Luz POV

Luz was woken from a dream of her cuddling with Amity in the secret library getaway, while reading and acting out the Azura books they had read together. It was a common dream. One of happier times. But it was ruined, when her mind turned to the things she had done wrong in her time since coming to the Boiling Isles.

Luz went through all the mistakes she had made in her head. All the moments she had messed up, and only made things worse... And as Luz thought of it all, she could only find one thought that tied it all up in a nice little bow. I deserve this. This way, I can atone for my sins. Left at Belos's mercy, I can stop him from hurting people ever again. And, being a captive, I am also prevented from making more mistakes. So not only am I stopping Belos's evil, but I am stopping the chaos I caused too.

Luz was pulled from her thoughts however, by a loud bang of the door leading to the hall, where her cell was located, slammed open. Signaling that Belos had returned to continue his torment.

She felt all the energy and emotion leave her body as she heard his steps get closer. It made her think of Dementors from that movie she watched as a kid, about witches going to school. Sucking the joy and life out of everything around them with a dark evil aura.

Luz squinted her eyes against the bright light of the lantern Belos was carrying. After being in the dark for so long, the small flam was enough to make her eyes water at its intensity. Belos seemed to take joy in this as he turned up the brightness on it with a wave of his hand. Causing Luz to become dazed from the intensity. She tried to turn away from the light to shield her eyes, but instantly regretted it as she felt the pain radiate through her arms from her trying to twist.

Luz let out a strangled wail of anguish, feeling tears spring to her eyes from the pain. And Belos only laughed at her. As if her suffering was fueling him. Luz slowly opened her eyes, glaring at her tormentor with pure hatred. But instead of speaking, she prepared herself mentally for what she was about to experience.

"My my... Your body does appear to be finally deteriorating, Luz the Human" Belos stated in his cold compassionate-less voice. He removed his mask, letting Luz see his evil grin. "Your wounds aren't healing as fast as they used to... Once upon a time, 3 weeks was all it took for you to completely recover. Now, it's been almost 4 and your wounds are still not completely closed... Perhaps you will finally perish one of these days, and I can move on with my plans..." he said, letting a dark chuckle edge into his voice.

Luz looked down at herself, wincing at the sight. The large cuts and scrapes that covered her body were still very prevalent. She could see where he had last impaled her in the stomach was still a fairly fresh looking wound. On a normal and healthy person, the natural healing that had occurred would look like a few days of rest had passed. But, if Belos was speaking the truth (and he always was) then Luz knew it was true. Her body was starting to fail.

For the first time in her several long years of torture, she began to worry. Worry that she might not last as long as she had hoped. Worry that Belos would once again begin to hurt her friends. Worry that she would not live to die of old age... And that thought made her heart ache. Then... Then that would be just another failure on my part. And again, people would get hurt because of me

Belos, however, seemed overjoyed at the turn of events. He could not kill Luz directly. But if her body failed to heal itself from wounds that were typically non fatal, well... That wasn't really his fault, now was it.

Luz glared up at her tormentor, as she watched him produce an all too familiar blade from within his robes. One that he never bothered to clean. One that was still stained with Luz's own dried blood. "You are such a piece of shit." She growled out, her voice sounding very dry and hoarse.

Belos only laughed loudly, as he waved his hand and the barred wall that separated him front he human simply melted to the ground. With powers like his, a door was not needed. It was only an extra way for Luz to escape. Not that she would try however. No. Luz would intentionally stay right here. In her desperate hope of keeping their bargain.

"I almost pity you human. Once upon a time, you would have tried to fight back. But once you cast that little spell, you all but submitted yourself to me. It's quite a shame to see the fire in one's soul burn out so fast." He chuckled.

"If it weren't for our deal, I would have beaten you to a pulp long ago." Luz growled at Belos. Shutting her eyes as she felt Belos press his dagger to her arm. She grit her teeth as she felt him pressit through her skin, and drag it down her bicep. Cutting a long line into her flesh. She let her breath hiss out from the pain, feeling the warm blood begin to trickle down her arm, and down her side.

