The first thing he felt when he woke up, was slightly dizzy. He had trouble remembering where he was or what had happened, and for some reason his upper body was really aching.

It took Kurt a minute or so of adjusting before he opened his eyes. And the sight was so jarringly wrong that he finally realized he hadn't been asleep. Or at least not asleep the way he had been expecting to. He saw a huge lamp that was mercilessly shining down on his face while everything else was shrouded in darkness. It was probably a room much larger than the circle of the light, but how far it actually went he had no way of guessing.

It took him another few seconds to realize that he was sitting up. Not just sitting up sleeping, but tied to a chair.

Panic began to set in, and he started struggling against his restraints, but his arms felt sluggish, and when he kicked out, he almost set the chair of balance, so he stopped. Whatever was going on, whatever the reason for him being her was, he sincerely doubted that it would be significantly improved by lying on his side tied to a chair, as opposed to sitting on it.

His breathing got faster, and it was the only sound all throughout the room. What happened?, he asked himself and tried to sort his thoughts, but his memories seemed to be jumbled mess.

He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, but that only made the room feel as though it was spinning again. Maybe it really was spinning, who knew? He didn't exactly have a point of reference, here.

He vaguely remembered school, and his first instinct was that this was probably some sort of elaborate prank to… something. Something the jocks had probably thought of to humiliate them, but then this, whatever it was seemed a little too elaborate for the jocks to have come up with it, so… well maybe they'd gotten bored with their usual fare, but weren't Karofsky and Santana and their anti bullying movement supposed to make sure something like this didn't happen?

The bully whips was a really dumb name. Really dumb. How had he not mentioned that to them yet? Impeccable self control, probably. Also the fact that Karofsky had tried to kill him once.

Maybe it was him? But… he had really gotten better, and after the whole prom thing Kurt had really been convinced that Dave meant his apology…

It occurred to him then that the school day had finished and he'd gone on his costumery coffee date with Blaine… was Blaine here? He looked around frantically for a moment, but he was most definitely alone. Within his field of vision, anyway.

He'd gotten home. Home, and the door had rung, and…

Seriously?

A psychotic serial killer, who rang the doorbell? The freaking doorbell, at four in the afternoon? For real?

Then again… serial killer loose, waking up in a strange place tied to a chair with dramatic lighting? Not good. Not good at all.

His heart was beating so fast by now he was convinced anyone walking by would have heard it. He looked down at himself, maybe checking if it was visible, too, or maybe checking if all his limbs were still where he remembered them to be (they were, thankfully) but then noticed something almost as horrifying.

He was wearing different clothes. A plain white button down shirt that he really liked because you could pair it with any vest and a pair of black slacks. No shoes. So whatever was going to happen today, he would get cold feet.

More to the point, whoever had taken him here had actually undressed him and put him in different clothes, and that made him feel vaguely sick.

And… those were his clothes. Of course they were, he knew the material, they fit him perfectly…

An irrational wave of anger filled him. Whatever they'd done to him, well, okay, he'd been unconscious, so who cared, but they'd not only kidnapped him, redressed him, and sort of invaded his home (even if he had been the one to open the door), they had violated his privacy in one of the most personal ways to him possible. They'd went through his clothes. His closet, his massive collection of designer clothes that visitors (including family) were only ever allowed to gaze upon, and maybe on occasion be allowed to hold a few selected items.

Whoever this was had simply ignored all of that and just decided they needed him to wear something else, so they'd rummaged through his sacred shrine of clothes and to top it off picked out something completely bland.

„Right on schedule", a female voice suddenly announced out of nowhere, and just as quickly he completely lost his train of thought on the clothes thing. „To be honest, I was worried you'd take much longer to wake up, since I had to guesstimate the dosage. But it seems I was pretty much spot on. Maybe that's a skill I can put to good use later in my life." The voice seemed to be coming closer, and Kurt nervously looked around trying to guess where it was coming from.

