Casey sat still crouched on the cold surface of the bathroom floor, braced and waiting for either this Dennis or the English woman Dennis to make their return. It seemed like endless seconds and minutes had gone past, an eternity, while she kept her back straight and shoulders tense, listening for any sound of their emergence back into the room. Her stomach kept twisting and gnawing painfully at the idea of having to be near the man again.

But...eventually, as time continued to pass and she heard no sound- no clacking of stilettos or no clattering of keys bashing against each other as the door was unlocked to the room she was being held in for in-explainable reasons beyond her- Casey realized that perhaps the man was keeping his promise on not to bother her anymore.

Apparently someone called Patricia had reminded him not to. But who was Patricia? Obviously another accomplice, another person that was doing this to her. While Casey didn't know much and so many things about her current situation scared and confounded her, she was confident of one thing: This Dennis man was not doing this alone. He was working with others.

Thinking about everything simply served to make her head throb and ache, so Casey tried to distract herself and keep busy. Sniffling loudly, she grabbed the blue bottle out of the bucket and lowered the nozzle to the bathroom floor, spraying carelessly over the stains of water she'd left on there earlier. She reached over for a white fluffy towel that was hanging neatly near the clear shower curtain and yanked it down, using it to wipe the floor vigorously while she crouched over it on her knees.

Doing something as boring and basic as cleaning seemed to clear her mind, at least. She focused all her energy into wiping every single bit of surface she could find roughly, enough that her heart rate soured, working up a bit of a sweat. Tendrils of her hair fell around her temples limply as she thought of nothing else but wiping with the towel and using her arms and shoulder muscles enough until they grew sore from the exertion.

She eyed around the bathroom again, searching, as she scrubbed. It was empty and spotless- no shampoo or conditioner in the shower, nothing to potentially use as something to defend herself with. Not that she probably ever would- unless the timing was completely right. If there was one thing she'd learned about fighting back when it came to dealing with her Uncle John, if you fought back, it only increased the tendency for violence and pain to be directed back at you. Often, it was better to lie back and take it, while dying silently on the inside.

No windows in the bathroom, nothing for ventilation or anything she could use to potentially escape out of.

Finished with cleaning and with a tingling dull ache to her arms, she folded the towel back up as neatly as possible and tossed the blue bottle back into the bucket. Then she got to her knees, pushing up onto the tips of her Converse sneakers to stand.

She went back into the other room slowly, the one with merely a cot bed with a thin blanket and one puffy pillow. No windows in the room either but she noticed a small little vent up above her bed. Casey nibbled on her lower lip with her teeth as she wondered where it might lead out to.

Could it lead out of the building or this house if she crawled far enough? She didn't even know whether this place was even a large building or not. Was she still even in the same continent where she lived with her Uncle? Casey had no idea.

Too many things didn't make sense, Casey thought restlessly as she paced the small room, locking around. She was definitely locked in - the sound of keys and look turning when Dennis had exited the room had made it clear enough, so she was stuck, alone, confined to a small stuffy room with nothing but endless confusion and unanswered questions to keep her company.

The English Woman Dennis. All this talk of Casey just being 'sacred food', how she was going to be presented to someone and that she must keep clean?

She eyed the flat cot bed before sitting down on it slowly, bringing up her knees and legs as she pushed back and rolled towards the wall behind it. While this Dennis guy had seemed aggravated that she had kept her shoes on the bed, Casey couldn't care less now that he was no longer here. She grabbed the single white pillow and pushed it behind her back, making it more comfortable as she sat up closest to the wall behind her, facing the door- the one and only exit in her entire cage. At least where she was positioned, she'd know and hear it first thing if he tried to enter the room again.

Eventually, her eyes grew heavy and keeping them open was a battle. She wiggled down lazily, scooting down the cot, until she turned on her side, half-hugging the pillow and half resting her cheek against it. She yanked down her red flannel jacket and pairs of singlets she wore underneath it self-consciously in case the skin on her stomach showed, drew her legs up, knees lightly pressing into her stomach so that she felt protected and comfortable, and forced her eyes to shut completely closed.

With the silence in the room, the mild exhaustion from her mindless scrubbing in the bathroom and the pale minimal lighting, it didn't take her long. She breathed through her nose deeply, in and out, a few times. And then she fell, drifting off into a numb, empty void.