"Oh, you say that human, but you know the truth. You realized that it's pointless to stop me. Pointless to resist, and that you simply gave in to the truth." He replied smugly, as he withdrew the blade from her arm, wiping the blood off on what little bits of clothing she still wore. Luz, shivered at the pain she felt. She figured she would have gotten used to it by now, after several years of enduring it, yet she never could. The pain still sickened her to her stomach. It was still agony.

Luz sobbed out as belos brought the blade towards her abdomen, and quickly made two shallow stabs into her sides. Not deep enough to damage any organs, but enough to pierce the muscle and make it burn. Luz screamed out in pain again, sobbing harder. She hated this. Instead of focusing on the pain however, she willed herself to think of her family. She pictured their faces in her head, and began reciting their names, attempting to escape the agony she felt.

"Just give in already." Belos snarled with a merciless smirk. "Let the pain consume you already dammit. Stop fighting the inevitable." He demanded, quickly making a slash down the human's leg, causing her to wail out in pain again.

"NEVER!" Luz shouted at Belos, opening her eyes to glare straight into his with defiance, even as fresh tears streamed down her already stained face. "So long as I still breathe, you can not harm my family. So, I will never give in. Not until I can watch your corpse rot." She stated, and spat in his face.

Belos began to chuckle, then laughed loudly. Belos cackled like a madman, as he brought the stained blade up towards Luz's face. She closed her eyes, preparing for the burning sensation it would cause, wailing out in pain as he dragged the dagger down her face. Staring at her forehead, and crossing between her eyes, over her nose, and down to her jaw. Leaving a large cut across her whole face.

"I am going to carve you into pieces" He snarls, smiling at Luz. Relishing in the terror in her expression. "I will rip you limb from limb, and scatter your remains in the boiling sea. But first, I am going to find each one of your friends, and joyfully, EAGERLY, torment them even worse than I have you. I will make them scream themselves to death. And I will make you watch as I flay the flesh from their bones."

He roared in anger, working his way around Luz, lashing out at her with his blade several times. Leaving deep cuts across her back, arms and torso. Luz's screams echoing through the halls. Blood curdling wails of pain. Yet, when the mad emperor stood in front of Luz again, she looked up at him and smirked weakly.

"You will never be able to do that." She taunted. "So long as I breathe, you can't lay a finger on them. You will never be able to harm them. And you will never be able to use them against me." She let out a weak laugh. Only for it to be cut short when Belos dropped the blade he held, and instead struck Luz in the jaw with his fist.

"Enough! Then tell me what I want to know." He demanded, all of his sadistic joy gone. Luz could only smile wider. She got to him. She knew it. He hated that she still had the upper hand after all this time. And she loved to rub his face in it. To mock him with the fact that he was powerless against her. She won. He lost. Deciding she wanted some entertainment, Luz decided to toy with her crazed tormentor.

Titan, she really had gone mad. Luz thought to herself. I'm taunting him, knowing he will just torture me more. All for the sake of pissing him off. I am going to need so much therapy if I get out of here She stated to herself.

"I'm afraid I don't recall what you wanted from me. After being beaten across the skull so many times, you knocked your demands right out of me." She said, feigning confusion. Of course, Belos knew this wasn't true. She had done this same game over and over. Still, she would take the small victories she could. She still had the high ground... Metaphorically speaking, that was.

Belos roared in rage, wrapping one hand around the human's thin neck. The years of malnourishment had left her thin and gaunt. One hand was all he needed to strangle her. He curled his free hand into a fist and let it connect with Luz's gut. "Tell. Me. How. To. Construct. The. Portal. To. The. Human. Realm." Belos said, punctuating each word with a hard blow to the already weakened human's abdomen, leaving a large bruise across her stomach.

Luz sputtered out, coughing up blood from within her. She looked at Belos, face filled with pain, and yet, she smiled. "Why do you need me to tell you that? I learned from your journal" She gasped out, taunting him, knowing how much it infuriated the madman. However, it was these little victories that kept her strong enough to withstand this brutal treatment.