„You know. Since unlike some, my life is still going to continue beyond this night." He didn't know if it was the content or the way she said it, but it made him shiver. Probably visibly. Which he really didn't want to be doing.

Nobody pushes the Hummels around, he reminded himself. She wanted to make him scared, and even though she was definitely succeeding he didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing that.

„What did you do to me?", he asked, glad that his voice was barely wavering.

„Chloroform. Well, not quite, apparently that went out of style, and what I got had got a different name, but I'm sure you're familiar with the basic idea." As she said the last few words, she finally stepped into the light, and he realized that she was pushing what looked like a pretty advanced camera in front of her.

„Hello", she said and stepped next to the camera. She looked almost shockingly normal. Dark brown shoulder length hair, wearing a pencil skirt and blazer, kind of pretty, but not someone you would really notice in a crowd. She wore a sweet smile as she said, „You can call me Moreena. And I'll be your murderer this evening."

Kurt's stomach did a backflip at the casual tone, and he hoped that she wouldn't notice his discomfort, but then he realized that he'd also just visibly swallowed. So much for playing it cool.

„And you're Kurt Hummel. Member of the McKinley High Glee club, temporary star vocalist of the Cheerios, and also recently transferred back from Dalton academy. Where you went, because a bully was threatening to kill you, but you returned when you believed his promise that he wouldn't pose a threat anymore." She walked in a semicircle around the camera, careful to never step in front of the lens.

„And now that you've returned to Lima, because you believed it was finally safe to be here, you're finding your death in an unexpected manner that had nothing to do with hate crimes about your sexual orientation or confused bullies. That's sort of ironic, isn't it? Well, probably more Alanis Morisette ironic than really, but I like to see some poetry in the whole situation, anyway."

It was really creepy how mush she knew about him. Especially since not all that many people had known about the death threat, which he had really not liked talking about. Easier to say than the other thing, but still not something he'd been advertising.

„Impressed?", she asked with a chuckle. „Yes, I've noticed that the media seems to think that these productions feature random protagonists, but the truth is, casting is a really important decision that should not be made lightly. Picking up someone random of the street may have its charm, but you need to do some research in order to know what you'll end up with, and if that's actually the direction you've been meaning to take."

„Casting?", Kurt blurted out with an incredulous look. „You're murdering people, picking them is not casting!"

She stroked the camera lightly. „Of course it is. I'm choosing people to star in the most important production I've ever made, and also the most important movie of their life. I'll admit, that the production isn't quite as big as something on Hollywood level, but the basic concepts are the same."

„No they're not. Nobody gets killed in Hollywood!", Kurt protested. He tried to tug on his ties again, but even though he felt more awake the result was still the same.

„Don't they? Maybe that's why those movies are so unbearably dull", Moreena said playfully.

„They're fine. They don't need to be improved your way", Kurt said.

„Oh don't look at me like that. You think they're fine, because nobody has opened your eyes to the true possibilities of film as an art medium, yet. And, considering your life expectancy it's unlikely you'll ever learn, but believe me, when I say that what we're doing here tonight is quite something else."

„That I believe", Kurt said and tried to give his best bitch face. And it was probably successful, since he'd barely ever had a reason to use it when he wasn't way more scared than he wanted people to see.

„Well, that's progress", she said, and happily clapped her hands together once. „Anyway, time isn't unlimited, so we should probably get started."

„We? I'm not helping you", Kurt said. Honestly it was quite unsettling that she didn't really look creepy or psychotic, while saying all these things. The way she was acting almost made him feel as if he was the weird one for disagreeing with her idea of being murdered.

„Oh, yes you are", she said, and pulled something out of her back pocket. For a moment he tensed, but then he realized that it was just a piece of paper. „You're going to sing this", she said, and dropped the sheet onto his lap. There was music on it, and he recognized it as a song by Evanescence.

„No I won't. Whatever you want me to do, I won't cooperate." The more vehemently he stated it, the more he believed it himself. No, he wouldn't do whatever that bitch wanted him to do. If you didn't show bullies that they were getting to you, eventually they got bored, and moved on to someone else, so why not use that strategy now, as well?

