Never

The recognizable chill of being isolated. It was nearly too much to bear…. Enough to wake a hopeless people pleaser from his peaceful sleep…

"Nnnn…" Cade's dull groan tried escaping into the air, though it seemed to be muffled by the odd taste of cloth. He shifted uneasily, quickly finding that his bed had somehow been replaced with a different material entirely. Something incredibly hard and chilly to say the least. Moreover, the memorable feel of his sleeping shirt had disappeared. In confusion, he tried to feel for things around him, but his arms seemed to stubbornly stay in their sleeping state.

This…this wasn't normal…..

Soft brown eyes opened tiredly, his head lifting as Cade's blurry sleep-vision began to fade away. He blinked at familiar chestnut locks, splicing his vision of a room that he never remembered entering. The texture of scratchy fabric scraped along his tongue as his mouth made an attempt to close. His eyes began to widen.

Was…Was this prison?

Cade couldn't recall any crimes he'd committed since falling asleep, but the dim gray of the stone-blocked room, as well as the horrid cloth tied into his mouth, told him otherwise. He jerked his head to the side in an attempt to sweep his bangs out of the way, but was forcefully stopped by the soft skin of his bicep, followed by an even stranger sound: the soft tinkle of chains. Throwing his head back, he stared with disbelief at his hands, each wrist sporting a tight black band of metal with a strong chain of the same material connecting them. A thick rope seemed to attach the binding material to a horizontal bar above him, most likely being the cause for his top limbs' state of uselessness. Cade's head slowly shifted forward.

For a while, Cade sat there, unable to think. It all seemed too confusing to comprehend. It was obvious that he was being punished for something he had done, but he couldn't imagine to whom or how he'd carried out any action that was offensive. Unless, of course, he'd done it unintentionally. It wouldn't be the first time, but he didn't think that he would have done something as terrible as to deserve this kind of retaliation…

Without warning, a loud BANG! echoed across the room, causing Cade to jolt violently. His eyes flashed to a solid stone door he'd failed to notice before, now ajar with two figures replacing its opening. Scrambling to his feet, Cade backed as far as he could from the door, yanking with panicked persistence at the binds that held him to the small corner of the room.

A pale body was thrown into the room, slamming to the cement floor with a deep thud. A black strip of material covered the victim's eyes, blending in with his long tresses of black hair. Deep gray pants clung to his legs, as if he'd been dunked into a pool of water. His hands were conjoined by the same thick rope used to keep Cade's shackles connected to the bar in the roof.

Cade's breath hitched, fear beginning to rise in his throat.

"L-Lucion?" he croaked shakily, though his gag only allowed him to make confusing 'mmmf's.

"Weeeelll look at that! Good morning sunshine!" a mocking tone entered the room, followed by the body of an even more arrogant demon.

Cade struggled to shout at him, more confused than he was angry. In all the years they had been together, he'd never seen his imaginary friend look so different. Deep red and black hair sprouted from the boy's head instead of honey blonde locks. Once kind, chocolate irises had turned into angry red orbs. Black flames stretched from the bottom of his right eyelid.

David chuckled darkly, lifting a bucket he'd brought into the room. "It's about time you woke up," he stated, throwing the contents of the container at the idiot.

Cade flinched at the sensation of cold water crashing into his skin, coughing at the liquid that had managed to invade his throat. He looked up at the boy with an expression of hurt. This seemed to only encourage more laughter.

"Still?" David asked, dropping the bucket to place a hand on his stomach, "You still haven't gotten it yet?"

Cade continued to stare, blind sighted by his question.

David's howls began to fade, replaced with an annoyed frown. He sighed. "I'm not a creation of your mind Cade. Being young and gullible, I knew it wouldn't be hard for you to accept me as your 'imaginary friend'," he spoke, raising his clawed fingers to air quote the last two words, "but I assumed that when you got older, you would realize how impossible it was for me to exist the way I did. Apparently, you're just as stupid as you look." David sneered, taking a few steps closer to the boy.

Cade's head fell to the side in a look of wounded astonishment. His shock kept him from moving.

David mimicked Cade's actions, snorting in amusement. "C'mon Cade. If I'm supposed to be from your mind, then how could I oppose you like I did? How could I do things you weren't aware of? How did I know things that you had no idea about?" he interrogated, pausing just a few feet in front of the teen. His head leaned toward the boy, revealing beige horns that were otherwise hidden beneath his hair. "Imaginary friends can't do that Cade. Yet, because I wouldn't show myself to anyone but you, you thought I was. How dull." Satisfied, David rose back to his original position, watching with slight joy as Cade's mentality began to crumble. He could see it on his face. The moron was pathetically easy to read. A small bulb lit in the demon's head.

"Do you understand now?" he jeered, almost unable to contain himself. "You have no real friends Cade. You're all alone, just like your father said you would be. There was a reason he would beat you y'know?"

Cade averted his eyes, his hands beginning to tighten. Don't listen. Don't listen.

"It's because he could see more than normal people could," David continued without mercy, "He saw me, following you around. He thought that if he beat you, I would disappear. He was trying to protect you Cade. And what did you do to thank him? Hm? Oh yes. That's right. You killed him didn't you? Tore him limb from limb. Did the same to your poor mother, and she had nothing to do with it at all."

