Heather didn't know how much time had passed since she had fainted. It took her some time to remember what had happened to her, and when she did she nearly fainted again. She didn't know what happened after she fainted, she didn't remember a few things before she fainted for that matter, but whatever happened led up to where she was now.

Another thing she didn't know was where that man went. She knew that he said his name was Demyx, but she didn't exactly have her full trust in the stranger that wore all black that she found asleep on her couch. Then again she had never heard such a bizarre name before. It didn't make much sense to her as to why he would call himself that of all things instead of something like 'Bill' if he actually was lying. Maybe telling her such a freaky fake name was meant to throw her off. Then again it could be a cult name. Then again he could just be insane.

That was something she didn't want to waste her time thinking about. She was aware that she didn't know quite a few more things about her situation besides those ones she had thought of, but she did happen to know a couple of important things. One was that her arms were itching like mad and it was driving her insane. Two was that she was blindfolded. A third was that she was gagged. Four was that she was tied to a chair.

That made her know only one thing for sure, and that was that she was being held hostage in her own home.

The average person would become scared when they were held hostage. Heather was an average person, and scared she was indeed. For the first time in her life she was a damsel in distress. Now, a proper damsel in distress would feel fright unquestionably, but that damsel would manage to plan her escape. She would control her emotions and would take notes of everything that happened around her. She would memorize her prison's layout. She wouldn't let herself be manipulated by her captor. Then, in the very end, she would be prepared to work with or without her respective hero in order to escape what would have been her cruel fate. Such a courageous and intelligent woman would be a truly remarkable person remembered for times to come, even if only in history books.

Heather did not fit that description.

She was terrified. She was so terrified that she couldn't work herself to do much of anything at all besides breathe. Even though she recognized that she didn't have to be consumed by her emotions in this situation she also recognized that there was just no way for her to change the fact that she was. She had felt fearful her whole life, but she had never felt fear like this. There was no reassurance. There was no way out. She felt like a helpless little girl. She was a helpless little girl. Eighteen was legally an adult in her area yes, but legality meant nothing to a person's real mentality.

She was a terrified teenage girl and there was nothing to change that.

Had the man robbed her house? The question had crossed her mind a few times, but she was incapable of answering it. She had no way to know after all. She couldn't see her furniture missing. She couldn't get up to feel if it was gone.

The man's intentions were unknown to her.

Other questions invaded her mind. Some of them were disturbing while others were silly little things created from her paranoia. One of them was when she actually wondered at one point if he had really returned moments before, had started a fire in her house, and it was only a matter of time before she turned to ashes with the building. If that were true, she'd smell the smoke. Another one was that he was actually standing right by her and was just staring at her. The rarely heard from rational side of her brain told her that couldn't be possible since she would hear him breathing in that case.

She didn't know what chair she was in. She could tell that she was tied to a chair, but she couldn't identify it as one of her house's chairs. If she was tied to one of her chairs then she would at least be assured that she was within her own home. Somewhere deep inside of her she realized that it was wrong to keep her hopes up, but she kept on telling herself that she was in her own home. She kept telling herself how stupid it would be to go to the trouble of moving someone to a completely different location when that person could wake up at any moment only to tie them up on a chair there instead of chair that was only a few feet away. That calmed her down a bit, but that seed of doubt wasn't withering. Without that knowledge she really had no idea where she was, and no matter what she thought of she found that it scared her. That really scared her.

Where could that Demyx have taken her if she wasn't in her house?

She could be anywhere. She didn't have any way to know. It's not like she could take that blindfold off of her face and look to see where she was. It could also be any time of the day. It could even be night. She didn't know how long she had been unconscious. She didn't know long she had been conscious. She knew that the man hadn't been around since she had woken up, but who knows what else he had done to her while she was knocked out. She did her very best to ignore that thought, and nibbled on her lip. That man could've already done something to her. He could also be planning to do something to her right now and she had no way to know. She had no way to know anything.

A clicking sound broke the silence around her.

It stopped for a moment before it continued again. The clicking quickly turned into a jingling sound and then there was a pop. The jingling started again, but this time it was almost instantly stopped to be replaced with a swinging sound. It took the sound of a light bang for her to realize that it was a door opening and closing. A second after the door was closed she recognized the sound of repetitive thuds approaching her. As the footsteps got closer she heard that all familiar rustling along with it.

"Oh. So you're awake."

It was Demyx.

Heather remained silent; not that she could speak with the gag over her mouth in the first place.

She heard the sound of his cloak shuffle again, and she deducted that he had moved closer to her. The rustling sound his cloak made gently before was now louder as he performed some sort of body movement that was more complicated than simply walking. She wondered what it was for a moment before she felt what had to be some of his hair on her face. Not just any hair, it felt like individual strands of hair; long hair. He was leaning over her.

"Well then Heather, I guess you would like it if you could get up right now, huh? Stretch your legs a little. Everyone needs to get up and move around after sitting for a long time, trust me, I know. Oh yeah, sorry about the angle I put you at, your back must be killing you by now. I'm pretty clumsy when it comes to restraints I guess…" He said casually.

