WARNING; torture/death/indication of rape/!!

「put your hands in mine
and feel this emptiness
there's no beat in my chest
'cause there's nothin' left 」

♫hollywood undead; believe

✩ h o n g j o o n g ✩

"I have been informed that we have a problem, Hongjoong."

Hongjoong clenched his hand at his chest when Seonghwa spoke slowly from behind the wooden desk, and the thin hair at the back of his neck was rising as he shivered with fear.

The older's eyes were cutting into his, demanding him to keep his attention in place, and Hongjoong stood still with both feet on the ground - but with fire burning under him.

"You can fuck Joshua all you want, God knows that boy is so needy for attention," Seonghwa then said, rolling his eyes just slightly at the mention of the blonde. "But, if you ever leave marks on him again, you are going to regret it."

Standing there in the big cold office, Hongjoong had never felt so helpless and useless, as he did in that horrifying moment of being confronted by the devil in the black suit. His lips quivered, when he forced the words to come out. "I-I'm sorry... I-I won't touch him ever again..."

"Oh but angel, I know you will," Seonghwa chuckled with a strange look in his eyes, and a smirk on his lips. "And it's fine, as long as you remember what I just told you."

When Seonghwa suddenly got up from his seat, Hongjoong took a step back in surprise, and the older looked at him with a brow raised - as if he was completely baffled by the reaction.

"Come," he said way too calmly. "I want to show you something."

"W-what?"

"Something very special. I call it The Sanctuary."

Hongjoong followed in silence, not by free will - but did he even have a choice at this point? Behind them were two of Seonghwa's bodyguards, dressed in black from head to toe and with a mask covering their faces. Broad shoulders, and with guns hanging at their hips, Hongjoong didn't stand at chance against them.

While walking, he chewed on the words Seonghwa had spoken when they left the office. Even without knowing what it was yet, Hongjoong knew that Seonghwa could call it whatever he wanted to - it would be far from a sanctuary no matter what...

✩

Down into the basement, in the furthest part of the building where only one door was built in at the end of a long narrow corridor, the darkness was about to consume him whole.

The door was unlocked and opened, and Seonghwa's men waited outside while the older led Hongjoong inside. There was no windows, no natural light at all - and at the walls a few red lamps lit up slowly, and revealed the horror that was hidden inside the dark painted walls.

He felt how the thick air filled his lungs, already warning him about the terror he soon would be witnessing. There was a strange smell inside the room, sweet but bitter at the same time, but it was hard to pinpoint what it was or where it came from.

The second his eyes found focus in the dimmed room, Hongjoong nearly throw up in his own mouth. In the corner, sitting on the floor but with the upper body held up at the wrists, by chains hanging from ceiling, was a young male. From the looks of it, he couldn't be much older than Hongjoong, maybe younger even.

His golden hair was messed up, hanging in clumped locks and sticking to his face - the face which was dangling against his chest. And the chest was the worst part. He had been left vulnerable and exposed without any clothes on, and the skin of his body had been mutilated completely.

Long cuts across his chest, burn marks and covered in his own dried blood.

"W-who is that?" Hongjoong barely even managed to whisper, feeling how the words got tangled up in his twisting throat.

"No one that matters anymore." Seonghwa replied in a shivering cold tone. His dark eyes glared with such degrading hatred at the young male on the floor, that Hongjoong felt everything inside of him turn. "This is only what happens if you are too disobedient. And this one has really pushed it too far. I have gotten far too many complaints from clients already, and it is simply unacceptable. But he has not been willing to change, even after my works on him..."

Seonghwa made his way across the floor, so gracefully that one could be fooled that he wasn't made out of pure evil. As he stopped right in front of the tied up boy, his voice lowered even more than before.

"We have company, so try to look alive, at least," he spoke in a harrowing growl.

And the blonde did, but only barely. In his eyes was nothing but emptiness - not even the will to fight for his life was to find in the haze of green. His soul seemed to have left long ago, and his body was left behind in agony, wishing for an end.

"I see something in you, Hongjoong. Something that is longing for more," the older said with a brief glance over his shoulder, and Hongjoong felt his heart stop in that moment. Seonghwa then removed the chains that were digging into the wounded skin around the thin waists, and the male fell to the ground without one single sound leaving his dry lips. "I can give you everything you want, everything that you need. I can make you the person you were born to become."

It was a sickening sight, one that Hongjoong so desperately wished was only a nightmare - one he would wake up from at any given moment. He clenched his fists, dug his nails into his own palms, only to feel the wrecking pain of reality.

