I forgot everything. I knew there was a man. I knew I had a life. I knew there was something before this horror, but I couldn't remember it. Not that I tried. I didn't want to remember it. Remembering would only bring more pain. Remembering hurt too much.

Whenever I woke, I would see them above me. I never saw their faces. I only saw the blackness, I only heard the shrill chants that wrapped me tighter and tighter like a fly in the spider's web. And then a ripping, hot pain would flare through my body as if my soul was being sucked out of me and I would arch up off the table, unable to control my own body. And then everything would be dark. Again.

It felt endless. I never fully awoke. Pain was my only friend. My heart stuttered sometimes, missed a beat, twitched, and I would wonder if that was the end. If I would go just like that, slip quietly into oblivion without a fight. Ironic, that I had spent my life fighting, only to end with such complacency. Sometimes I prayed for the end. Whatever it was had to better than the brokenness that defined me now. Blood and horror and terror and death.

I woke up for the first time to the stabbing of a million needles. They ran through my blood like bees, stinging everywhere they touched. I tried to scream as tears rushed to my eyes, but my voice came out as a hiss.

My vision swirled into focus, along with a strange melodic buzzing in my head. I was still in that dark room. Stiffly, I lifted my head to stare down at my limp body. Against the dark bloody metal, my normally suntanned skin looked pale and sickly. As I breathed, my lungs rasped. My mouth tasted like copper and dirt. My head pounded and ached. My vision blurred.

Something was wrong. I felt it somewhere near my heart. Confused, I tried to search for where it came from, only to come up blank. Emotionlessly, I let my head drop back onto the table. I wondered when they would come for me again. They always came.

Faintly, I heard a sound from outside. A snarl. A clang. My heart began to pound. Something was happening. Some sort of instinct kicked in.

I glanced down at my hands, encased in the metal. Impossible. I couldn't escape. A trickle of frustration ran down my spine and I yanked at my hands.

The world exploded. White covered my vision and my head snapped back from the force. Terror filled me. I curled into myself as white sparked across my eyes. After a few seconds, I calmed down enough to lift my head from my hands.

I paused. My hands. Shocked, I looked down at them. Red, bloody lines crisscrossed over them, but there was no metal on them. Blinking, I checked my feet. They were free as well. Escape. My heart began to pound. I could escape.

One leg collapsed as soon as I put any weight on it. Broken, some voice whispered in the back of my mind. Slowly, I pulled myself back up and balanced precariously on one leg. Eyes fixed determinedly on the door I limped forward a few steps. My legs shook and I crumpled to the ground with an explosion of pain. Gritting my teeth, I stood back up. This time, I reached the door and yanked weakly. A metal chain jingled. It was locked. Letting out a feral growl, I slammed both hands into the door in frustration.

A bang like a gunshot rocked my ears and for the second time in ten minutes my vision went white. Staggering back, I stared in surprise at the smoking hole that was the door a few seconds earlier. My gaze went to down to my hands slowly, hardly daring to believe it. It was impossible. Absurd.

A pained howl snapped my attention back to the present. Something stirred in me, some broken instinct connected with it, wanted to howl back. Trembling, I climbed through the wreckage of the smoking door. My heart beat almost painfully fast as I waited for one of the robed monsters to come along and drag me back into that hellhole for more torture. Not a soul stirred in the silence.

I shuffled along one of the hallways, limping as a pain shot through my legs every time it connected with the floor. Blood trailed along the stone behind me. I followed the noise. They were getting louder, screams of pain and triumph. Something buzzed in my own bones too. Something familiar but alien. Something was out there.

Finally, a door. Not one of the stone doors, like the ones that groaned inside this stone prison, but a real wood door. Sunlight streamed from under it. I opened it easily.

Sun. Freedom. The beautiful scent of grass and trees and wind filled my nose and I staggered into the sunlight. Warmth touched my broken skin, warmed a hint of the cold that seemed to be a permanent fixture in my chest now. Relief filled me. I gasped in cool, crisp, real air. Tears came to my eyes. The colors were so beautiful. The tang of blood touched my nose and I recoiled. Please don't let this be a dream, I begged, horror filling my stomach.

My eyes traveled across the gory scene in front of me. Blood covered the ground, and bodies littered it too. Snarls and howls and growls came from one side, chants and screams came from the other. Black magic clashed against colored light. Human bodies strained against against feral animals.

And through the middle of it all, charged a man. I knew him. I knew that determination. I knew the set of his jaw as he ran like it was my own. I knew the way that angry mouth smiled, I knew the rhythm of his heart -- or I had.

Horror filled me that I had forgotten him.

I tumbled to my knees, my legs finally unable to support me. 

A/N:

What do you think so far? Don't worry, there are more plot twists coming ;)

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~Your friendly Book Dragonet