At first, it looked like body bags. But on closer inspection, Zane noticed she was pulling the bodies of two dead Apocrypha by the tentacles on their heads. Knife wounds present in their foreheads as if she had killed them. A trail of purple blood following her as she walked.

Ellie looked up at Zane, dropping the dead Apocrypha in the process. Her face filled with excitement and joy.

"Zaney! You're awake!!!"

She rushed over to him, her bare feet tapping against the concrete floor. Quickly, she made a huge jump and dropped herself in Zane's lap. Zane noticed she was in minimal clothing. She only had her underwear on, which made him feel even more uncomfortable.

"Zaney! I'm sorry I couldn't be here when you woke up! I had to kill two Apocrypha to protect you!" she proclaimed, while giving him puppy-eyes.

Zane was trembling. Was Ellie planning to kill him like the other two corpses he saw? Then again, she did say she was protecting him from the Apocrypha.

"E-Ellie... Why am I here..? Where are we..?"

Ellie smiled at him innocently. She wrapped her arms around him and spoke in an enthused voice;

"I brought you here Zaney! We're in the basement of my house! I'll keep you safe from all the monsters out there!!"

Zane was tripping over his words. He had never felt so much fear from a single human being in his life.

"W-Where's everyone else..? Where's Layla and the others??"

"I killed them silly! The only person you'll need is me!"

Zane couldn't believe his ears. Ellie had killed the others? There was no way that could be true. Would she really kill all of humanity's last hope of survival? Even though both of them were marked, it still seemed extremely absurd.

"You're lying... T-There's no way you could kill all of them!"

"But I did silly! They wanted to take you away from me, so I ran them over with the truck! You should have heard how they cried! THEIR BONES CRUNCHING UNDER THE TIERS LIKE FIREWORKS!! THEIR BLOOD DELIGHTFULLY PAINTING THE ROAD RED! IT WAS BEAUTIFUL ZANEY!!!"

Zane was perturbed beyond understanding. Did Ellie really kill everyone else? Her story had a chance of being true. Zane felt crippled as his mental state began to deteriorate.

"W-Why me..? Why are you doing this..?" inquired Zane. His voice hollow and void of joy.

Ellie slowly removed herself from his lap. A gentle smile placed across her face as she turned and walked towards the two corpses at the other end of the room. Gently, she began patting their heads as if they were dolls.

"Because you're my Zaney!"

Zane was confused as to what Ellie meant. He pondered in his emotional sea of thought before asking another question.

"What are you talking about??"

Ellie stooped down beside the male corpse— her hands fixing its head to stare at Zane.

"This is my boyfriend. He's also called Zane! A month ago, he broke up with me and got with another girl called Hannah. Zane said he broke up with me, because I was crazy and wouldn't let him have friends. But all I wanted to do was keep Zane safe!"

Ellie paused as she moved over to the female corpse. A slight frown now replacing her smile, "This one is Hannah! She stole Zane from me... No matter how much I begged her, she wouldn't give Zane back to me. She was the one who forced me to do this. One day, I went over to Zane's house and found him in bed with Hannah. I was so hurt... I had to knock them both out and drag them back to my house in the middle of the night!"

Zane couldn't even utter a word. Ellie was obviously a psychopath. He didn't want to know what happened next, because he already had an idea of what transpired. The gruesome thought of what she ended up doing to those two made his stomach turn.

"After I brought them here, I tied them up and begged Zane to be my boyfriend again. But for some reason, he looked at me worse than before... I then came to the realization that it must have been because Hannah was prettier than me... So I got a needle and plucked her eyes out of their sockets! Zane started crying that I should stop, but I didn't! I knew I was doing it for his best interest! I then got my pliers and pulled all of Hannah's teeth from her head too! She was the ugliest thing I've ever seen! But Zane still refused to love me after that... So I ended up having to kill him..."

Zane felt vomit fly up into his throat. He wanted to spew his entire stomach out. The scent plus the horrific story made for a very sickening combo.

Ellie then got herself up and walked towards Zane. She began humming as she grabbed onto his chin, looking him in the eyes.

"But now, I've found a new Zane! When I saw you on the broadcast, I just had to get my hands on your handsome face! I learnt that if I want to keep a boyfriend, I have to secure him from everyone else! So I'll keep you down here with me forever and ever and ever!! We'll have so much fun together, Zaney!"

"I'm not your Zane! I'm a completely different person from your boyfriend! You're a psychopath!!"

