⌜ three ⌟

though these days'll eventually pass by me,
your kindness is forevermore in memory

TW: sexual assault

— x —

ASTERA THINKS IT'S pointless.

When the tip of her tongue barely grazes words before they retreat into the void of her thoughts like the ocean in a tsunami, and once more Astera is left scarcely able to keep her head above the shore, she thinks it's far too pointless to try and escape any more.

But then the image of Nico, with his tear-drenched eyes and that helpless look carved onto his youthful face, shatters the numbness which has Astera imprisoned.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven hours Astera could have made use of to get some much-needed sleep, yet she hadn't. Because how could she, whilst her brother is away somewhere — tormented by the absence of comfort, of care, of someone ( anyone ) to trust, and yet she remains undaunted by the threat they have laid upon them? Upon him?

The concept of going through a whole night without slumber isn't such a foreign one for Astera, ever since the day she awoke to those unfamiliar scenarios pounding through her head and that asphyxiating feeling within her chest.

Her lips remain pressed into the same thin line, never opening to let the usual scream ( or the occasional sob ) escape from its sore encompasses. She wants to close her eyes and forget everything that has ever happened, but closing her eyes for a minute too long only lets her remember.

     I don't want to remember.

And she knows one merely needs to catch sight of her worsening pallor and swollen eyes to know she had practically exhausted herself of her own crying from hours prior that she now has no more tears left to weep out.

It doesn't help that everywhere she looks is all but black, elegiac darkness, a constant reminder of her inability to save Nico from that attack in the alleyway earlier. Astera has long since settled for whiling her time away counting through each and every regret sparking like flames within her chest, each and every minute passing by on her as the clock that hangs on the wall above her curled-up figure ticks along to the steady beating of her heart.

And it's honestly so tempting to just stay motionless like this, head wrapped up in the comfort of her own arms against the algid air of the cell her captors have so roughly kept her in. She thinks of it as a sort of punishment for her inexcusable weakness, and even if every corner of the cell room she is in revels in such filthy appearances, she does not conjure any protest. ( Her protest comes in the form of sneezing and shuddering at the sight of all the dust, actually. )

In all honesty though, she won't be surprised if those fuckers who trapped her in here have no damn clue what the word 'maintenance' even means.

But then again, if this is an abandoned building..

Astera cannot ascertain where she is, really. To hell with searching for any sort of hint as to wherever this damn place even is when she can't see a thing. The only potential luminescence present in this decrepit cell comes from the tiny rays of artificial light she sees peaking through from underneath the metal door which stymies her escape.

And with the sudden onset of pain in her head making a wreckage of Astera's mental state, she can't even be bothered to think straight. It feels as though her brain's being torn apart to shreds at the same time her heart is, and as Nico's tear-stricken face makes a brief appearance in the emptiness behind her eyelids screwed shut, the pain only seems to worsen.

This feeling: the feeling of having been stripped of all your strength, tasting defeat like the iron of blood on your tongue is nothing short of familiar to Astera, who for the life of her cannot grasp at any memory in her recent past of a time when she has felt this powerless.

Somewhere into her desperate recollection, she remembers something.. or at least, she thinks she does. But it isn't anywhere near pleasant. It's all grief-interlaced screams and walls dripping red and the itchy crawling of disgust as hands on skin and helpless pleads of 'no, please don't do this to me, no!' and it's beyond anything Astera can properly comprehend at once.

She'd be lying if she says she feels no form of connection with these memories at all, however.

Meanwhile, her overexertion of energy just so she could remember what she felt so close to remembering has ended up forcing her to slumber, in spite of her earlier success at shying away from any reprieve in this cruel world for seven hours straight. The second her eyes re-open to take in her surroundings, she finds herself in an environment so unlike the home she recalls heading back to.

God, she misses William, her father. She can only imagine how hard it must be for him right now: awaiting the returning of his two children with no knowledge whatsoever of their possible whereabouts. The worry must be dealing a great amount of stress on him right now. Because well, Astera's adopted, sure, but Nico is his biological son! And he is Elizabeth's son too as much as he is William's. If only their mother didn't have to leave for Wall Sina so early.. perhaps none of this would've had to happen.

But Astera knows she isn't going to make any progress simply thinking of the 'what if's and 'perhaps'. She has to do something before her and her brother's chances of being rescued dwindle to nothing entirely.

Thing is though, she hasn't really eaten anything since the morning of the previous day, and Astera is keenly aware of the fact that — without food and enough time under the sun — she's never going to regain her strength.

( Not that she had any strength to begin with; if she did, she wouldn't be stuck here wrestling with so much sickening regret )

It honestly irritates her to know she certainly isn't going to have her hunger satisfied any time soon. Well, mayhap if her captors needed her alive for something, they might give her a bite or two. But it might already be too late by then.