...

"Psst, wake up."

If she'd had anything left within her, she would have burst into tears immediately at the sound of his voice, calling her, interrupting her, beckoning her awake.

"Casey, wake up, come on..."

He always liked to pretend it was such a fun joke at first. His voice was always light, always gently coaxing. But then he'd always shift, he'd always turn.

Half-asleep, she twisted and mumbled and turned, holding the pillow tighter around her head, shielding her face.

"Casey..."

Even through her sleepiness, she sensed the shift, from man to monster, the instance he spoke her name out loud for the second time. His voice became deeper, laced with irritation, with impatience.

"Wake up," he said, his voice floating around her, surrounding her unpleasantly. "Come with me into my room."

Even with her eyes closed, lids covered in darkness, she sensed his nearness. The springs on her mattress creaked beneath his weight as he leaned over it towards her. His stubby fingers brushed her cheek and lingered before he tucked a stray strand of her dark hair behind her ear.

"Come on, Casey Bear!" Without warning, he squeezed her jaw with his stubby fingers wrapped around her chin, snapping, and she gasped, her eyes popping open, scanning around her room dozily. It was too dark. She could only just make out the shadow, the imprint of his face hovering over her, "Now, Casey." He pushed her face forward towards him, fingers tightening into her skin, clenching, making the sides of her gums and her teeth ache painfully, "Do you really think your father would appreciate you disobeying me- his brother John, your Uncle- in this way, Casey? You think he'd be happy to hear that you aren't being very nice?"

She tried to wrench her jaw and head away out of his grip, trembling violently, but like always, he was too strong. Always too strong physically, but... if only she'd had her dad's old hunters rifle.

"Good girl. Get up and come to my room so that we can play one of our games," he said, at last releasing her, climbing off the bed. "Come on, but remember to take off your stuff..."

...

Casey jolted, her eyes popping open, stomach contorting and clenching with sickening unease, heart pumping loudly in her ears. Before she could control herself, she was dissolving into hot, salty tears before she even had the time to reassess and acknowledge that, thank god, it wasn't reality, it was just a terrible stupid nightmare and her Uncle, wherever he was, if he was even alive right now after what the Dennis man had done in jacking his car, leaving him on the side of the road, he could just go and blow her for all the things that he'd done to her over the years...

Nine years old. It had started when she was nine, maybe even when she was a little younger than that. First, he made it seem like games, where they were animals, playful games, before she even knew what was right and what was wrong. All she knew was how it had felt, at the time, how it had destroyed her. How he'd killed that little girl in her, changed her forever, invading her, ruining everything that she once was.

And then her father had to go and die of a heart attack, and then he'd won custody because her mother was dead, and there was no one else. Her legal guardian, and he hadn't stopped, even when she grew older, had more sense of awareness into just what it was he was doing and how he was violating her.

But she was gone now, far far away, wherever she was. He couldn't touch her now, couldn't wake her up in the middle of the night with all his sick and twisted games.

She was free. Still, it couldn't erase all the damage he had done. Thanks to him, Casey now felt she was a lost cause. And maybe she was, ruined, destroyed forever.

She started to sob loudly in the pillow, awake now but not fully conscious of remembering just where she was. She let herself sob loudly, howling all her grief, her pain, her anger and resentment. All the stuff she mainly kept bottled up inside, private and to herself. And then-

"You make lots of sounds in your sleep. Lots of crying, too."

She felt as if she'd almost had a heart attack, if possible given her young age, at the sudden unexpectedness of the voice that sounded practically out of nowhere.

She cut off her sobbing at once, pressing her hands over her mouth to stifle her cries and suppress her noise as she sat up hurriedly, pressing her back roughly into the wall behind the cot, dark blurred eyes frantically blinking around the room.

She found the person responsible for that comment at once and it was him. Him, only he wasn't wearing his glasses and the grey military style clothing. Casey sniffed loudly as she readjusted slowly to the living world, eyes remaining on the 'Dennis' man that was sitting, cross-legged, in the doorway, staring right at her. He must have been watching her sleep for a very long time. Enough to hear her crying and experiencing her nightmare, anyway.

