AN: This first chapter is darker than the others, and since the story gets lighter from here on I've decided to give it a T rating. Spoilers if you haven't read The Infernal Devices. If you haven't read The Infernal Devices, GO READ THEM NOW. This first chapter is the last of the three days Jem and his parents were held captive by the Greater Demon Yanlou as seen through Jem's perspective. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the story!

All TID characters belong to Cassandrs Clare.

It was happening again.

He was bound to the chair; the ropes biting into his wrists and ankles were covered in dried blood, and the smell of rot and something sickeningly bittersweet made it hard to breathe. The last of these things was what made his muddled thoughts sharpen immediately. Young as he was he was, he was still a Shadowhunter; he knew there were demons in the room before he opened his eyes, even without the tell-tale stench of them. That wasn't what had woken him though. It was his mother, calling for him over and over, her beautiful voice strangled by grief and exhaustion.

"Jian, Jian my baw bei ,Jian please, hold on," she cried. She was bound like he was, and there were long claw marks on her arm from when she'd resisted.

Don't cry Mama, it's alright, he tried to say. A gag was covering his mouth though, and she couldn't hear him. It wouldn't have helped even if she had heard him though; she would have known he was lying. Nothing was alright. Yanluo and a group of other demons had tunneled into the Shanghai Institute and killed everyone but Jem and his mother, even his papa… and now he was dying too. He could feel the demon poison they had forced down his throat creeping through his veins, growing ever closer to his heart. When it got there his heart would be strangled by the toxins and stop beating, and then he would die.

He wouldn't give up though. He was a Carstairs, the son of the heads of the Shanghai Institute. His papa, a brilliant and respected shadowhunter from England, who knew more about demon-tracking than anyone else and could play music so beautiful it would break the hardest of hearts. His mama, a force to be reckoned with, who was renowned around the world for her combat skills, and had single-handedly killed the offspring of the Greater Demon Yanluo.

Yanlou was enraged. He'd planned his revenge, searched for any way through the wards protecting the Institute, and then crept in like a nightmare with his followers, killing shadowhunters asleep in their beds, and then slaughtering the rest. The only ones spared were those who were away on a hunt. That wasn't enough for Yanlou though. He wanted Jem's mother to suffer, so he'd decided to repay the favor and kill her son. So for the past three days, they'd been in Hell. At least, he thought it was Hell. Where else could there be so much pain and misery?

For hours on end that felt more like weeks, the poison would cloud his mind, overtaking any sense of reality and trapping him in a dimension of hallucinations and horror as his body shook and fought a losing battle against the contaminant. His mother begged him to hold on again, but he was only a child, and he couldn't hold on much longer. He'd nearly given up on the second day when he saw his papa dead, his neck snapped, and heard his mama's racking sobs echo through the study. It was hard to see in the darkness, but he'd been able to make out his father's figure, and he'd immediately known something was wrong. His father was never arrogant, but he was proud. Proud of being a shadowhunter and protecting the world, proud of his beautiful, intelligent wife, and proud of his young son Jem. That was why, when Jem saw his shoulders slumped and his head hanging, he knew he was dead.

Jem was pulled from his dark memories as a prickling sensation on the back of his neck encouraged him to try and see through the dark. Something was happening.

He could hear Yanlou and another of the demons speaking in a language that sounded like stone being scraped against dry bones, and then had to squeeze his eyes closed against the sudden light. A candle, as well as part of the holder, had been lit, and Jem once again recoiled at the sight of the monsters as his eyes adjusted. It was grotesque, with warped, blackened skin stretched over a humanoid/reptilian figure, sharp, curving claws, and cavernous eyes dark as the abyss set back into its skull. He couldn't even begin to describe Yanlou. He shivered as the Greater Demon's gaze swept over him, and suddenly he realized his mother had stopped calling for him.

She was glaring with unspeakable hatred at Yanlou, her usually calm features contorted into a mask of fury.

"Hell spawn," she snarled, her voice low. "You will pay for what you have done. For the lives you and your followers have stolen. For harming my family. I will destroy you beyond the point of any recovery, and you will never see another day in this dimension or any other."

Jem had never seen his mother look so frightening, but Yanlou seemed unimpressed. This time when he spoke it was in English.

"Strong words from such a fragile creature," he said, as one of the lesser demons began skirting the edges of the room, making its way slowing towards Jem and his mother. He tried to call out to warn her, but to no avail, her attention was focused solely on the monster that had taken everything from her.

"If I am so fragile then why do you keep me bound?" She hissed. "Untie me and let us fight, you coward."

"The fight is over Nephilim," he replied with eerie calm. "You've lost." The lesser demon was drawing close now, and Jem used all his remaining energy to topple his chair over. Immediately, two pairs of eyes focused on him, one was his mother's alarmed gaze, the other two unreadable pools of darkness. Jem willed his mother to turn her head, just enough to see the other demon, now right behind them. Yanlou saw where his frantic gaze led, and laughed. Jem's heart sank.

"Your mother's death will not be painless. I'd thought to make her watch your demise," he said, ignoring Jem's mother's cry of rage, "but as your pain seems to further her own, perhaps you should be the one to watch." That was when Jem realized with strange detachment that the demon had not been coming to kill his mother; it had been coming to kill him.

"The last thing she sees will be your despair," Yanlou said. And with that, the lesser demon sprung forward, and slashed his mother's neck before she could so much as blink. Crimson blood flowed over her pale skin and stained her clothes, and she gasped for air. Her eyes met Jem's and undying love for her child shown in her gaze.

"Wo hǔzǐ. Wo ai ni Jian, wo ain ni," she whispered, as the light left her eyes.

For the second time, Jem felt a piece of his soul being ripped away, and he felt nothing could be worse than the pain he felt then. He was wrong.

The poison in his blood was getting stronger, and he thought he would pass out from the pain as his chair was righted and he found himself face-to-face with Yonlou.

"You will be dead in a matter of hours," he said without feeling. "So I am leaving you here as my messenger. You will tell the other Nephilim what has happened here. You will tell them what happens when they cross a Greater Demon." He turned and left without another word, extinguishing the candle as he passed with his followers trailing after him, and then Jem was alone in the dark.

Jem was silent. The study was spattered with blood, the furniture was broken to pieces, and the place Jem had always called home was now a tomb.

It was too much to comprehend. He was alive, but not for long. His life was over before it had ever begun.

…

Jem had retreated into the farthest corner of his mind, and so, when he distantly heard the other shadowhunters returned, he did not move. When they raced past the trail of bodies leading to the study he didn't call for help. When they burst through the doors he didn't flinch. And when one shadowhunter checked his pulse and said in shock, "By the Angel, he's alive!" Jem did not respond, and he didn't fight when the world around him faded to black.

2nd AN: I apologize for the cruelty. I promise it will not always be this depressing! For everyone who doesn't speak Mandarin, at the beginning Jem's mother is saying "Jem, Jem my baby, Jem hold on" (Jian is Jem's birth name, though nobody but his mother seems to call him by it). At the end she is simply saying "My tiger cub (tiger cub just being an affectionate nickname for a brave child.) of . I love you Jem, I love you." Questions, comments, ramblings, are always welcome, and I hope you enjoyed!