Belos pushed her away, as if trying to throw her to the ground. But due to the chains bound to her wrists, Luz simply swung back and forth a few times, gasping for air and coughing hard.

"You know the answer to that, human." He snarled, eyes filled with hate as he stared at the girl in front of him. She only laughed now, weakly, and spitting blood to the floor.

"That's right. I remember now. In your quest for power, consuming countless palisman souls, you lost your memories. You gave up your knowledge in exchange for strength. Brawn before brains, huh?" She stated, laughing dryly at the statement. Relishing the anger and frustration in Belos's expression.

"And, now that your journal was destroyed, I am your one and only hope of ever returning home." She teased, giving him a cruel smirk. Her teeth, stained in blood. She looked mad. Crazed. Insane.

But instead, she took a deep breath, and let the false ego drop. She was no madwoman. She acted, just to piss him off. She didn't enjoy being so cruel. She had come to learn these past few years that more than anything, Belos wanted to go home. He was almost desperate enough to just leave the demon realm alone, just so he could get home. Almost. He was not at that point yet, and he had made that clear to Luz many times over.

She let go of her false joy, and stopped taunting the crazed man. She didn't need to welcome any more pain. And as she looked back on her actions, she was ashamed of the crazed attitude she took on. She was better than Belos. A few taunts was one thing, but she was taking it too far. She needed to remember to be herself. She couldn't lose her mind, or else, this was all for nothing.

Titan Luz thought to herself All this has left my mind is really fucked up.

""I don't know." She finally conceded. "I have no clue how either of us could ever return home. I could not complete the door. The journal I used, your journal, didn't have the full design. It was missing key components, key theories. Things you said you would never write down, as you didn't want any demon to ever be able to make their own." Luz stated, sadly, looking to Belos, with genuine sorrow.

Belos simply looked at her, expression unreadable. He glared one final time, before he turned and picked up his blade. "Then provide me with the information you do have." He stated curtly. "And I will stop being so violent with you."

At that, Luz laughed dryly. "No you won't." She replied simply. "You have said that before. And each time I gave you the information you wanted, you came back even more determined than before, because I showed weakness. You thought I was breaking, instead of realizing that I was pitying you."

She shook her head. "Fool me once, shame on you." She stated. "Fool me twice, shame on me." She continued. "But fool me three times, and I am simply a buffoon, and idiot." She concluded. "I will not tell you anything. I will never give you anything you want again. You get what we agreed upon when I cast the spell. I am here, at your whim. You can do as you please to me."

She took a deep breath, glaring at him. "And so long as I don't try to escape, so long as I stay where you put me, you can't and won't break my conditions. I have the choice of obeying yours. You do not." She stated, looking defiantly at the angry man in front of her.

"Those were the agreed upon conditions. You have what you wanted. I am not giving you anything else." trying her best to use the tone her Mami did that conveyed that the discussion was over.

Belos was silent for several minutes, just staring at the human in front of him. Finally, he stood tall again, and grabbed his mask from where it hung on his belt. "I must admit, Luz the Human. Your tenacity is... Supernatural. Which is saying something considering the world we are in." He walked towards Luz again, eyes glowing blue behind the mask. "However, everyone has a breaking point. And I will. Find yours." he said using the same tone Luz just had.

In a flash of movement, he took one final jab at the human with his blade, causing her to let out a scream that echoed even beyond the walls surrounding them. Her voice strained so hard, it was cut short by her vocal cords giving out. She hung limply from her restraints and looked down at where the pain burned in her leg. There, she saw Belos's dagger plunged into her thigh, completely buried to the hilt, and most definitely protruding out the back of her leg. A clean puncture, straight through her frail thin leg.

"I will leave this blade right here. You hold on to it now. When you think about what we discussed today later on, and get to the point where you so brazenly defied me, I want you to look at this blade in your leg and ask yourself one simple question."

Belos got close, lifting her chin with his finger so she looked into his eyes. Taking pride in the fear that showed in Luz's eyes.

