Ever since he was a child, his life had been destroyed by him. He had ended up a tortured soul, forever mocked and hated. When he was in school, the boy bullied him into insanity. He mocked him and did his best to make his life hell (despite the fact that they lived in the Underworld itself). He poked fun at him in front of all the other kids, even the adults, and made him feel like a fool. He was made to believe that he was good for nothing, that he was simply an object of everyone's entertainment.

Even now, as an adult, he had suffered his cruelty. He had been forcefully imprisoned, stripped of his powers, had his beloved scythe taken away from him, and banished far away into a nightmarish realm...or would have been had he and his friends not managed to pull out of it.

The trauma never left him. He had become awfully sensitive, something of a crybaby, and he had become accustomed to slavery.

Yes, he'd lived his life as a slave...and now he had fallen into his clutches again.

It was night when it happened. He had been resting in Billy's bed, exhausted after an entire day of playing with the stupid boy and his sadistic 'girlfriend'. Enslaved though he was by them, he could never bring himself to hurt them, or even displease them for that matter. Whatever they asked for, he gave them, like the most honourable bestfriend. But Mandy never appreciated, and Billy was far too annoying. And the two together were simply insufferable. He was tired, all his energy lost with his daily efforts, and all he wanted was a good night's sleep. Billy was sleeping over at Mandy's, and he had somehow managed to slip out of it. He had the bedroom all to himself. What more could he want?

Until he was bashed in the head so hard, he thought he heard his skull crack. The exploding pain blinded him, and he was dazed. He tried shouting out, but someone had covered his mouth.

"Don't worry Grim...It'll be alright," a horridly familiar voice murmured in his ear.

Grim let out a muffled moan. He knew who that voice belonged to. Fear tore him from the inside, worse than the numbing pain in his head.

'I can't let him take me! I can't! I won't!' He thought in panic.

But it was too late. He had already slipped into unconsciousness...

How much time had passed since the event? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days?

The pain woke him, throbbing menacingly in his bruised skull where he had been hit. He twisted and moaned, the cold floor beneath him freezing his bones. He tried to open his eyes, but felt sick when he caught a glimpse of the light.

"Aahh, so you're finally awake, Grim," the voice that tortured his ears spoke: "I was beginning to get tired of waiting."

Finding the courage he never wanted, he opened his eyes, and his nightmares were confirmed. Boogey stood facing him from above, grinning maliciously at his prey: "Oh how easy it is to kidnap you, Grim. You were always so easy, and even now as a supposedly powerful grim reaper, you are still easy."

Grim tried answering back but found that he was gagged. He also realised that he was tied up with evil vines that dug their thorns into his unprotected bones whenever he tried to move.

"Don't bother," Boogey said, kneeling down beside him: "Your end is near..."

He realised where he had been taken now. The Underworld's darkest corner, dedicated to merciless torture and macabre death. The floor was cold and dank, the walls tall and crowded with chains and instruments of torture. From this place, there was no escape...

'Please, please let me go. You've hurt me enough, now please just release me!' Grim inwardly begged, his pleading eyes desperate for mercy. But Boogey just laughed.

"Such fear..." he mocked, stroking Grim's cheek with false gentleness: "It will be over soon, dear friend...but for now, you must suffer!"

The blow came before he could brace himself. The bloodstained, rusty mace was smashed repeatedly into his bound body. His muffled screams went unheard, echoing off the walls that had tired of seeing endless similar situations. Boogey thrived in his enemy's pain, the sound of cracking bones like music to his ears. By the time he was done, Grim was shattered and broken. His body had never experienced this kind of pain. It made him go insane, made him beg for death.

"Aawww, is Grimmy gonna cry?" Boogey asked mockingly, happily watching the tears slip down Grim's tortured face, over the hideous bruises that contrasted hideously with the pallor of his skull.

With all the beatings, his gag had loosened and slipped down, freeing his mouth.

"...Why?! Why are y-you...d-doing this...t-to m-me?!" He moaned, his voice choked with tears and agony.

Boogey let out a laugh that rang throughout the room. It was tinged with spite, dripping with poison, hovering on the edge of madness.

"HATRED! I HATE YOU SO MUCH! I LOATHE EVERY SINGLE BONE IN YOUR WORTHLESS BODY! I CAN'T STAND YOU! THE VERY SIGHT OF YOU MAKES ME SICK! I HATE YOU SO MUCH I JUST WANT TO KILL YOU IN THE MOST PAINFUL, GRISLY AND GORY DEATH POSSIBLE!" He thundered, rage forcing his eyes to pop out and become bloodshot.

He took a deep breath and let out a long sigh, doing his best to calm down. Slowly, he paced around Grim's whimpering, broken figure, listening to the soft crying.

"Once I kill you, I will become the grim reaper, and I will reign over the entire universe! I will dominate every living creature's nightmares and make them come true! I will become fear itself! And you, you will be forgotten! Because nobody loves you Grim! Nobody ever did, and guess what? Nobody ever will!"

'My scythe...I trusted it with her...She'll save me...I know she will! She would never leave me here...never...' Grim clung on to his last shred of hope, the tiny ray of light that shone through the darkness.

"It's over. DIE!" Boogey raised a sharp, gigantic axe over his head, ready to chop Grim's bones into crumbs. But suddenly, a fierce light from another dimension blasted through the air. The rip in the space time continuum grew wider, and out of the swirling light, an elegant figure emerged...