Her stomach lurched at having been caught crying hysterically. It was funny. Shouldn't she have felt terrified of the man's sudden emergence back into the room and the fact that he had been obviously spying on her while she was fitfully sleeping? Weirdly enough, Casey felt anything but terrified. Only slightly mortified that he'd clearly seen and witnessed her moment of weakness.

It took her a second to find her voice as hot tears rolled uncontrollably down the creases of her eyelids, down to her cheek. "Do... do I?" she croaked out, hastily reaching up, swiping her shed tears away on the sleeve of her flannel jacket.

"Mmm-hmm." He straightened up against the wall, eyeing her as a smile graced his face. She couldn't remember seeing the man Dennis smile before. "You're pretty," he added, practically out of nowhere. Casey blinked at him slowly, the next comment making a shiver course through her spine, "Mr Dennis thinks you're real pretty too."

"W-What?" she gasped out, unsure whether to laugh or not. Nothing made sense to her at all so far. But as she observed the 'Dennis' man from where he sat, cross-legged in the open doorway to the room, it occurred to her that he felt... oddly different. There was an aura there, something unexpected that had Casey's head reeling.

Instead of the cold dead eyes of this Dennis, there was almost... a bright sheen to his eyes. Excitement, playfulness. In fact, his clothes were far different from Dennis's also. He wore dark blue track pants and a hooded jacket with yellow and blue. Just like 'Dennis the English woman' with the skirt and stilettos. What the hell was going on?

And to say Mr Dennis thought she was pretty? Wasn't he Mr Dennis?

"A-aren't you Mr Dennis though?" she asked slowly after a moment, trying to make sense of it all. "Aren't you him, the... the guy that took me?"

"What?" He snorted suddenly out loud at her question, looking as though he was trying to hold in a laugh. Casey's head spun. "No, I'm not Mr Dennis!" He stated it as though he thought she were crazy, thinking him and the 'Dennis' guy the same person. He shook his head several times as a startling soft snicker escaped his mouth, one Casey definitely was not expecting considering the serious circumstances she'd found herself in. "My names Hedwig, duh!" He continued to stare at her, eyes wide, eyebrows raised, with a look that asked, are-you-dumb?

But Hedwig?

"But what... what about the English lady with the... the skirt?" she murmured, confused.

"What, are you blind?" Again, he was staring at her like he thought she was being silly. "That's Miss Patricia!"

Patricia. Hedwig. Dennis.

It came back to her all at once, the man 'Dennis's' words. 'Patricia has just reminded me that I was sent to get you for a reason...'

But they were all the same person, weren't they? Unless-

"I'm, like, not even supposed to be in here talkin' to you, I'm not even supposed to be here," he rattled on happily before Casey could even get the chance, "I stole the light from Mr Dennis but he's gonna be back real soon. I can't steal the light for too long 'cause he'll know I was talkin' to you and get angry."

He rolled his eyes at her, as if to say, typical Mr Dennis, and Casey noticed he had a faint lisp when pronouncing certain words. There was something about him that was...almost childlike. Innocent. Just like with the 'English woman Dennis' he carried himself differently, with such a different air and stance to his posture. Dennis held himself so stiffly from all the times she had been in his company, with such severity and sternness. Yet, with this supposed Hedwig, he was slumped over at the shoulders, wide eyed with gleaming blue eyes of excitement and, Casey observed a second later, with the way his knees started bobbing up and down, that he could hardly sit still, he was so agitated with apparent excitement and restless.

Just like... a little boy.

"How... how old are you, Hedwig?" she asked.

"Nine," he declared proudly with a gleeful smile, straightening his shoulders. Obviously being nine years old was something that made him extremely happy. Casey's mind raced. So he was nine... mentally. But then, there was 'Dennis' and... 'Patricia'? "You sound like a dog when you sleep," he added brightly, as if an afterthought.

Casey decided she could humor him for a while. It was really better than being alone, lying on the bed while trying to shake off her grief right now. She sniffled one last time while bringing up her sleeve to run the cloth under both eyelids quickly, hoping to erase any traces of her tears.

"Do I?" She hesitated, then decided she may as well tell him the truth anyway, considering it wasn't something dangerous about herself for him to know, "I-I was... having a nightmare."

"Uh-huh. Mmm-hmm." Hedwig seemed to think that over very carefully, his head cocking to the side. "Sometimes I used to have nightmares too but... Mr Dennis says that nightmares are good and that nightmares are, like,. the bodies way of ridding itself of bad memories. Etcetera." He shrugged his shoulders heavily.