She can try to break down the door, she supposes, but considering it's metal and she doubts her captors would be so reckless with the locks, there's no way her attempts at escaping would be successful there.

"Are we really just going to dispose of her?"

The inquiry does not sound so far away, but ( thankfully ) it does not sound as though whoever is voicing it currently stands directly outside her cell, either. The tone, that of great mischief which instantly rings bells of suspicion within Astera, elicits from her a soft gasp she fails to suppress in time. And the worst part is: she recognizes that voice.

It belongs to one of the men who led that assault on her and her brother in the alleyway yesterday.

Astera dismisses without much of a thought the blossoming of fear that has her pulse rate quickening, choosing instead to make a move, crawling over silently to the door and pressing her ear against it in the hopes that she might catch more of the conversation.

Someone clicks their tongue in what Astera can only presume to be disappointment, but to her, the edge of a smile in the man's voice is painfully obvious. "What a waste, and the kid's real adorable, too."

"Surely we could have a little fun first before we get down to business, right? Boss probably wouldn't mind."

The second the word 'fun' registers in her mind, coming from another one of the guys who only seem to be drawing closer to her now, she feels her heart sink deeper into despair, and immediately something like a distant yet somehow reachable memory prods at her brain as if to say: you've heard this before. Her stomach churns a little bit more when the realization strikes her that this definitely isn't the first time she's heard someone say 'fun' with a voice dripping such appalling malevolence.

They can't possibly be thinking of doing what she thinks they must be planning.. can they?

"Is she awake yet?" someone else questions, but Astera no longer recognizes the male speaker. She does recognize the underlying amusement in his words, however, and it only further affirms to be truths what were once doubts in her mind.

( Doubts, or simply a product of her desperate denial? )

Astera has to struggle to keep the expression on her face as neutral as possible now, with every moment she feels her heart pound a little louder in her ears. Gray eyes narrow to focus on the approaching shadows beneath the metal door, but her attention remains unbroken on the voices.

And when the lust-heavy response of: 'Probably not. We could take advantage of that.' resonates from right behind the door Astera has been cussing at for nearly half an hour now, she feels the composed front she's put up fall apart altogether.

There is quiet for the first eleven seconds she counts in her head, until what sounds like the collision of metal against metal tears through it. The clinking of keys, Astera has time to think, before she forces herself to back off from the door when it is gently pushed open.

Shit.

She is greeted first by a beefy guy who has the silver doorknob hidden beneath the grip of his large fingers, a tremendously pleased smirk curling his lips upward. At least four other men possess devilish grins on their faces as they crowd around the door-frame, two of which Astera recalls to be from yesterday's attack.

"Well," that same fat dude begins, tongue out from his mouth parted open to lick his upper lip tantalizingly slow, "look who's all ready to spend the day with us."

     It is all Astera can honestly do to restrain herself from taking a step backward and hope with all her goddamn might that her eyes don't betray the fear which has pitted itself against the minuscule courage she's left holding on to right now.

     And when she chooses not to say a word in preference for glaring at the men as seriously as she can without having her façade crack open, one of the guys behind the fatty sneers at her. "What, cat got your tongue after all that screaming you forced us to put up with yesterday?"

     The condescending tone he bears is shared by the man beside him, who scoffs, "Not so tough now, are we?"

     "Well, don'tcha worry, little missy," the fatty coos as he closes the distance between him and the rigid Astera, "because you can cry out all you want when we do you later."

     The last few words are dropped at a considerably quieter volume, but Astera doesn't think she's ever heard anything spoken with as much lust as those words are. Not unless she's forgetting something, at the very least. And when no further statements leave the fatty's lips, or any of the men who have begun to circle around them for that matter, she finds herself unable to keep up with her show of strength.

     Because all of a sudden, just as she feels the involuntary tensing of her body, the out-of-place images manage to grab subliminal hold on her thoughts once more: images of faceless figures buck naked, hands seemingly clutching at the fabric of one's clothes, mouths frozen in screams and mouths frozen in laughter, an ill-lit room with chairs scattered about and what looks like wine bottles clattered all over the floor ( a bar? ), and finally: the image of a woman who, to Astera, appears damningly familiar.

     Familiar because that woman looks just like her, only older, though apparently none-the-wiser to the chaos that swirls around her fleeting image.

The images come abruptly as they usually do at times when she would wake up from an insanely realistic nightmare, touching upon the foot of her most reachable thoughts before withdrawing toward the depths of her hazy mind, and they only go when the sensation of a hand enclosing itself around her right elbow ceases her dissociation from the real world a moment too late.

The fatty and the man who's asked Astera if the 'cat got her tongue' earlier — would calling him 'Blondie' basing on his caramel blond hair be easier for her? — already have their hands on different parts of her body by the time she's snapped out of her stupor, with the three others not too far behind them. And she won't even bother holding back this time around, yelling out an indignant: "Let me the fuck go!" just as she feels Blondie tug suggestively at the ends of her skirt.

