A/N Patience, please. Gregory, though not featuring in this part, will be in future parts.
PROLOGUE
Stasis in outer darkness. Silence in black.
This world will devour me...just like everything else...suffocating me in shadow; I can feel it snatch my breath like the light. I look up...unending darkness bearing down ready to crush me...below...a bottomless pit. All around...black that stretches forever without walls. And yet why do I feel so contained? I hold out my hand in front of me, moving it closer and closer until it hits my face, but I never see it. I step forward-the sound resonates like an earthquake. This is the place I never believed I'd go.
Those who are unfaithful...
"Dad?" I cry out, mocked by my echo.
...those who will listen to Satan, who will lend a willing ear to his blandishments and to his allurements...
"Mom?" my voice disrupts stasis—this world wants me silenced.
...when they go from this state of existence...
"God?" the darkness agitates—it circles closer
...they go into a condition where they are subject to his power.
"Please answer me!" wrapping like a snake
They will dwell in darkness...
"Where are you?" constricting
...consigned to outer darkness,
Forcing tears from my broken face
...where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth;
Asphyxiation, blunt and brutal—
...and they will remain in that condition...
The silent scream
Until they be visited by some servant of God to unlock the prison doors to them
Light erupts from nothingness—bright and brilliant star of salvation killing eternal damnation.
My eyelids fly open—the first nightmare over and another just beginning.
MIRROR Pt 1
The world seems melted together like one of Dave's runny watercolor paintings, but not nearly as vibrant. I blink and the shapes take back their true form...including the figure standing directly in front of me.
"Bonsoir mon ami," he says with a sadistic glare. My muddied mind does its best to survey him...tall...earthy, perfectly in tune with the room proper...in fact I can't tell if he's tan or just dirt-ridden. He's disheveled—practically mangy, but well-built...and French? It sounded like French. After all, when Mark took French he used to teach me bits and pieces before he went off to college. But mon ami...what was mon ami? He doesn't wait for me to remember.
"For a leetle while zhere I zhought zhat you were going to sleep zhrough ze night, but-" from behind a smile he chuckles. I gaze down to see him twirl a flashlight in his hand.
"'owever," he continues, "I suppose I understand," he raises a dark eyebrow, "after all...eet ees partially my fault." His rough hand caresses the left side of my temple, and a jolt of pain shoots through my skull.
"Ah," I wince, jerking my head away. With that jolt of pain, I become fully aware of the feelings of my body, the throbbing of my head, the stiffness of my neck, scrapes against my left leg and...my arms...'where are my—?' He smiles at my realization—I lift my bruised head skyward finally able to see a pipe snaking its way across the ceiling. It stretches its way across the room in tandem color with the blackness of the ceiling. It's hard to make out but I follow it, until it's directly above my head. And at last I see...my hands—locked tightly in handcuffs suspended off a chain, wrapped around the pipe. I pull down and my wrists catch. It's an intricate contraption and I am the mouse. I struggle desperately against the hard metal bindings, pulling and twisting but my wrists stay locked in—I pull till I scrape reddened skin from my hands and my vision clouds with tears, but still nothing. I twist my body and he returns to my vision. Mon ami, he said...mon ami is...friend right? And I turn to him like he'll help but suddenly I make the connection—the smile is not that of a good Samaritan or a friend come to save me. He chuckles at my frantic contortions and pulls up close,
"Mon ami," he grins taking a firm grasp of my chin. As one calloused hand, reeking of dirt holds me the other gestures to the mattress blocking the one door into the room "ees all zis struggling truly necessary?" The smirk on his sun-baked face is almost frightening as he whispers in a graveled voice. "I can tell you now zat zhere ees no escape from zis room...et zhere is no one to 'ear you scream." He points now to the boarded up windows high up, flush against the ceiling—he loves the dominance, the unbridled control and he is not about to let it go.
"Wh-who are you," I ask, more timidly than I'd wished,
"Mon nom, monsieur? » he cocks his head slightly « Vous ne savez pas mon nom? Well, we must feex zhat." He chuckles lightly and relinquishes my face, stepping back he takes the cigarette from his mouth and looks me up and down.
"But beware of what you ask, monsieur, for I promise you now," he moves closer-
"zat for as long as you live..." raises the cigarette
"you will never..." up to my eye
"forget..." please, no "mon nom."
My eyelids shut but the red hot tip penetrates the darkness. My head again in his hands I try to pull away, wrenching at the handcuffs when—he releases the cigarette from his grip. The ash brushes my face, but the pain is momentary.
I feel the whack of a hand against my face and I open my eyes. He has crouched down to my level, eyes meeting eyes, nose against nose and only one thing to say.
