With a look that mingled curiosity with malice, Klint's hand shot out, seizing my chin with an iron grip. His fingers were unyielding as he pried my mouth open, peering inside. I wanted to retaliate, to unleash a well-deserved punch, but my body refused to obey, still paralyzed by the poison coursing through my veins. Although I could feel its power growing weaker. I was starting to tingle more and the pain from the arrows were becoming more apparent.
Klint's stifled chuckle soon erupted into a boisterous laugh, the sound slicing through the clearing and drawing the eyes of all those present. "There's no need to pretend," he proclaimed, a twisted sense of triumph lacing his voice as he turned to address his audience. "This kid's sporting fangs... hes actually a genuine demon!" The disgust was palpable in his declaration.
He snapped his attention back to me, a new wariness in his gaze. "Someone fetch me some rope and more sedatives I heard demons have a remarkable immunity to poisons, maybe that's why it's wearing off so quickly on him" Klint commanded, his tone brooking no argument. It was clear that in his eyes, I had become something other, something to be bound and subdued.
A youth, barely more than a child, hastened to Klint's side, their hands trembling as they offered up the grim tools of restraint, in which I'm assuming the child to be either his kid or a slave they had bought. Klint accepted them with a nod, his attention snapping back to me as he forced my arms behind with a rough shove. My shoulder, already wounded and tender, screamed in protest, as a groan escaped my lips despite my best efforts.
With force he bound my wrists, the rope biting into my skin, promising a future of bruises and burns. "And fetch me a file," Klint barked, a new order that sent a ripple of confusion through my foggy brain.
I watched, horror-stricken, as he pulled out a syringe from the bag the child gave him, drawing a sinister liquid from a vial into its chamber, filling it halfway. His smirk was predatory. "N-no," I rasped not ready for the impending violation. His hand, steady and sure, brought the needle ever closer to the vulnerable parts of my neck.
Klint's voice was a study in detached calm, a stark contrast to the chaos of my racing heart. "I'm tripling the dose," he declared, a statement of cold calculation. "It would kill a normal person, but since you're actually a demon... you should be fine... I presume." His words hung in the air, a chilling reminder that it was my life teetering on the edge of a knife, not his.
The boy returned in haste, his movements quick and skittish as he placed the file by Klint's side before retreating once more, his fear palpable. It was clear as day that the child was nothing more than a slave, caught in the web of Klint's malice.
My gaze snapped to the needle once again, just in time to feel its sting as it broke the skin of my neck, the sensation sharp and sudden. A foreign warmth invaded my veins, the liquid fire coursing through me with unrelenting fury. "F-fuck," I spat out, the curse a whisper of pain as the venom began its cruel dance, burning me from the inside out. It was as if I were enveloped in acid, each cell in my body rebelling in agony. My muscles convulsed in a futile battle against the poison, a war they were destined to lose.
Klint discarded the now-empty needle and vial with a carelessness that belied the gravity of what he had just done. He returned his attention to me, his grip unyielding as he forced my mouth open wider. The cold metal of the file he had retrieved from beside him pressed against my teeth. "This may hurt," he mused, a twisted smile playing on his lips. "I heard the fangs are like part of a demon's soul." His words dripped with sadistic pleasure.
"This fucking psychopath," I seethed internally, struggling against the restraints and the creeping paralysis. The poison surged anew, its potency magnified, dragging my body into a vegetable like state. My vision blurred, the edges of my sight fraying into darkness. I was fighting the brink of consciousness, the world fading in and out as if I were drowning in a sea of shadows.
A tidal wave of agony crashed over me, an indescribable torture that felt as if my very skull was being torn asunder, each nerve ending aflame with the brutal violation of my teeth being savagely filed down. Klints hands were steady as he sawed with a cold type of precision, each stroke sending jarring vibrations through my core. "We need to get rid of these," he said, his voice a calm contrast to the brutality of his actions, "just to make sure you don't try and bite us, or your future owner you understand right?" He paused, almost contemplatively. "Though, they're going to have to do this every month to keep them filed down."