Aside from the fact that it had never really worked for him.

„No?", she repeated and raised her eyebrows in a sad puppy dog look. „That's too bad. Then I'll just have to let you go, don't I? I mean, if I'm not going to get a decent movie out of this, why waste the time?"

She sounded sort of sincere. Maybe just a little too sincere, but his hopes were still getting up at what she was saying, no matter how firmly he told them not to.

They dropped rather quickly when she pulled out a gun, that was a lot shinier than it had any right to be and pointed it directly at his head. „Bullet to the brain. So terribly uncreative. But I'm really not unreasonable. If you prefer being dead now to being dead at some later point then you're not really what I'm looking for, anyway. People who want to die don't really fit in with the whole concept."

It would probably, from what little he'd seen of the videos and the things people had told him about them be overall a better choice to just take the bullet, instead of giving her the opportunity to torture and humiliate him by putting the results all over the internet. He'd probably save himself a lot of pain.

But he knew in the moment he saw the gun that he very much preferred being dead at some unspecified later point. Preferably in 80 to 90 years, to be honest.

„I'll sing", he said somewhat more quietly than before.

Immediately Moreena's face morphed into a smile. „Great. Okay, I'll untie you for now, so you can hold the sheet music and sing standing up, I hear that's better for gathering enough air in your lungs, not that I'm any sort of expert. But while I do that, I will be holding the gun, and if you make any sort of funny moves, I will kill you. I don't have any real footage yet, getting someone else at this point is all the same to me. Got that?"

Kurt nodded numbly. Agreeing to anything felt dangerously close to selling his soul.

Still, there wasn't really any evidence that souls existed in the world, so who cared, really.

He played with the though of doing something as she walked behind him in order to untie him, but she pressed the gun to his temple before she started untying him, and he allowed himself a moment of wallowing in the shock of having an actual gun pressed to his head, so he sort of missed his window of opportunity.

„Stand up now", she instructed quietly next to his ear, and it was the first time that her tone actually sounded threatening. It was a relief in a way, easier to know who he was dealing with this way.

He did as instructed, and realized as soon as he tried that any attempt to run away wouldn't have been an option, anyway, since his legs felt like jell-o and his feet hurt from hitting the ground after having fallen asleep without him noticing. He was able to balance himself awkwardly, but had to steady himself on the chair, once, noticing that his arms felt equally out of sync with the way they should act.

She walked back to her spot beside the camera, adjusted its angle a little, and motioned for him to pick up the sheet music. She was still keeping her gun pointed at him, and he noticed that she positioned it in a way that it had to be visible on the film.

She spun her index finger in the air, and a moment later piano music was heard from somewhere behind him. He resisted the urge to look around, because he knew the lighting would make it impossible to see anything anyway, and he wasn't sure what the punishment would be if he missed his cue, but he was very sure that he didn't want to find out.

The page was swimming in front of his eyes, and it took him a moment to realize that that wasn't due to an aftereffect of the narcotic. As soon as he realized he started to fight off the tears. Which he was actually much better at than people gave him credit for. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing him cry. Just like he'd almost always been able to keep the bullies from seeing how much their torturing actually impacted him.

He started singing, slow and mournful, and he knew that he couldn't really hide his emotions, there. Singing had always been his one outlet where all the masks dropped away and he could just be himself, no compromise, no hiding.

Maybe he'd never sing another song after this one.

He couldn't hide the trembling that ran through him, mostly because the sheet music shivered along.

Kurt knew this song. He really wasn't into Gothic, but Tina had done her best to get him interested, anyway, which had, just like his attempts to turn her onto Broadway, failed. But the songs where it was just singing that seemed to be not quite from this time, when there were no electric guitars tearing through it, had actually impressed him, somewhat.

This was one of those.