A soft thud resounded from the granite as Cade fell to his knees. A distant, broken appearance carved onto his face. This wasn't happening. He was asleep in his bed. He'd forgotten to take his medication and this was just another horrid nightmare. It wasn't real. This couldn't be-

Cade's thoughts were blown from his mind as a strong hand stung across his face.

"Neh, listen to me when I'm talking to you…" David's cool voice taunted, "I'm telling you what you need to hear. You massacred your parents because they loved you. They were trying to protect you, but you killed them anyway. Do you know what that's called Cade? It's called murd-"

"Shut up, bastard."

David's red eyes flared as he was shoved to the cement, quickly catching himself with his hands. Spinning himself around, he glared ferociously at the darker haired boy standing above him with the same stare of hatred. The demon internally cursed himself for not tying the human's hands behind him. He hadn't wanted that blindfold off yet.

Icy blue eyes burned deep holes into his opponent, though Lucion impulsively moved them to the target of this man's brutal abuse.

"Cade, don't listen to this foolish excuse of a person," he attempted to help; he knew that it wouldn't compare to the damage he had already been through. Then again, there wasn't anything a person could say after something like that. He felt a bit relieved as the boy lifted his head, obviously looking to him for rescue from his pit of hopelessness. Lucion turned back, intending to defeat the 'bastard' to find that he'd vanished. Alarm shot through him as a furious hand clenched the back of his throat.

"Are all of you humans ignorant?"

Cade's screams were hindered as he watched Lucion's body slam against the stone wall to his right. He watched, useless, as the two struggled against one another, yanking violently at the rope that kept him from lashing out.

Lucion's teeth clenched as he found himself pinned to the ground. He glowered daggers into the male above him, using all of his strength to get out of the hold he'd been put in. He found no such luck.

"Now, now," David cooed, holding the teenager's hands together with one hand while his free hand dipped into his onyx vest, "don't think I've forgotten about you. You're here for a very special reason." A syringe of clear liquid appeared, clasped into the palm that had searched for it. He watched the panic spread into his opposing victim as he jammed the needle into the boy's neck and squeezed the liquid into his bloodstream.

He might as well have been injecting Lucion with fire. An intense heat flared across every inch of his skin, leaving him gasping for air. He barely noticed himself being grabbed by his hair and jerked forward. He found relief in the cool skin of David's cheek as the demon pressed it against his own. He stared, pained, at Cade, realizing that he'd failed him.

"I need you to eliminate the rest of his sanity so I can have his body. Just do what your body tells you and take his innocence. I'll make sure he doesn't resist," David informed before letting his deep purple, forked tongue slide across the side of Lucion's face, finding great pleasure in his resulting shiver. A few minutes is all it would take for the lust to take over his defenseless body. Humans were so easy to control.

Dropping the raven-haired male, David stood and began striding toward his next victim, who seemed endless in his gagged shrieks. A hand once again delved into his vest.

Eyes locked onto the listless, panting Lucion, tears had already begun streaming down the adolescent's face. It seemed as if every person who'd ever shown him kindness was bound to suffer. As if his very being were a deadly poison to everyone around him. Coffee irises rose to question painfully the logic in such torture. He backed away as far as the rope would allow, all too aware of the approaching danger. As a last resort, he silenced his screams into stifled words. He opened his palms towards his attacker in a way of pleading for a pause.

David's brow wrinkled in aggravation at Cade's actions. He stopped a few inches in front of the boy, releasing his hand from his clothes and letting it hang limply to his side. A light blue tinge stained the contents of a new syringe. After a brief moment of contemplation, he blinked.

"Alright, what are your last words?" he asked with an irritated tone, grabbing Cade's gag and lifting it just enough to let him speak.

"You can have it!" Cade cried, staring with fearful intensity at David, "You can take my body! I don't want it! Just don't hurt anyone David please! Take it!"

David's face watched blankly before erupting into roars of laughter. "You think it's that simple?" he questioned between cackles, "If all I needed was your consent, I would have had your body a long time ago!" He shoved the gag back into Cade's mouth. Grabbing his chin, he yanked the youth forward, bringing sinister lips to his ear.

"I need you absolutely broken."

Cade's body stiffened as a sharp pain entered his neck, feeling the foreign substance thrive into his system. A sudden weakness spread across his body. Falling to the floor and dangling by his hands, he found it hard to concentrate on anything. It was as if he wanted desperately to fall asleep, but couldn't. A frail whimper escaped from his mouth as something hard was shoved into the front of his pants. Hanging his head, he couldn't muster enough energy to be surprised at the knife looking up at him, its hilt buried in his boxers.

"Little something to give you both some more wiggle room," David smiled, flicking the rope that held Cade suspended from the floor, "Ask Lucion to release you. He should be more than obliged to help," he grinned darkly, heading for the door. He paused a few feet in front of it, turning his head to the side.

"Oh, and I did give you two a way of escaping. But with the intelligence I've seen from you both, I'm confident you won't be able to figure out." With that, a familiar BANG! signaled that the two were trapped.