Ellie gave a cute frown at Zane's remark, "Aww! Zaney, you'll hurt my feelings... Maybe you're hungry and that's why you're saying that! I know! I'll cook something for you to eat!"

"I don't want anything from you! Keep your disgusting shit to yourself!" cried Zane. His voice now beginning to break. His mental state wouldn't be able to take much more.

Ellie ignored him as she picked herself up. She smiled at him and turned to walk away.

"I'll be right back Zaney! I hope you like bat soup! It's my favorite and it will be yours too! You'll love it!!"

Slowly, Ellie disappeared into the darkness. Zane staring up at her as sorrow began to beat him to a pulp. He slumped his head downwards onto his chest. There was nothing he could do. He had let his guard down too soon and it resulted in him getting caught in this situation. Everyone else was also probably dead, which plagued his soul like a swarm of locusts. There was no hope. He was about to suffer for all the stupid decisions he had made up to this point.

"How pathetic you are, Zane..." he muttered to himself.

Just then, Zane heard a slight movement near him. He looked around not seeing anyone which made shivers run through his spine.

"Ellie?" he thought to himself.

Zane then realized a shadow approaching him quickly through the darkness. For a moment, he thought it was an Apocrypha and almost released a yelp.

"Shhh! Stay quiet!" cautioned a familiar voice.

To Zane's astonishment, Ashley stood before him ready to offer him some help.

"Ashley! I thought you guys were dead! I'm so happy knowing you're okay!" cried Zane.

"She's lying! The others are fine... However, it's just me here. Thankfully, I had climbed into the back of the truck before she drove off with you."

Zane felt a huge pain being lifted off his chest. Knowing everyone else was alive was music to his ears. He took a deep breath of relief forgetting about the horrid stench. He squinched his nose in disgust.

Ashley gave a short chuckle seeing his reaction.

"I need a pair of pliers, or something to cut you free..."

Zane glanced over to the table filled with torture tools.

"Over there, on the table!" he prompted.

Ashley wasted no more time. She quickly got the pair of pliers and began cutting the chains. Zane was dying to be free. His hands felt sore and his body ached. In a few seconds, he would be free of such discomfort. As he stared at Ashley, who was quickly undoing the chains, he couldn't help but smile. His kindness to save her that night was paying off. She was now getting him out of such a predicament, because he defended her.

"And with this, your arms should be free-"

Before Ashley could complete her sentence, Zane saw a baseball bat slam into the side of her head. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her body fell with a small 'thud' to the floor. Zane's body shook with terror as he watched Ashley lay stagnantly on the ground; her head running with blood like a gentle stream.

Standing over her body was Ellie. An aggressive look drawn across her face as she held a bloody baseball bat in her hands.

"Damn it! Don't you touch my Zaney you bitch!!"

She then began kicking Ashley in her stomach repeatedly, while screaming;

"He's mine! He's mine! He's mine! He's mine! He's mine!!!!!!".

Zane rattled himself in the chair violently with rage. However, the chains were still wrapped around his arms, restricting his movements.

"Ellie! Don't hurt her! Please!!"

Ellie stopped her barrage of kicking as she looked up at Zane.

"But she's trying to steal you from me! I'll kill anyone who tries to steal my Zaney!! You're mine... Please don't let them steal you from me..."

"She won't! I promise! So please don't kill her!"

Ellie looked back and forth between Zane and Ashley. She seemed extremely dissatisfied. She shook her head disapprovingly as she went over to the table and picked up a shiny red metal axe.

Calmly, she walked over to the unconscious body of Ashley and raised the axe above her head.

"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. No friends for Zaney. You'll fall in love with them instead of me! I'll have to kill everyone who comes close to you!!"

"No! No! I'm begging you!! I'll be your boyfriend forever! Just please don't kill her!!"

Ellie immediately froze hearing Zane's words. She lowered her axe as she turned towards him. A bright smile dancing across her face.

"Really???? Promise me you're not lying!! We'll be together forever if I don't kill this girl??"

"Yes! I promise! But if you kill her, then I won't love you!!"

"Okay!!"

Ellie dropped the axe and picked back up her baseball bat. She jumped in excitement as if she had just won the lottery.

"Okay Zaney! But I can't trust you yet! I'll tie this girl up for now!" she paused as she walked back over to Zane. "I'll have to put you back to sleep for now. I don't want you trying to escape while I'm gone now! When you're awake, your bat soup will be ready!!"

Zane watched as Ellie raised her baseball bat. She came around with a ferocious swing, slamming the bat in Zane's head with a huge 'Bang'. Zane's head bobbled as everything went black.