Thinking about hearing it for the first time, and dismissing it not because of its music (which was spectacular, if he was quite honest) but because of the depressing lyrics, made him realize that the accompaniment he was hearing right now wasn't the original recording. Was it a different one, some instrumental version? But just for a moment he was under the impression, that no, this wasn't a recording at all. That moment was fleeting, though. Good sound equipment was a much more likely explanation.

He focused on his singing again, intent on doing that well, if only to push away all the unpleasant thoughts. Staring at the sheet music as he finished the last note it took him an instant to notice that Moreena wasn't standing next to the camera, anymore.

He wasn't quick enough to anticipate the blow when it came, and the unexpected and quite painful impact between his neck and shoulder blade made him drop to the ground in a rather undignified manner. His sluggish limbs couldn't react fast enough to catch himself, so he crashed flat onto the floor.

As he tried to gain his bearings, he felt long fingernails on his skin, and quite suddenly a ripping sound filled the air, buttons of his shirt flying everywhere. She pulled back his arms in a way that was quite painful, and he tried to struggle, but she put a knee on his lower back and effectively immobilized him while tearing the shirt off completely.

The shirt hadn't been warm, or anything, but with it gone, the cold around him seemed to hit him all the more brutally. He knew he was getting goose bumps, but if it was out of cold or fear he couldn't tell.

He had no idea why she'd done this, what she possibly had in mind, and he had the sudden stabbing fear that his pants were to go next and who knew where that would lead…

Kurt felt almost grateful when the pressure from his back lifted only to immediately be replaced by the sharp digging of a knife into his back.

„Your skin is amazing", she said in a conversational tone, even if she did sound slightly awed. „So pale and even. Makes this look even more poetic. People aren't going to believe this is real." She leaned forward and whispered directly into his ear. „Which is what really makes this movie so magical, isn't it? No matter how hard to believe, it's all real."

Not a particularly helpful thing to say. He was very much aware of how real this was, thank you very much.

She pressed the knife back down, and he had to bite back a cry. She sliced for a short bit, and then lifted a pressure and did it again. His fingers curled on the cold concrete, instinctively looking for something to braze himself on, but it didn't help with the pain.

It took him a few moments to realize that she was carving something into his back. It wasn't just a gratuitous form of torture, there was some sort of deeper intent there. Whatever it was, it would probably scar. He'd have to walk around with it for the rest of his life, and the thought made him feel vaguely sick…

Still, walking around with it was better than any alternative outcome to this whole ordeal.

Trying to distract himself from the pain, he looked up, hoping to see more of his surroundings from here, but instead he saw the camera lens hovering much closer to his face than he thought. How had that even moved there? He stared at it for a moment, in shock, not paying quite as much attention to dealing with pain, and when quite suddenly the knife found a sensitive spot he didn't even know he had, he cried out sharply.

Kurt tried to cut off his own scream, but then the knife dug deeper on that one spot, and at that sensation he just couldn't control himself.

„You're a very musical person, aren't you? Even your screaming sounds more like a song than anything else", Moreena commented offhandedly, and picked another spot for cutting into him.

He managed to stay quiet after that, but it felt as if it continued for hours, even though, realistically the whole thing probably hadn't taken more than fifteen minutes.

When she finally removed the knife without immediately setting it down again, and a moment later he felt the soft fabric of his shirt being thrown in his back, he couldn't help but let out a little sigh of relief.

But she didn't leave him any time to revel in that relief, because she immediately grabbed him and hauled him back to the chair and was already pulling his shirt back over his arms, before he could quite process what had happened. So he wasn't able to make any real effort to stop her, when she started tying his hands back together.

He wasn't heavy, of course, something which he took a lot of pride in, but still she didn't look as though she was capable of doing all of this. Kurt noticed the camera was back in its old place, but he had no idea how she had managed to move it back up in the short time.

„So", she said, walking back to her old spot next to the camera with a smile that Kurt really didn't want to describe as charming, even though it was probably accurate. „Last night of your life. How does it feel, so far?"