The relentless grinding continued, each pass of the file a symphony of pain that threatened to overwhelm my senses. My body was a traitor due to the injections. My body may have been frozen in time, But my eyes blazed with the fury of a thousand suns, a silent scream of anguish and rage. Klint caught my gaze, and the corners of his mouth curled into a vile smile, a grotesque affirmation that he relished the sight of my torment.
Confusion and despair clawed at my mind, a relentless echo of the question, "Why me?" I'm no demon, not a creature of shadow and malice. I'm human, born of the same flesh and blood as my mother shes a human, as my sister also a human and... My sister…her…. her necklace—the last vestige of my former life, the only keepsake from my family. The mere thought of those bandits stealing it, that precious memento of my little sister, sent a lump of dread to my throat. It was all I had left, the singular treasure in a life stripped bare.
Regret washed over me in waves, the bitter realization that leaving Alex was a mistake. I should have endured, stayed hidden in the shadows, but my stubbornness, my foolish pride, led me astray. And now, here I was, paying the price for my idiotcy.
The agony of the ordeal with my fangs had subsided, a brief break before Klint's rough hands seized the arrow still embedded in my leg. I had almost forgotten the sting of it, the pain dulled by the horrors that followed. But as he yanked it free with a cruel twist, a fresh gush of blood followed, and a sharp reminder of reality pierced through the numbness.
"Hey, Klint, don't kill the kid. We need to make money off of him," the woman's voice cut through the tension, a mercenary concern devoid of empathy. Klint rolled his eyes and sighed, a gesture of annoyance as if the brutality he had just inflicted was nothing, as if my suffering was merely an inconvenience to his day. He walked away with an ease leaving me in the wake of his indifference.
Waves of pain radiated through my body, a relentless pulsing that seemed to beat in time with my racing heart. My teeth clenched against the throbbing in my head, a dull and persistent ache that felt as if it were trying to split my skull from within. My shoulder bore a sharp, gnawing pain, as though it had been wrenched and twisted beyond its limits. Meanwhile, my leg was a source of sheer agony, it felt as if it was savagely torn from my body.
My muscles were akin to an inferno, each contraction sending licks of flame coursing through my fibers. It was as if I were bound in chains of fire, each movement igniting further torment. My edges of sanity began to fray, the intensity of my suffering pushing me toward the brink of madness.
My vision, once clear, was now shrouded by the poison's blurring veil. The world around me lost its sharpness, details smudging into obscurity as if I were peering through a fogged lens. Voices of my capturers, receded into the distance, their tones warping into an unintelligible drone. They were slipping away, and with them, my grasp on reality.
Exhaustion wrapped its heavy cloak around me, and my body, no longer able to wage war against the pain of weariness, and aching. I felt myself slipping, sliding into the welcoming arms of the dream realm. A place, free from the physical world's cruel bindings, I could drift into a peaceful oblivion, if only for a moment. I wouldn't feel no pain, or deal with anyone or thing. I could just rest.
But that thought was short lived The moment my consciousness began to fade away,
I was jolted awake, ensnared in a peculiar place where reality and dreams seemed to intertwine. It was as if I were caught in a paradox, awake yet not fully anchored in the waking world, my senses muddled by this half-dream state. A bitter thought crossed my mind, a dark jest at my expense—was I so cursed that even my subconscious sought to mock my existence?
It was then, as if the universe itself were responding to my silent question, that a voice sliced through the haze. "Do You believe in a god?" The question hung in the air, a disembodied curiosity that seemed to emerge from the darkness of my subconscious.
Startled, I whirled around, searching for the source of those words, only to be met with a figure cloaked in blackness. My heart seized, terror rooting me to the spot as the shadowy form advanced toward me with an eerie poise.