"Je m'appelle Christophe," he whispers. My entire body tenses, my nose reeking with the odor of tobacco; his veiny eyes penetrating my body even as he pulls his face away—
What have I gotten into?
My heart is working like a jackhammer on my ribcage as he reaches back for my face—a finger steals a single tear from my cheek—I didn't even know it was there. I'm at rapt attention (and he knows it) as he raises the same finger to his mouth and licks the tear from the dirt-ridden appendage. The smile again as he crushes the fallen cigarette beneath the largest, blackest pair of boots I have ever seen. He murmurs lightly in approval, like a single tear could have a flavor, but he's not done.
"So, mon ami," he said it again...why did he say it again? We aren't friends! "'ow about a leettle...test" he turns his back on me and meanders to the wall I face...he retrieves a shovel, thrusting it upward and grabbing it out of midair.
"You remember ma pelle, don't you?" he says nonchalantly raising it like a cherished fencing sword so the spade could touch my Adam's apple. I just stare unblinkingly...what is he doing? He lifts the shovel to my left temple,
"Oh come now, mon ami—" he taps the shovel to my throbbing head and continues, "you must remember, don't you?" He suddenly yanks the spade back violently and I prepare for impact. Again he laughs.
"Do not be so jumpy monsieur...ze fun 'as not even started." He pulls the shovel back and lays it across both his hands.
"So tell me, monsieur...comment m'appelle-moi?" I stare...it was in French! What did he—horrid cracking erupts through the room and my right leg buckles beneath me.
"GOD!" I scream, my wrists suddenly bearing my entire body weight. My anesthetized arms shock back into feeling and my head hits my chest, but he will not allow it—he takes hold of me by the hair, lifts my head, and forces me to look at him. I can barely hear over the white hot pain of a fractured leg—barely breathe with my arms stretched to keep me upright—but I know what he says. "WRONG ANSWER!" As my eyes meet his possessed face, I can feel the involuntary tears drip down my cheeks.
"Zhere EES NO GOD 'ERE, MONSIEUR, now comment m'appelle-moi?" The name! It dances on my tongue but chokes in my throat and the shovel handle crashes against my left knee. I gasp for air, for relief, but he's bearing down on me. "Comment m'appelle-moi?"
"PLEA—" I manage before he beats me again, this time against the back. I want to fall to the ground in a heap, but that would be merciful. Not here...not with him. From behind he yanks my hair again until my face is high toward the ceiling and his face. "Ze name, you festering American piñata, what is mon nom?"
"Christ—" but the spade becomes the bat to my softball head.
My mouth tastes like metal as he delivers his final threat, "Don't you dare compare me avec your beloved Jesus Christ you pazhetic cretin! Now, before I stick ze entirity of ma pelle up your religious ass—tell me mon nom"
"IT'S CHRISTOPHE!" I cry with all the fear a person can emit when faced with the loss of life. "CHRISTOPHE! It's Christophe!" And for what feels like an eternity I breathe the last breaths I think I will ever take. It is the air of failure to be there for my family and raise my own; to outlive my parents, watch Dave and Amanda graduate, move Jenny into her dorm, be the best man at Mark's wedding, or just make the next Family Home Evening. Failure to say goodbye. For forever I've failed them—and then—
The catch on the chain is unlocked. I fall to the ground, unable to move, unable to call for help, or see the damage done to my body. I just breathe and listen—breathe the breath of life from my pathetic position on the floor and breathe the pain out—but it's not over yet...the room is alive with the sound of shuffling—I hear the tossing of clothing from one pile of clothes to another, until no more—footsteps, quickened, and he hoists me up with a "get up you worzhless pile of sheet." He drapes something around my body—an orange button-up. My arms aren't even in the sleeves as he adeptly buttons it.
Again, he has me by the hair and he turns me to the right. Against the wall is a mirror—silver and exact, I see the cuts in my jeans, bruises on my pale skin, the blood contaminating the cornflower yellow hair, and my attacker with my head in his grimy hands.
"Part two of ze test, monsieur...tell me what you see!" he whispers loudly in my ears. He's trembling, but from what I don't know...anger? Adrenaline?
"I see...me," I manage to choke out.
"NON!" he shouts back slapping my face with the back of an ungloved hand, "Do not feed me zat sheet, you bigoted vermin. Now one last time before I use zis pelle to ensure zhat you never see ze light of day again...tell me what you see,"
"I—I—" I look hard into the mirror like there's some drastic new discovery to be made, but nothing, just my tormentor and me now dressed in an orange—
My eyes widen. It's him!