Heather nibbled on the inside of her lip behind her gag.

"Well now, in order to get up the question is if you want to get up or not." He said.

She remained quiet, hoping that if she didn't show any obvious reactions to his taunting then he would be more inclined to stop. He was taunting her right? That boyish voice, the casual attitude, it all had to be his way of mocking her. She'd been teased before. If she didn't entertain him then he would stop. Maybe if she were to act completely worthless to him then he would just forget about her.

"Well?"

She squeezed her eyes shut behind her blindfold.

"Do you?"

She didn't say anything for a moment. Was he actually being serious about what he was saying? No he couldn't be… could he? She was still uncertain about his intentions, but she struggled against her bindings to nod her head affirmatively nonetheless.

He snickered.

She stiffened as she felt him reach his arms around her. She remained frozen as his hands reached her ears, and she started to feel tugging on the cloth around her eyes. He was actually taking off her blindfold. She waited anxiously for a few seconds, but the blindfold still wasn't off. She sat there, confused, and only a few moments later realized that the fact that her hair was scrunching up with the blindfold's knot seemed to be giving him some trouble with getting it off.

With a little bit of intelligible muttering he successfully removed the blindfold from her head and all of a sudden they were face to face. She bit her tongue on reflex in her shock. The only reason she could tell that they were face to face was because of the positioning of his head. He still had that hood up, so she couldn't make out any detail of his face. His entire head was hidden away in his cloak. How that hood on his cloak managed to shadow his entire face black in this lighting she didn't know. He was the only one really looking at a face.

"That's a start. I'll stop here for now. You'll have to be on your best behavior if you want to be untied." He said smartly. After he spoke he immediately straightened himself up and walked out of her line of sight. For the very first time today she felt thankful for something he did.

By turning away when he did he didn't get to see her shudder.

He scared her. She had been scared many times in her life, but she had never been so scared by a single person before. Well, technically, not since the boogeyman anyway, but she didn't even count that since it was just a fictional character.

Demyx was not.

Heather quickly looked around herself now that she was able to. With a little amount of relief she realized that she was in the dining area of her house. She was tied to one of the worst chairs in the house, but she was still in her house. Now that she looked down at herself she recognized the materials she was bound with as the rope and suspenders from the hallway closet.

It had sounded like Demyx had come from one of the bedrooms, and when he left a moment ago he went down the hall. It took him a few extra seconds before the he used a door again, so he had to be in her parents' bedroom. If he went into her bedroom then he would have opened the door as soon as he went down the hallway, and he wouldn't have gone down the hallway in the first place if he went to the other one.

The sound of a squeaky door opening along with the sound of light footsteps separated her from her thought process.

"I'm sorry for the trouble I caused." Demyx said as he emerged from the hallway, his voice still in that friendly tone. He stopped in place for a moment, scratched his arm, and then continued on.

"It's just that with my own situation I just can't let you do what you want right now. It's a bit of a policy. Now don't get upset; this is going to be pretty straightforward. Since I just met you I didn't know for sure if you'd go with the whole 'I didn't see you, you didn't see me' deal, so that's why you're currently tied up. Oh, uh, yeah, don't get your hopes up for that by the way; it's not an option."

He walked closer to her, and pulled the chair next to the one she was tied to out from underneath the dining table. The chair she in was facing away from the table, so he turned the chair he was in to face her. She looked at him expressionlessly as eyes could get as he sat in it backwards and casually propped his arms on the back of it.

"Personally, I don't like having to do this. It's a lot of work, and that's always a bummer." He shrugged his shoulders as he said that with a monotone. "The thing is that I actually have to do all of this work, so I suppose I shouldn't complain when this could be a lot worse. It's more of a problem for you really. I'm afraid you won't be leaving your place here anytime soon; if you get out of that chair in the first place."

Heather let her eyes drift away from him in discomfort. He was still in her peripheral vision, but with her head tied in place there was nothing that she could do about that. It was creepy looking at a shadow knowing that there was a hidden face behind it. It was like being watched by a ghost. She hoped that he was too busy talking to notice her movements. She wasn't that lucky.

"C'mon, don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you. I won't let you die of starvation, dehydration, or something." Demyx said in a reassuring tone, and then he added on what seemed to be an afterthought "Trust me on the dehydration."

Heather blinked her eyes very slowly in an attempt to calm herself, as it was the only action that she could really perform while immobilized. She turned her eyes back at him, hoping to catch a glimpse of his face, but discovered that the action she made had been a mistake. She couldn't move her eyes anymore. They were frozen in place like the rest of her body. She had the spine-chilling, distinct feeling that he was looking her dead in the eyes. She felt too scared to move anything anymore.

"I won't let you leave, but I'll let you live."

He leaned in closer to her face, and she knew for certain now that they were making eye contact. Saliva started to rush into her mouth. With the few inches separating them she could blurrily make out the shape of his face.

"Now it's just your choice." He said; his voice in that hauntingly friendly tone. "Will you be cooperative with me, or are you going to be a problem? If you don't answer soon then I'll have to answer for you. No pressure or anything, uh, y'know."

