At first, Sarah wondered if she had gone blind, or if her captors had gouged her eyes out of their sockets, but, scrabbling with her bound hands around her face, she determined that she was merely blindfolded.
Tuning her ears to the noise around her she heard people, lots of them, murmuring in hushed, excited voices.
Sarah reached out with her tied hands, feeling for her surroundings.
At this movement the crowd's chatter grew louder, the unknown people noticing their captive's awareness.
Her hands found something round, cold.
A vertical bar, many bars.
Is this..? The girl thought in horror, a cage!?
Filled anew with terror she struggled frantically with her blindfold, eventually tearing it off, along with a clump of her own hair.
Limbs shaking in animal fear, Sarah stared out at maybe a hundred people, all jostling and craning their heads for a look at her, locked away in the cage.
All one hundred of them, no matter how expensive or cheap an outfit they wore, had donned white masks that covered from their nose to their forehead, and had protrusions on either side, the tips painted black.
Sarah looked down at her own dress, formerly a light and innocent pink, it was now ripped and torn and dirty, stained an irreversible grey.
Pulling the dirty mess of her clothing towards herself, the gray haired girl trying to center herself in the middle of her prison, away from potential prying hands of the white-masked people.
From there she observed her situation.
The cage Sarah was in had been placed on a large table, which was the centerpiece of a large, bowl-like structure. Roofless and lined with seats it reminded her of ancient Rome's Coliseum.
The moon was out of sight, probably directly above her head.
Midnight.
The white-masked spectators seemed to notice this at near the same time she did, and a wave of excited fever swept over them, and they begin chanting something in a language Sarah did not understand, some of them with tears of fear leaking down their cheeks, others jittering nervously.
A few separated themselves from the mass, walking solemnly towards the cage.
Sarah turned in circles, trying to keep an eye on all of those approaching at once, noticing one holding something steaming and glowing.
The young girl whipped around as the cage door was opened, her breath coming fast on panic, a hand reaching out to grab at her.
She pressed herself to the bars at the opposite end, but hands pressed on her back, pushing her forward.
Again within it's reach the hand grasped her upper arm roughly, and Sarah began to scream.
She continued screaming as she was dragged towards the one masked man with what she now saw was a hot brand. Kicking and struggling and biting and scratching and screaming, but her fourteen year old self was no match for the person towing her towards her terror.
Her soiled dress was yanked off of her, the undergarments quickly ripped away to leave her near naked, but the rest of the clinging cloth was soon pulled off as well.
The white-hot brand was lowered, directed towards her back.
Sarah bucked, an ear-splitting scream of fear spilling into the night, and the brand instead pressed onto her thigh, strong hands gaining a grip and holding her there.
Sobbing and immobile, the girl was put onto the table once occupied by her cage, into the center of the very seal now burned upon her flesh.
A voice reached Sarah's ears, and a thin, tall masked man parted the crowd, a broad grin on his face as he came to stand by the table.
"Many years ago this secret society attempted to summon a demon, and bend it to our will." The excitement was apparent in his tone, and he swept a hand over Sarah, reminding everyone of her presence and emphasizing his next point.
"Last time we used the boy Ciel Phantomhive to summon it, but it turned on us in favor of the boy, killing all our members present, and had been hunting what was left of our society for years." He paused, and solemnly continued.
"Nearly a year ago the boy and the demon we summoned to him killed our leader and a large mass of our brethren. But we have risen again!" at his triumphant shout the crowd of white-masked horrors yelled out their own glory, stamping their feet and raising their fists.
The thin man, their apparent new leader, motioned for them to quiet down, and spoke again.
"But today the Earl Phantomhive is dead, and the demon gone, and tonight we have taken another of the demonic family line, Sarah Phantomhive!"
The mob took up her name, chanting it as if she were their hero, and rushed in towards her, pulling knives from their folds of clothing, their blades flashing as they caught the faint night's light.
The man seemed to push them all away from the table with his voice, stopping his fellows in their tracks as he continued his speech.
"On this night of the crescent moon we will summon a demon again, using this girl from the same bloodline as our lure, and this time, it will do our bidding!"
The crowd's shouts reached a new pitch, filled with eagerness, blood lust, greed, and terror, and Sarah screamed along with them, shaking and shivering with deep, horrid fear.
"It is midnight!" The thin man roared.
"Summon the demon upon yourselves!"
The crowd, like an unforgiving tide, pushed in toward Sarah, their bodies blocking out the light, their knives slicing through her hair, her skin. Red blood intermingled with shorn locks of grey hair, staining the altar on which she lay with the monstrosity of the ritual.
Stop! Sarah thought over her screams. Stop hurting me.. leave me alone...just...just... DON'T TOUCH ME!
A/N: Shortest chapter so far, but it seemed like an appropriate place to stop. I forgot on ch. one, so I do it all here: my thank-you's!
Thank you to: Clara Grey, beccaleigh97, AoUsagi, Ember Hinote, yuinyan98, and FictionalCrazeGirl! I appreciate your follows & reviews!
Chapter three coming whenever I meet my criteria for posting it... eventually I'll just say.