Hello, everyone. :) It's been a while since I've written anything, and I guess Amnesia is a good place to start again. Hopefully I haven't screwed up the mythology of the game too much...anyways, much thanks to Belphegor for her beta-ing skills and to Toby Tuner (of TobyGames fame!) for the original exposure to Amnesia and his hilarious Let's Play. Enjoy!
I own nothing. Not even a tinderbox.
"They had meant for him to die, but the torture was working beyond their expectations. It wasn't the method, it was the arsonist. He was different from the others. They could make him forget again." —Amnesia: The Dark Descent
...
He was drifting in a dense fog, surrounded by silence. In the distance, he could see figures, blurry figures, moving through the fog. He tried to call out to them, but his voice was dead in his throat. He approached the figures hesitantly, and the closer he became the darker the figures were, voices whispering through the fog, reaching out to him like spectral fingers: "Is he alright?" "He's one of the wicked. Don't pay his lies any attention." "I'm not a bad man. It was an accident—I'M INNOCENT!"
"HEY!"
The shout jolted him out of his uncomfortable sleep, but he did not rise. His cheek was plastered to a cold surface, his eyelids heavy with exhaustion. All he wanted to do was sleep…
"NO! Don't go back to sleep!" The voice that had brought him out of the fog prevented him from entering it once again. "Wake up, wake up now!"
The tone of urgency was enough to rouse him. He pulled himself up—and then automatically wished he hadn't. The world around him was swinging back and forth wildly. It took him a long moment to realize that it wasn't his head that spun—he was hanging in a cage, some thirty feet off the ground.
His stomach lurched as he tried to move. Pain, hot and fiery, shot through his body like a bullet, paralyzing him. He sank down again, willing to sink into unconsciousness again, if it meant that he could escape the pain. A whimper escaped him as he closed his eyes.
"Oh no." The voice was back. "No, Phil, you can't leave me here all by myself. Wake up!"
He groaned. Phil? Was that his name? Through his haze of pain he searched in vain for his name, his identity—but the only thing that he was aware of besides the cold cage was the dense fog in his mind. "Is Phil my name?" he asked aloud, surprised by the weakness in his voice.
"Yeah." The voice was gruff now. "Phillip, actually. You hated it when I called you 'Phil' before. Are you all right?"
As the voice had talked, Phillip had decided it was safe to move. He hoisted himself up, grinding his teeth as his body refused to cooperate, and rested his head against the chilly steel of his cage. He blinked, finding another cage swinging a few feet from his own.
A board-shouldered man who looked squished in his cage had pressed his face up against the bars, eyes trained on Phillip with concern. "How much do you remember?" he demanded.
"N-nothing." To his horror, Phillip found that the statement was true. What if this man hadn't been here to tell him his name? He would have been stuck here, alone, without even an identity to comfort him…
The broad-shouldered man collapsed back in disappointment, ignoring the way his cage swung precariously. He sighed. "My name is Benji."
"Good to meet you, Benji." Phillip muttered, his voice hollow.
Benji cracked a smile warily. "We've had this introduction…oh, I'd say about three times now. That bastard Alexander and his little friend have been giving you some sort of drink. Whatever it is, it keeps wiping your memories. I heard them talking about it, the first time."
Phillip blinked slowly. He raised his hands experimentally, tracing a finger along his face. He whimpered as he felt tender bruises and fresh cuts sting him. He lifted his shirt up next, staring at the long, jagged cut on his stomach that had been crudely stitched. "What…what did they do to me?"
"Preliminary work." Benji shrugged, as if they were talking about the weather. "Alexander enjoys…playing with his food. They'll finished grandly, though. A week ago it was Edward in the Iron Maiden. Yesterday they lashed Andrew to the Wheel. Sebastian's slated to be stuffed into the brazen bull in two days." He jerked a thumb towards a third hanging cage Phillip hadn't noticed before. A small figure was huddled inside, not moving.
"The brazen bull?" Phillip swallowed nervously. After the brazen bull, where did you go? His imagination began to work furiously, but he shut it down. He didn't want to imagine where one could go after the brazen bull. "Do you know what'll happen to you?"
"No." Suddenly Benji turned his head away. "Alexander only tells his victims what final fate they'll face when he senses that they've almost been broken. Sebastian stopped eating three days ago." His voice lowered, as if ashamed. "And he stopped talking a few days before that. For his sake, I hope he's dead all ready."