"Answer me, child," it commanded, its voice resonating with an otherworldly tone that seemed to vibrate through the very ground beneath my feet.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I mustered a faltering reply, "I, uh, I—I believe there's something... but not in a god necessarily... it's hard to believe in something you've never seen." My voice was barely a whisper, each word trembling as the entity drew nearer. There was a presence to it, a weight in its proximity that made the air feel thick, charged with an unseen energy that I couldn't understand, yet couldn't deny.
"I see," the figure murmured, the simple phrase laden with a gravity that seemed to acknowledge the complexity of my beliefs. As it placed its hand atop mine, I followed the motion with my eyes, a cold realization dawning on me. The icy touch brought my attention to the heavy chains that bound me—metallic restraints that held my arms splayed to each side, rendering me immobile. A sense of dread settled over me, a weight beyond the physical, as if my very soul were being pressed down by an unseen force.
Then, without warning, agony lanced through me, a searing pain unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was as though every nerve ending had been set ablaze, a conflagration of torment that threatened to consume me from within. Desperate, I attempted to move my hands, to escape the source of the pain, but the chains held firm, unyielding against my struggles. The heat was unbearable, the sensation that my flesh might char and peel away in an inferno of suffering.
A strangled "fuck" tore from my lips as the pain crescendoed, a visceral cry of anguish that was accompanied by the warm trickle of blood from my nose, a stark red against the pallor of my skin.
The dark figure loomed over me, its presence a paradox of menace and guidance. "You have a long, pain-filled life ahead of you, young one, and you've lived a pained life," it intoned, its voice a chilling echo that seemed to carry the weight of prophecy. "But remember, never give up hope, and don't forget from which you came, child. For life and death play with thy fated strings." The words were a tapestry of warning and wisdom, a message that spoke of a destiny intertwined with suffering and the imperative to persevere, to cling to hope amidst the trials set before me. It was as if the figure were a harbinger, reading the lines of my past and future with an inscrutable knowledge of the threads that bound them. I can't even get away from pain in my dreams, and if this is my dreams then maybe I am fucked up, who dreams there own torture.
As if plucking the frantic questions from my thoughts, the figure's voice sliced through the silence. "This isn't a dream," it declared, a note of foreboding woven into the timbre of its speech. "And you must tread carefully, should you let anger seizes you. Should you lose vigilance, your powers will overwhelm and consume you." The words seemed to swell in the space between us, gaining volume and urgency, echoing around me as if urging me to grasp the gravity of its warning.
"Who are you? What do you want from me?" I demanded, my voice a mix of fear and defiance. The pain that wracked my body intensified, a pitch that pushed my physical limits to the brink. My body convulsed, thrust into shock by the relentless assault on my senses. Time itself appeared to stutter, the world around me slowing to a surreal crawl
In that eerie stillness, the figure loomed larger, its presence an enigma that seemed to straddle the line between tormentor and oracle. It stood as a sentinel against the backdrop of a world that had suddenly turned quiet.
Grasping the urgency in its tone, the figure spoke with a resonance that seemed to vibrate through the very core of my being. "Heed what I say, for it is thy truth," it intoned, the words hanging heavy in the air like a sacred decree. "I am you and you are me!" The declaration was a conundrum, a riddle that hinted at a deeper connection between us, a bond that past the physical realm. "And in a matter of time, it will consume you if you are not wary. The fallen ancestors, those who once walked these lands before us, have stirred from their eternal slumber. They rise to challenge the world anew, their spirits unquenched, their resolve unbroken. In their wake, chaos will reign, and they shall find themselves ensnared in the ensuing maelstrom."
With the gravity of its message said, the black figure began to fade, its form dissolving into the shadows as if it were made of the night itself. A sense of foreboding lingered, a spectral afterimage of the encounter. My consciousness, which had teetered on the brink of oblivion, clawed its way back to the surface, dragging with it the all-too-familiar pangs of aching pain. They served as a stark reminder of the figure's ominous parting words—a prophecy of turmoil and the promise with the echo of its warning, a silent unseen battles that lay ahead.