     Her voice comes out a little hoarse, probably from all the shouting she had done the day before, but that doesn't stop her.

     Within mere seconds, the strength builds up and seeps through Astera, who has succeeded in squirming her way out from underneath the fatty's grip on her waist and retract her leg far enough to land a solid kick on him, right where the sun doesn't shine. The reaction is instant: the fatty doubling over in agony and releasing his tight grasp on her, but his pained form is only replaced by the rest of the eagerly-smirking men who up until now have been contented with simply watching.

     Blondie, whose grip she still hasn't gotten around to shaking off of her clothing, snatches the same leg she has just used and promptly pulls at it, sweeping her off the ground and leading her to cough out a choked gasp upon the unanticipated impact on the dirty-ass floor. Astera screws her eyes shut by instinct, the pounding of her head paling in comparison to the sudden pain that shoots through her left arm. That was a bad fall, the realization stabs right through her rapidly-beating heart and she has half the mind to think no shit, Sherlock before remembering she has more pressing matters to concern herself with, first.

     One of those matters is the pair of hands that have found their way on both her legs, crawling upwards unfalteringly and resting themselves on her inner thighs the same time her mind registers the feeling of someone's warm breath on her neck. And, in spite of herself, Astera's composure has long since given way for sheer panic to reign her in. There's the palpitating distraction beneath her chest and the hot stinging of her arm and the horrid aching of her skull and the revolting sensation of hands on her body and way too much to deal with all together that she doesn't even know what to do.

     The worst part is Astera knows she could've just fought her way out of this: out of the rough hands that are keeping her arms ( he could at least be a little bit more mindful of her left arm! ) in place, out of the legs that are mercilessly pinning her knees to the ground, away from the body she's aware is hovering just above hers in such a way that it brings back hideous memories ( memories? the fuck? ), away from the anguish and the horror and the helplessness and the guilt and closer to Nico and oh my god what if they did the same thing to her brother what if they did even worse she can't possibly live knowing he's being tortured like this simply because she was too weak to save him—!

     So why didn't she?

     Why couldn't she?

     Astera is vaguely aware of the knee that has wandered over to the sensitive spot in between her inner thighs, and of the kisses that are being clumsily peppered across what is exposed of her collarbone as something cold and wet slipping past the corner of her eyes meets the skin along the sides of her face. She feels a muscle press itself over each of the cool liquid drops that escape her eyelids, and when the pressure on her sensitive spot gradually increases, she takes no pleasure from it.

And at this point in time, Astera just wants to give in. Let them be. Quit dodging their crude touches and just let them be. Because what good is her crying and protesting and writhing and twisting going to do? In the end, they'll still have their way. In the end, every single effort she has ever made will prove to be fruitless, ineffectual in the face of the world's cruelty.

Sometime midway through it all, the images from earlier begin to resurface, each one lingering in her mind longer than the last, as if having to imagine them the first time wasn't excruciating enough.

And it really does feel like she's felt all this before. She's been through all this before. So she knows putting up a fight won't do anything but attract more harm, more injury rather than safety to her body. To her very spirit. Because no matter what, they will never heed her screams.

No matter what, they will never be gentle—

'Big Sis, you're finally back!'

Astera's trembling immediately halts at the same time the men's depraved fingers reach the fabric keeping her chest hidden from inquisitive eyes.

     There, in the midst of the hyperventilating and the yelling and the thrashing about and the reminiscing, she hears it. Her brother's voice. Nico's voice.

'I think maybe you should learn how to act even cuter, Big Sis!'

Big Sis. Of course, how could she possibly forget for whom all this fighting is in the first place..?

"Oh?" Astera hears Blondie chuckle lowly into her ear, pausing from his biting of her earlobe. "Have you finally tired yourself out? You've been nothing short of annoying these past few minutes, you know."

One of the other guys, whose familiar husky voice ( Astera recalls the same voice speaking, 'No reinforcements for you' or something along those lines ) sounds from above her head, has the audacity to let out a full-blown laugh. "Ha, and here I thought you could go on like this forever! 'Twas nice, though, watching you struggle while it lasted."

For one hopeful moment, Astera swears she can almost see Nico's gentle and reassuring smile directed at her as the men burst into blissful cackles..

..and when she forces her eyes open, a sudden surge of power is what first greets her.

a/n: hi :))) i'm sorry. it's been months since i've last updated & honestly even though school ended around two weeks ago, i just couldn't find it in me to start writing again. but here, i present to you all, the third chapter of 'crestal downfalls' ^^ i'm such a horrible author, i know, i'm sorry. this is why i can never get any of my stories past at least two chapters xD but anyway, thank you all so much for being patient with this one, and i sincerely hope you enjoyed the read <3 ( side note: i'm not sorry for that april fools' joke i pulled yesterday ;) )

[ published » april 2, 2019 ]