Warnings for this chapter: This chapter is rated T for implied abuse and non-graphic violence.
Warnings for this story: This story is rated M for graphic torture and violence, graphic non-consensual and consensual sex acts, as well as profane language.
Please note that the majority of this story is written in the first person, and in a very different style than the prologue. This chapter was to "set the scene," if you will, while the rest will be written from the perspective of Charlotte, in a more sporadic and personal style.
I hope that you enjoy the first segment. Feedback is, of course, greatly appreciated.
Prologue
"Where are you off to? Stand still!" various voices whispered to Charlotte, who had no idea where she was to go. The oldest of the men would sometimes come up, touch her and ask others' advice about pleasing the nameless yet omniscient presence that seemed to lurk indefinitely in all of their minds. The youngest was apt to mutter quietly as he walked solemnly through the grime of the sewer; he was always afraid of being in the others' way, and Charlotte could not help to wonder why.
These men were subordinates, of this she was sure. The way that they seemed to be circled in an invisible grasp as they walked, never daring to ask for advice or help, reminded her of young siblings who were in trouble with their parents, looking down as if accepting the pending punishment. Her presence amongst them, to both her blessing and dismay, was one of chance. She was neither the most wealthy nor the most important character; she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and, from what she could pick up from the snippets of conversations that reached her through the burlap over her head, in the company of the wrong people.
The desolate miasma of the sewer had grown on Charlotte after walking for a few minutes. Her feet felt damp with murky water, legs splashed with the tiny droplets resulting from the heavy footsteps of five or six men through the shallow pools. She felt the anticipation of the final destination through her entire body. She was by no means stupid – while she had never been a prodigy in her childhood, she could read situations and emotions like a trained professional, and the unspoken atmosphere of fear that laced these fully capable men did not go unnoticed. There was something at the end of this sewer, something much more frightening than a few street thugs.
When the men who held her arms stopped walking, she found herself startled, in her sightless state, by her sudden halt. She couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary, but she could pick up the faintest hum of a computer and the slow yet heavy footsteps of someone or something. Fully aware that she would be powerless in a physical fight, a thousand scenarios flew through her mind. As the unnamed figure mounted the steps that were in front of her and her escorts, Charlotte glanced down at her feet, the only things she could see through the muffling dark of the sack around her head. The slightest glow of reflected light upon the ground would have rendered her spell-bound under any other situations, but she found herself unable to appreciate the sight, especially once the heavier footsteps came to a full stop. She could hear somebody breathing; the breaths stood out from the other people's, sounding warped and distorted in some unfamiliar way.
Unwarned, the burlap sack was pulled from her head, and she blinked her eyes to adjust to the light. This light, just bursting forth from the gentle hum of an illuminating computer, splashed its glow through the cracks in the ground, across her own body, and across the body of the one who stood in front of her. Charlotte decided that the matter was stranger than she had at first anticipated, and wondered to herself if she would be hit again if she looked up to meet the eyes of whoever stood before her. (The last time that she had looked one of the men in the eye, she had been struck across the face, to the apparent amusement of the thugs with the inflated egos who had held her so tightly before.)
Despite her unwillingness to look up, she could see the bottom fraction of the figure before her, making out thick boots, a military jacket, and impossibly built legs.
"I imagine," spoke the voice of a demon and a lawyer, "that having espoused the idea that you would be killed, you have decided to cast off any obligations laid upon yourself regarding respect."
Charlotte's eyes remained unwavering, as she was certain that he was not speaking to her. After the beating sustained at the hands of the men who stood around her, she felt frozen in whatever place she was put in. Her eyes flickered to her badly bruised wrists, to her torn nail, to the cobblestone crumbs that had been ground painfully into her arms and legs, and she knew that her cause was undoubtedly been lost. Her cause, of course, was to live; she had no hidden agenda or connection to the high-ups of the world, despite what these people seemed to believe.
A sudden shattering blow landed upon her side, and she found herself thrown across the unknown room, her head hitting something hard in the process. A surprised shriek escaped her lips despite herself, and she could do nothing but curl up on her side to hug her knees to her chest and cry silent tears.
"You have been beaten before this today," the voice states, and she knows that this time she is not to reply. A large hand grabs her by the arm and pulls her up, and she looks into his eyes for half a second before squeezing hers tightly shut in terror. A cold pair of blue-black eyes had met her gaze with terrifying suspicion. She opened her eyes again, and found herself staring with naïve, childlike curiosity at the metal mask that bound the powerful man's head in an unbreakable grasp. His eyes skimmed over her body, analyzing for something more than his own perversion. She herself took a moment to examine his figure, impossibly large forearms and a stomach built like a titanium wall meeting her prying eyes. He looked to be almost seven feet tall, his frightening body covered with a long military coat fringed with cropped wool.
"Which of you struck the woman?" he asked coldly and sternly, in reply to the piercing silence that had met his first statement regarding the beatings.
Before an answer could be given, the room echoed with a scream that was not hers. A scream of bloodcurdling pain, the sound of something being snuffed out and shattered like glass, soon accompanied by a thud. Looking up, Charlotte saw one of her escorts slumped to the ground in pain, scream quickly cut off as he fell. Her eyes widened, hands brought to her mouth in shock as she realized that she had witnessed a death. The man's neck was twisted unnaturally to the side, jaw slack, eyes stretched wide open. His skin was pulled taught with his exaggerated expression, his eyes protruding from his head and his face tinged a dull red.
"Get rid of him," the killer muttered, "and wait for my permission to die. You will report back and wait."
When Charlotte, after being beaten against moldy walls and struck by professional hands, struggled to comprehend the acceptance of death by the hands of the man before her, she did not at first recognize the looks on the men's faces which had changed so drastically in such a short amount of time. Before worried and longing for approval, they now bore the expressions of men who were given orders to dig their own graves before getting shot. Once holding a sliver of hope, these men were now hopeless, lifeless. They were accepting their fate.
The huge man before Charlotte shoved her back to the ground before she could bother to protest. Carried away by two younger men who had not been amongst her escorts, and therefore were not yet sentenced to die, his satanic command was the last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness.
