Underneath his hands was congealed, partly crusty, dark fluid. Piko's eyes fluttered open, disoriented. The smell was sick, like someone had vomited a few days ago, and the watery substance, despite its acridity, had somehow grown spores of sour mold, as the silver-haired youth inhaled, then immediately started to cough out the noxious air.
"Where..?" His throat burning from the acidic air, heterochromatic eyes took in the cold, nasty slime that had congealed on his hands and his clothes where he had been laying in it, soaking into the fabric and the bared parts of his skin. "Ugh, wh-what is this?"
Repressing another gag reflex of his own, he stumbled forwards, tying to get away from the noxious pool of... whatever it was. Hitting a hard wall with his shoulder painfully, he reached out and steadied himself. Getting his bearings, the silver-haired child looked around, trying to place his location and seeking an answer as to how he'd arrived there.
The room was small. The walls were uneven. The floor was rough, like it was some sort of cheap cement, with bumps and dips, as though whoever had made it hasn't been careful in smoothing the material out before it had set. But it didn't look grey. Though the light was so dim it was almost impossible to see, Piko could tell that it was a dark color, and that there were varying shades of darkness in different splotches across not just the floor, but also the small, threatening walls.
Feeling with his dirty hands across the walls, Piko navigated and kept himself standing straight, finding what seemed like a hallway leading out. His heart jackhammered in his small, tight chest, and he tried not to take in panic breaths of the foul air that now burned in his lungs and tasted like rotting bile.
Reaching the end of the hallway, the feeling of wood met the child's inquisitive fingertips, and left a few painful splinters in their wake. Piko flinched and cried out, but didn't dare put his disgusting fingers in his mouth to suck the splinters out. He still didn't know what he'd been laying in. He cradled his wrist to his chest, and tried nudging the door open with his foot.
No result. Gathering up his resolve, he reached his trembling hand out once more, braving more splinters of the poor quality wood as he searched for the door handle. Finding it, he shrieked and pulled his hand back quickly. The searing metal left a painful, scorching burn on the sensitive flesh of his palm, and Piko whimpered in real fear this time.
Why was the knob hot? Was this place... wherever it was... on fire? Was Piko going to be burned to death when the fire came through the old splintery door? A sob caught in his throat, and he gasped in more of the foul air in sudden panic, and started to scream for help.
Banging tiny fists against the door in hysteria, screaming in his high-pitched voice, unnoticing the dozens of splinters imbedding themselves deep into his fists, his panic gripping him too potently to do anything but scream and try to fight his way out.
Heavy footsteps from outside the door made the wide-eyed, panting child stop his frantic reaction for a sheer moment, before he started to scream anew, desperate for someone to help him, let him out, please, please! A soft, deep chuckle from the other side of the door was almost consumed by the young boy's hysterics, but Piko's terrified, straining ears heard a rumbling murmur, which was rejoined by a different voice, just outside of the door. Then the sound of the knob turning.
Piko backed up slightly, ready to rush the door. But strong, strong arms grabbed him as he made his play to escape, stopping him. He screamed and hit and tried to bite anything that reached him, but it was no good. A white mask with red accents that looked like some sort of stylized kitsune stared back at him in a little better light from the open doorway. The mouth underneath the mask smiled.
Piko's lower lip trembled in fear. The man was lifting him so easily, his strength far outclassing Piko's; his tall, muscular body outclassing Piko's weak, slim, boyish frame in every way that mattered at the moment. As the man held him up, he grabbed at the front of the silver-haired child's clothes, crusted and damp from mysterious fluids that Piko could now see were a gory combination of reds, blacks, and gangrene, and ripped them violently.
"Nn... n- nnn- n...o... no, no, NO, NO! NO!" Piko shrieked, and struggled his thin arms and legs helplessly. "NO! NO! NOO!"
A deep, dark humored chuckle caressed his ear maliciously as the other figure in the doorway was joined by another, then another, and the stranger in the kitsune mask was rubbing thick, strong fingers covered in filth against his soft, soft cheek, hurting him, squeezing his jaw until the child thought the bones might break open.
Struggling was useless, screaming, crying, was useless. Hitting, kicking. One of the figures that had joined lit a small, red lamp that cast gory shadows. Turning with a smile and a sense of satisfied finality, the person with the lamp reached out with a hand covered in a thick, leathery glove, and closed the door.
"Help me," Piko whimpered as the masked figures drew closer to him. "Please. Please. Help me. Help me..."
Smiles, cast in flickering, malicious red light. The scent of acrid bile weighting the claustrophobic and still stale air. Tears burning a trail down his face. The agony of bones being crushed against each other as he was forcefully held up by the stranger kitsune-san. Piko's body started to shake all on its own, and his eyes were wide, pupils small, in terror and in pain.
"Those eyes are unique, aren't they? Let's start with them," A laughing voice with a mild accent, and Piko frantically turned his head, trying to figure out which of the people had spoken. But someone wearing a long kimono and a tanuki mask stepped forwards with a small, very thin knife, that was almost like paper. Piko shrank back as much as he could, but more hands were on his body, ripping at his clothes, ripping at his flesh, leaving bruises and small cuts from sharp fingernails as he began to struggle again in earnest.
"That's good, hold him. These will make beautiful butterfly wings for our collection," an approving tenor voice claimed, as the silver-haired child's eyes widened even further in absolute, abject terror as the thin, paper thin, glinting, silver piece of metal drew close to his pupils and began to cut his skin away.
Screaming, the burning of blood into his eyes blinding him in fluid red, as Piko was unable to move his head; hands held him, everywhere, hands held him! The knife moved with precision, leaving a burning, burning, blinding red that poured into the child's button nose and into his mouth, making him cough and choke and cough again to expel it, just to be able to breathe.
Rough hewn fabric scraped and grated across his oculars, and Piko screamed again. A satisfied face looked at him through the haze of smeared blood before once again, the curtain of red closed over his vision where fragile eyelids once were.
"They're perfect," Kitsune-san said in a rumbling, pleased voice. "This time, we'll be able to resurrect the butterflies fully. I'm sure of it. This time, the ceremony will go smoothly."