He wanted to protest, to tell Seonghwa to stop, but he was so scared - scared that he if uttered even one wrong word, he would end up tied to the wall. The air began to thicken even more inside the room, making it hard to even breathe, when Seonghwa dragged the dying boy to the metal table, which was bolted to the floor.

"You can try to deny it all that you want, but deep down you are just like me," Seonghwa hummed. His eyes were focused on the already ruined skin in front of him, but his words were clearly meant for Hongjoong. "Always wanting more out of life, of this world. The only difference is that you've been scared to take matters into your own hands. You're too afraid, Hongjoong. Don't be."

A small whimper, so low it might not even have been there, came from the unknown male when Seonghwa slowly dug the edge of a knife into his skin - drawing red, bleeding lines down his back.

Hongjoong wanted to cry, wanted to scream that Seonghwa was wrong - he was nothing like the evil that was torturing another human being right in front of his eyes. But he couldn't, because Seonghwa was right about one thing - he was scared, scared to death.

The knife went deeper and the blood ran like rivers onto the shining cold table, down the edge and fell in heavy drops onto the floor. The blonde let go of one simple cry, but the sound of it was so heartbreaking that it made Hongjoong turn his head. He couldn't look at it anymore, no matter what consequences he would have to face afterwards.

"I gave you the gun, remember?" The older's voice was burning in Hongjoong's ears, causing him to pinch his eyes shut with tears fighting to be let loose. "Even without telling you to, you could've been the one to kill my brother. You should have been the one. But you were scared, and confused. He never loved you, you have to understand that, and you shouldn't mourn over someone like him. He was a waste of life on this planet."

Then, the worst sound to ever run through Hongjoong's ears was heard, one that would haunt him ever since that day. A loud crack of broken bones and a life stolen - followed by complete silence.

"And I am tired of waste." Seonghwa then said with a snort.

When Hongjoong forced himself to open his eyes, he was met by the bleak stare from the boy on the table.

Dead.

"Don't be a waste of my time, Hongjoong."

He wanted to move, to run away, but he knew he had nowhere to go - nowhere to hide from the monster that was approaching him. Tears were blinding his sight, and the fear inside of him had built up so violently that it physically hurt.

But through the tears, he still saw the dangerous darkness in Seonghwa's eyes, and he stumbled backwards until his back hit the wall. Seonghwa smirked at the reaction, following until he was right in front of Hongjoong's terrified face.

The older raised his hand, and drew his blood dripping fingers over Hongjoong's cheek and in between his trembling lips.

"You know what this is?" Seonghwa whispered in his ear, while the disgusting taste of blood tainted his tongue. "This, is power. This, is what I am offering you."

"I... I don't want it..." Hongjoong whispered, choking on the desperate cries that filled his throat.

"But you do, my angel."

With a hard pull, Hongjoong was dragged towards the table by a firm hand around his upper arm. His entire body was shaking, and the tears wouldn't stop falling. Seonghwa mercilessly pushed the dead body onto the floor, and the thumping sound made Hongjoong flinch.

"Seonghwa, please..." he begged, but he didn't even know what for.

His hands were tied together behind his back, and he cried so hard he couldn't even speak anymore - not even when he was pushed down and his face was pressed against the cold surface of the table. The blood was staining his hair red, and his skin just the same. He could taste it on his lips, and it made him sick, but there was no escape - and soon he felt Seonghwa's hands under his shirt, nails digging into the skin at his ribs, and his cries turned into painful and uncontrollable sobs.

"It's okay," Seonghwa whispered with his warm, poisonous breath, hovering over him from behind. "You'll realize very soon what is right for you. I know you better than you think. Better than you know yourself."

The only thing Hongjoong could do was to close his eyes - let his mind drift off in an escape his mortal body couldn't. And he kept them closed, even when he was stripped naked and his legs kicked apart. Tears kept rolling down his cheeks, when he was pushed and pulled back and forth over the cold table, and pain was shooting up his spine.

Gagging sounds kept pushing up his throat, as he got covered in blood - the blood that wasn't even his own, but someone whose name he didn't even know. Someone who was now lying on the floor, lifeless and as worthless as Seonghwa had deemed him to be.

Someone who had been just as powerless and defenseless as Hongjoong now was.

And in that moment, Hongjoong would do whatever he had to, to feel anything but that.

✩

A/N: Almost, kinda, threw up in my mouth a little bit when writing this. But I promised you we'd go REALLY dark, and this is only the beginning ;''))

And if you think "holy F that must be so traumatizing for poor Joong - then yes, yes you are absolutely right ;X