Heather remained speechless. She wasn't thinking over her response; she was just frozen. She couldn't move at all. She wanted to give him her answer, but with all of the restraints on her she found no way to communicate with him. Her mouth was gagged, and she couldn't find the energy within herself to fight at the restraints to move her head. She had absolutely no way to speak with him. Didn't he realize that she couldn't do anything?

In the very next moment he reached over again and loosened the rope around her neck.

Oh. He did.

"So?" He asked, leaning back a little on the already backwards chair.

She nodded.

"Alright then." He said.

He stood up from the chair and not so gently shoved the chair back into its original place. He turned in place and walked behind her. Her throat went dry. The bombarding of questions hit her once more as she felt his hands go along her back. She heard some off scrapping noises, and she only realized what he was doing when the bindings around her fell to the floor. He let out a sigh that sounded similar to one of relief as he walked in front of her.

This was the first time she got to see his cloak in detail. She had never seen this sort of clothing before. Length wise it covered almost his entire body, leaving only his boots uncovered. Although that changed as he pulled the bottom zipper of the double zipper up so his lower legs were exposed. He was wearing black boots that had unusual silver lining at the top. In exchange for strings the hood adjusters were made with silver beads. Above the upper zipper was an oddly sophisticated appearing silver chain. What unnerved her in particular was the stitching made on the cloak that outlined the crevices of his chest in disturbingly precise detail.

"There are going to be some rules you'll have to listen to. The rules are so that we basically don't get the other person mad or anything. Don't worry; I'll be following some of my own rules so I don't bother you. Well for you, number one is that you can't leave the house." He stopped for a moment and apparently looked at her paling face. "I know that sounds bad, but it really isn't. You have enough food for a few weeks; nothing to worry about there. Plus it's not like I'm going to steal you away from the world, so you'll be able to leave at some point. For now though, I'm sorry if you have any plans, but, well, you just can't show up…"

His voice started to become obstructed as he went on, so he stopped for a moment to clear his throat. He sheepishly rubbed the back of his covered neck before he continued on.

"While you're in here you can do whatever you normally do; I won't stop you from doing any of the stuff you have fun doing. Another one of the rules is that you can't contact anyone. At all. I might make an exception at some point, but that'll be pretty unlikely. If anyone contacts you then you just have to keep the conversation brief and keep quiet about me. I'm gonna' give you fair warning in saying you won't be the only one in trouble if you do otherwise."

He remained silent for a moment, letting the message sink in.

Even if he waited for an hour, she would still be having trouble just coming to terms with the first rule.

"The last thing really isn't really a rule, but a little notice. I'm going to have an eye on you, so don't take it too personally when you find that you have less time to yourself. Like I said, the rules can be a bit more lenient to you if you're doing the things that I tell you are alright to do. I'm not trying to be a bad guy, but that's just how things have to be for a while. That's pretty much it! See, nothing completely horrible. I'm not going to make you my slave or anything. Well, with that out of the way, is there anything you're confused about?"

Heather nibbled the inside of her lip nervously behind her gag.

"Oh, uh, right." He said and then reached over her. She felt like wincing, but she was too startled by his sudden movements to budge.

The gag around her mouth loosened, and she reflexively blinked. Demyx dangled the gag in front of her cheerfully before releasing it from his grasp, letting it fall onto the dining table. Now that she got to see it she realized that her gag was actually one of the table's cloth napkins.

"Now then, is there anything you don't get?" He asked.

She nibbled on her lip again in response, but she tried to make it as discreet as she possibly could. She let her eyes dart to her right side once again in her discomfort and simply hoped that he wouldn't notice her movements.

He did.

"C'mon, you don't have to be scared. I don't bite. If you have something to ask just ask." He said, and his relaxed attitude seemed even more casual when he added a shrug to his statement.

"..Uhm…" She started, but she had to look away again. She looked back at his direction and just hoped he wasn't making eye contact with her. "I was… uhm… what did y-you mean by l-less time with myself?"

"Oh." He said, perking up. "Well that one's easy. I thought it was pretty obvious since I haven't blown the house up or anything. You don't remember what I said to you before you fainted, huh? Well, I'm gonna' be living here with you for a while."

"...what?" She whispered.

"I'm going to be staying around in this town, in this house." He explained slowly, and that was the moment when she realized that she had spoken her astonished question aloud. He took a second to breathe. For him it was probably only that, a second, but for her it felt like minutes. Time was passing as it normally did. To her it was that every moment of silence was unbearable.

"I woke up here in the first place, so I decided that staying here would be the best option. I won't cause you any problems, and you won't cause me any problems. Simple, right? Plus, if you scratch my back I'll scratch yours. I'll make it up to you at some point; I promise." He said cheerfully, his voice ringing with playfulness by his last sentence.

She felt like gulping.

"Now..." Demyx casually spread his hand out in front of her in offering, unbothered by the chains on his cloak clattering against him as he bent down to her sitting level. "How about you show me around, huh?"

Heather bit her lip and hoped with all of her pitiful might that her tears wouldn't fall.