They both faced the still form of Sebastian for a moment before looking away. Phillip flexed his fingers, feeling a dull ache within them. "Am I the only one whose received the…" he searched for the right phrase, "amnesia drink?"
Benji nodded. "Yes. I think Alexander knows you're innocent. That's why he fed you the drink—to make you forget who you are, to make you believe that you were guilty."
"Er…what, exactly, am I innocent of?"
"Arson. You set a man on fire." Benji rested his chin in his hands, contemplating. "But you're innocent. Don't forget that, all right? Don't forget!"
"I promise I won't—" Phillip's reply was interrupted by a woman's cry of pain, a long, low wail that made both grown men flinch. "Someone's…grand finale?"
Even in the semi-darkness he could see Benji's twisted, bitter expression. "Poor Beth…she never stood a chance against those monsters."
"Alexander and his little friend?"
"Yeah. His name is David, or something like that…"
They lapsed into silence after that, a silence broken only by Beth's distant screams. But those, too, finally stopped, the screams fading into choking sobs, and at last into a horrible stillness.
...
Phillip was dozing when a door at the end of the room they were in burst open. Two men walked through, the younger of the two carrying the limp, ragdoll form of a woman.
"BETH!" Benji jumped to his feet, cage swinging wildly, and grabbed the bars that trapped him. "What did you do to her? You bastards! Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"
The two men stopped as the prisoner roared. The older man smirked and Phillip felt a chill run down his spine. He inched backwards a little, a futile attempt to escape this man's steely gaze. "An ironic thing for a rapist to say. I shall enjoy breaking you very much."
The statement jarred Benji for a moment, but he was roaring again as the two men made for another door at the other end of the room, still carrying the unconscious—or dead—Beth. Benji was spitting mad. "YOU'LL NEVER BREAK ME! NEVER!"
The door slammed shut with a dull thud.
Benji sank to his knees, breathing hard. He pulled his knees to his chest, burying his face in them.
Phillip stared at him. "A rapist? You—you're a rapist?"
"No! Well, yes—sort of," Benji mumbled from inside his knees. "One girl gets cold feet when her father finds you and her in the barn, and she starts screaming. I—I didn't—look, I'm hardly a good man, but I'm better than them."
When Phillip didn't respond, Benji raised his head. "You believe me, don't you?" His voice cracked a little, the thought of his only companion abandoning him frightening him more than the promised torture.
Phillip forced himself to nod. "Yes."
Obviously Benji couldn't see the way he averted his eyes, because he relaxed visibly. "Get some sleep, Phil."
Phillip awoke to the sound of a man's screams, deep and horrified, echoing through the entire castle. He sat straight up, ignoring his body's groans of pain, and looked to Benji's cage.
He was gone.
Heart thundering, stomach twisted into knots, Phillip allowed himself to cry, hot stinging tears.
His sobs must have stirred Sebastian in a way that all the food and pain in the world could not have. "Benji will be all right. He's a survivor." Those were the only words Phillip would ever hear him say.
Alexander and Daniel could have force-fed him all the amnesia potions they wanted, but Phillip would ever, ever forget Benji's cries and pleas for mercy. But he never forgot something else, something important…
I am innocent.
A/N: Obviously, this happens before Phillip/The Arsonist is subjected to the Judas Cradle. I doubt he'd be up and conscious after that. *shudders*
All the names were made-up by me (save for Daniel and Alexander, of course), since I felt it would be easier to connect to a guy named Benji than a guy named The Rapist. Anyways, I suppose there's some sort of irony in that the accused rapist is the one trying to look out for his fellow prisoners. Ah, well. So, a rundown of names and fates:
Edward the Forger—Iron Maiden (Not the band, as Belphegor mentioned!)
Andrew the Murderer—The Wheel (of Torture, not Fortune. Don't ever get those two mixed up! :P)
Beth the Kidnapper—Limbs popped out of her sockets/Dismemberment
Benji the Rapist—Hung upside down and sawed in half (although the saw gets stuck in his hip...*winces* Poor Benji...)
Phillip the (Innocent) Arsonist—Impaled on the Judas Cradle (poor Phil…)
Sebastian the Traitor—Burned alive in the Brazen Bull (aka the Bronze Bull)
Thanks for reading! ~ChaosandMayhem