"Are these demons and witches worth all this suffering? Is what I am enduring worth it? Are they worth these 6 long years of torment? And then I want you to remember that they would never do the same for you." He said, his voice a harsh whisper.

With that final statement, he turned and left the cell. He moved his hand, casting a spell that made the wall reform, enclosing Luz back inside of the cell she had now lived in for so many years. He then turned, and strode back the way he came, slamming the door closed as he left. Leaving Luz once again in the darkness by herself. The adrenaline gone, and the pain too much to bear, Luz finally passed out.

~Many hours later~

Luz awoke, feeling pain coursing all throughout her body. She had no clue how long she had been passed out for, but when she looked down at her leg, the blade was gone. Someone had come and removed it while she was unconscious, and she hadn't woken up. The wound was partially healed, which made Luz realize that Belos was forced to heal her by the spell she casted. If he hadn't, she would have died. Belos never healed her. That was the only explanation.

She shivered at the thought. That she had been this close to death yet again. Belos had many forms of torture. And this was not the first time she nearly died. Yes, despite knowing the fact that he couldn't kill her, it never stopped the shivers and tremors of fear from coursing through her and how close she was to losing it all.

She let her mind wander to the other ways she had nearly died. Stab wounds were a common method, but "primitive" according to Belos. More often than not, he would leave her dangling over a fire lit under her, or begin the petrification spell on her, only to rewind it over and over. Letting Luz feel herself turn to stone again and again. The cold feeling still haunted her dreams.

Other times, He had taken all the air from the room and let her suffocate. Sometimes, he would cast illusions and other mind tricking spells to make Luz think she had actually died, or cast spells that made her heart seize, making her think she was having a heart attack. Belos was nothing, if not creative.

Luz let herself tremble in fear as those memories raced through her mind. She quietly began to sob to herself. Letting herself be vulnerable while she was alone. Her voice was still gone, from her last scream. So, her sobs were silent, aside from her sniffles. She wished she had someone to hold. It was cold, and lonely.

She needed a hug.

She could do nothing though, except dangle there in the air, and sob. Tears streamed down her face, and dripped off her chin to the floor. Underneath her was an old, dry, pool of blood. Gathered up over years of bleeding in the same place. It was several feet across. One would think she was dead if the size of the pool was their only indicator.

She looked around the room, cringing at the splattering of blood on the walls too. Once, this cell was clean. Brand new. She was its first, and only prisoner. The walls once a clean gray stone were now green and brown with moss, mold and water stains. And splattered with red dots. Her blood.

The chains that hung from the ceiling, suspending her in the air, once a shiny steel silvery color, now were dark brown with rust. She looked down at her own body, cringing at the rags she wore. Her outfit that she wore on the day she came to the demon realm still dangled off her body. Torn, disheveled, and stretched to its limits.

Not only was she tortured in this outfit, but had spent 6 years growing in it too. It barely covered her any more. The tattered shirt barely covered her chest, and the leggings she wore were more like capris now. Filled with tears, holes and burns from Belos's many methods of torture. She had outgrown her clothes long ago. The only reason she still wore them was to keep her most private parts covered.

Belos at least had that Decency. She wasn't nude. She looked awful, but was covered.

Her tears continued to fall. The pain racking through her body sucked. Her shame at her appearance was awful. And worst of all, her mind thought back to what Belos had last said. Not about her friends. She knew it was worth it.

But about her body failing. If it really had been 4 weeks since his last session of torturing her, she should have been mostly if not completely healed by now. Her body would have closed the wounds, scabbed over, and left scars. Instead, she looked down at the fresh and old wounds on her body. The ones from today, and ones from a month ago.

And to her absolute dread, if she didn't know better, she would think that they could have even been inflicted at the same time. He was right.

Her body was starting to fail. He found a loophole in her spell. In her plan. After 6 long years of torture and abuse, her body was not able to endure it. Her mind and will might have held out, albeit barely, but still intact. But her malnourished, dehydrated, abused and broken body was not. She was running out of time.

She was dying.