Hm. Well... This is based very loosely off of chapters... 31 - ? Whenever Ciel meets Baron Kelvin and recreates his time when he was a slave/capture/whatevs.

This is pretty much... Just Ciel reliving his past. Kinda. It's confusing. Ahahaha, how I love Ciel torture.

Don't ask me where Sebastian is. I don't know. He... flew away for a lil' bit. Semi-AU

Warning: This contains dark themes and violence.


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Burning. He was burning. It started slow – as slow as a worm creeping it's way desperately, helplessly, across the pavement with small, inching wiggles of its body – and when its confidence seemed to rise to an extreme, it was going faster. Faster, faster, faster, until everything was burning. Indescribable burning, inescapable. It wasn't going to stop, never.

- - - /

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

Cra–

There was a sudden pause to the horrible, stinging lashes, and for a moment, he thought he was safe. No, wait. He knew he wasn't safe, and he would never think something… so foolish; even if he were not here, he still would not be safe. No matter where he went, he was robbed of the gentle caress of safety. Once you lost something – especially something that you loved – then you could never obtain it once more.

This was the one thing that he knew best.

- - - /

Payment, they said. All in due time.

That was their reason for… repeating this? They had it down almost perfectly – down the very tainting of his soul and his body, down to every sting and gasp and–

To rid him of his sins. They couldn't see, they were blind; metaphorically speaking, that is (of course?). This only deepened his long, flowing stream, his long, unforgiving list of sins. Slowly, they were adding on and on, until there was no longer any room left for his soul to achieve another sin.

Without knowing it, they were even completing their own long list of sins, one by one.

How utterly arrogant… How horribly selfish… How goddamn sinful human beings were.

Pathetic, he'd say. Shameful.

To even think that he was one of them.

- - - /

Is the pain so strong; am I so numb that I can no longer move my limbs?

He wasn't sure what was happening anymore. His mind was fuzzy, incoherent thoughts buzzing around his head. He tried, desperately, to grab a hold of them and to force himself not to let go, but of course, he never got his way anymore. He never got anything anymore, to put it simply. All he had were his sins to accompany him in such a dark, desolate prison.

For what seemed to be the first time in years, he opened his eyes and saw light. How long had he been here? No, that was a stupid question. He wouldn't waste his question on that.

He turned his fragile head, small tendrils of dark gray – or was that navy? – falling into his sight and temporarily blinding him. He panicked, afraid that the darkness would come again to encase him in its everlasting presence, but once he finally calmed down enough to realize that it was a few strands of his hair, he let out an inaudible sigh.

This was… eerily familiar. The room, his surroundings, the feeling welling deep, first in his stomach, then coming to a bubbly feeling in his chest, and finally reaching his throat where it exploded with a repulsive, dreadful, horrifying – whatever you would call it – realization that made him shiver and tremble so terribly that if he weren't strapped down, he would've fallen off of the cold, metal table.

Again. Again. Again.

If his throat were not dry and cracked beyond any form of communication now, he would've been past screaming. He would be shrieking and screeching, searching for any type of name or something that could help him escape.

Escape. Escape. Escape.

His mind, a broken record it seemed, was whirling and spiraling, trying to find a way to tell himself that

this wasn't happening

it was a dream and that he'd be okay. He would escape, somehow, to somewhere, far unbeknownst to him at the moment.

- - - /

His lone, blue eye – blue, the color of a deep ocean, blue, the color of his very veins running through his body – spun around frantically, and now the light was so very terrifying, bright, and unknown. Now, he wished for the pressuring darkness, to be relieved of his sight and hopefully be able to lose his consciousness somehow.

For the first time, he noticed the movement. For the first time, he noticed the cool, unbelievably chilled, feeling that was ever so constant on his back, his arms, his neck, legs, everything else in between. It was barely wide enough to hold his malnourished, underweight body, but it was almost double his height in length. He wasn't sure where, or by what, his hands were attached… He could feel his muscles, sore and unused to stretching this way, aching and pleading for his arms to be clamped down once more by his sides.

Agony. Agony. Agony.

- - - /

His body, weak and yet trembling ferociously, convulsed as his dull gaze found… them. Though they looked nothing like they did before, that didn't change what they did or were going to do. They were the same as they were three years ago.

Inescapable.

Their eyes… studying him, watching him as if he were some big feast that they couldn't wait to dig their grubby fingers and their rotten, ugly teeth into. He could see their eyes, full of (blood)lust and determination and a mix of many other dark, desiring, sinful emotions that he couldn't quite place his finger on.

Their hands – he could practically see the dried, crusted blood covering them and burrowing underneath their fingernails. He tried cringing away, though it was a foolish, useless attempt and gained him nothing but a quickening heartbeat and an increase in fear.

Their hands were ghosting over him – over his eyelids that were purple and bruised and struggling to stay open – and around his neck that was covered with small pricks of the sweet, delectable red liquid that they craved oh so much – and down, down, down.

He could almost feel all the bruises and gashes covering his body – all perfectly laid out on his body like clues, all laid out and delivered in the same fashion, and all as painful as the first time they were given to him, what seemed to be, a lifetime ago.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

He couldn't help it. Small rivulets, finally being released from their struggling, unwilling master, cascaded down his cheeks. Looking up at them through long eyelashes – encased in silver so delicately, so innocently, that he was no longer Earl Ciel Phantomhive. He was the same as the ten-year-old child he used to be nearly three years before.

- - - /

Flashing. It caught the light so divinely and royally, yet with the menacing sting a knife could only obtain, that for a moment it was like a feather of an angel instead of a bite of a demon.

With a revolting squelching sound, it impacted the yellowing, soft layer of skin so hastily – without so much as a hesitation from the one carrying the sin. Though it was meant to be a clean, immaculate gash, it was delivered with a sense of impatience and clumsiness that only accompanied a child.

"Sebas–"

"Sebastia–"

"Sebastian!"

- - - /

Through the haziness of pain, he couldn't quite figure out how his dry, parched throat could emit the sound, or how his cracked, bleeding lips could form the words. A scream, somehow created in the hollow of his gashed

torn, bleeding, dying,

stomach.

He could feel his eyes becoming unfocused, but it didn't seem to faze him in the least. He was long past seeing – his eyes had focused, but had never truly seen.

Blood.

Red, red, blood, everywhere. That was all his unseeing eyes could make out.

"Sebastian."

"Sebas… tian. Now. Take it."

"Sebastian! Take my godforsaken, wretched soul already! I do not want it any longer! What are you waiting for, demon? Sebastian!"

Deep, gasping breaths. Once more…

"Sebastian, Sebastian, Sebastian… Please. I order you… to take my soul." A long, nerve-wracking pause. Where was he again?

"Yes, my lord."

- - - /

For one to say that they are not afraid of death is a liar. Though one would never like to admit defeat or weakness, everyone is afraid of death some point, whether it be early in their life, later and throughout, or at the exact moment that death is crawling and itching its way up their throat. We are humans, and as humans, we are all afraid of the unknown.

Death is the unknown, so, evidently, humans are afraid of death.

Humans are simple. Humans are weak, selfish, greedy, lustful, arrogant, and everything else in between.

We seem to have everything, don't we?

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