„Why are you even doing this?", Kurt asked, before he realized that that probably wasn't all too smart. Challenging the crazy serial killer didn't seem like the best move.

She chuckled and leaned back a little. „That's not really an original question. But I think you might be the first one asking it, who is really going to appreciate the answer It's art."

„Art?", he repeated, trying his best to keep the incredulous tone out of his voice, but come on. That tone had every reason to be there.

„Yes, Art. Or are you one of those snobs who think cinematography is never going to be a proper art form? Because it already is, and what I'm doing here is just pushing it further than it's ever been pushed", she leaned forward, and had a glint in her eye that made Kurt very nervous.

„People have seen all sorts of death scenes on TV, in so many Hollywood productions, that it barely even registers to them anymore. Actors, pretending to be in that situation don't touch audiences anymore." Considering how often he'd found himself crying at the TV, he was inclined to disagree, but she wasn't done with her psycho speech.

„But this, this is going to make people feel, because this, all those who came before you, and all that will come after have one thing in common. You're all real. You're actually going through these emotions right now, and so where they, and no matter how good an actor is, they'll never be this. They'll never come close to you and the others, because they haven't felt any of these feelings yet. No one who's still alive to talk about it knows what really dying is actually like. In capturing your last moments, however, I am creating something unique and new. I'm helping the art of moviemaking make a very important transition, one that will revolutionize the genre as soon as people understand how brilliant this is."

„That's…" he didn't want to say insane. But he couldn't think of any word to say, that wouldn't just piss off his captor with potentially horrifying consequences. „…Barbaric", he finished his sentence. Probably not much better when talking to a serial killer, to be honest, but he just couldn't help it.

„Well, you're not really in the position to be appreciating this, so I understand how you'd come to that." She waved it off with a smile.

„But enough about me. Let's talk about you. You're going to be dying soon, so now might be a good time to say all the things you've always been meaning to say to people but wanted to wait for a better time. Pour your heart out, ask for absolution for your sins, that sort of thing. Give the people who are going to be missing you some peace of mind. Now is your chance."

"Are you insane?" And there it was. He'd really been trying to avoid that, but seeing how the last one had just rolled off her, it would probably not make much of a difference. And damn it, he was getting pissed.

"You want me to do what? Leave messages? Tell everyone I love not to be sad, and that it's all going to be okay?" He laughed incredulously, and it came out as a short bark. "Yeah well it isn't. You're just standing there telling me this is the last thing I'll ever say, and you want me to be fine with that? I want to go home, I want to live!" She probably liked that, him finally yelling at her, but he really hoped she didn't. To just make that perfectly content look on her face go away had quite suddenly become his main goal.

"So no. I'm not going to say whatever it is you want me to say, and I don't care if it doesn't fit into whatever kind of fucked up picture you're trying to paint." He was panting a little by the end of that speech, not from exhaustion, but from all the pent up emotions that went into it.

„No? Think closely. This will be the last your loved ones will ever see of you. You really want to leave them with nothing, even though you have the chance?"

„You're not getting my point, are you? I don't want to leave them at all. And you're crazy for thinking murder could ever be art, and whatever plan you have in your head for this, I really hope I can mess it up the best I can."

She chuckled again, and just in that moment he understood what went through guys' heads when they decided to punch someone in the face.

Too bad his hands were tied.

And also that he couldn't actually throw a punch that should be classified as such.

„Well, I'm sure they'll be disappointed", she said. „But all right, if that's how you want to do this, fine."

She said nothing for a few moments, giving Kurt time to dwell on the idea that he probably hadn't helped his odds of survival at all with that outburst.

„That's all we need from you, then", she said smiling. She stepped out into the shadows for a moment, and then came back from another direction, holding something that he couldn't quite identify at first, but its shadows on the ground were giving his imagination a little too much fuel.

He couldn't help the way his eyes widened and his throat suddenly went very dry.

„You know, a lot of people wonder how they're going to die." She stepped a little further into the light. „This is yours."

TBC

Let me know what you think!