"Oh, r-really?" Casey latched onto that piece of information, making herself more comfortable on the cot, leaning off the wall and forward towards him eagerly, "So w-what are your nightmares about?"

She wasn't entirely sure what she was doing or why she was trying to get personal information out of him. All she knew was that, oddly enough, speaking to 'Hedwig', even if nothing of this actually made real sense to her at the moment, it made her feel strangely comfortable. Almost like he was harmless, he felt safe. Odd considering, wasn't he exactly the 'Dennis man' in physical appearance?

"Hmm, I can't really tell you." She watched as, stubbornly, he turned his head, looking away from her on purpose. It seemed to her that he was almost enjoying keeping it a secret from her. "I just had two hot dogs for dinner."

His casual mention of hot dogs made Casey realize she was actually quite hungry. She hadn't eaten anything for quite a while and, since being abducted and taken away into the room, no one had given her anything to eat. "Uh, speaking of food, Hedwig," she began apprehensively, shifting closer on the bed until she pushed her legs off one side of it, "Do... do you think that maybe you could help me out? Get me some food?" She didn't want to get her hopes up or be too rude in asking, but she couldn't help it. Now that he'd mentioned food it made her realize she was ravenous.

"Hmm, no. Mr Dennis or Miss Patricia is in charge of the food. If I help you, I'll get in trouble."

"Not if we don't tell them?" she insisted, trying to sound as enticingly mischievous as possible. "It can be our little secret, just between you and me?"

Casey climbed off the bed and slowly sank to her knees, sitting a fair distance away from him as she heard 'Hedwig' hum deeply, thoughtfully. She could tell that he was starting to become torn and indecisive over her bargaining. And then her eyes caught past his shoulder the other room, brightly lit, and a surge of hope spread through her. It wasn't so much about being hungry about food anymore but... the chance of getting out. She could only just see the door behind his head, that must open into another room. What was out there? Outside? Fresh air and sunlight?

"Here, I know." It took almost everything she was worth to sound convincing, to sound playful and fun enough. "Let's do this." She held out a hand towards him, all fingers closed except her pinky finger. "Let's pinky promise on it, OK, Hedwig?"

To her relief, she saw the expression that came over his face, the joy at the thought of the pair of them almost being 'conspirators' keeping secrets from everyone else. It almost broke her heart as he smiled widely and shuffled closer to where she was sitting, kneeling on the floor, his guard completely down, like he truly was a child. It sort of reminded Casey of when she were younger, how naive she once was, how foolish.

She went along with her Uncle at the start so quickly, so loyally, without even once thinking he had malicious intentions for her. But then, Casey realized, that was children for you. So naive and trusting, until you break them in the end.

"Pinky promise?" he repeated once he got closer. He was so close, leaning near her with his head, that their noses almost touched. The close proximity of them, even whether he truly was a nine year old child mentally right now or not, it was disturbing. His eyes widened at her as he eyed her uncertainly. "What's that?"

"Well, we touch our pinky fingers together and then... we promise it's a secret, just between us," she explained, showing her finger to him, "And it's unbreakable, which means that we can never, ever repeat anything that we've said or done to each other with anyone."

'Hedwig' still seemed torn, looking between her pinky finger and his. Then he snickered in that childish way she'd heard before, and again it took Casey everything she was worth to not feel too bad as he finally relented.

"Hmm, OK. But you can't tell Mr Dennis or Miss Patricia, OK?"

"I won't. And it means that you can't either, Hedwig."

She held her breath as she leaned closer, bringing her hand closer to his. Her stomach clenched and she was the torn one the closer her pinky finger got to his. Did she really want to touch the man who had jacked her Uncle's car and was now responsible for keeping her in this place, only to do God knows what with? Forcefully, she pushed that aside for the sake of the game, quicking reaching over and wrapping her pinky finger around his before he could change his mind- or maybe even Casey change hers.

She felt her stomach spasm a little as 'Hedwig' lifted his gaze, eyes bright and shining back at her as their faces remained inches away from each other, their pinkies still clenched together tight in their 'promise'. She could hear his breathing increase and he laughed softly, shakily, as if beside himself with excitement for it all.

"Cool, so... does this mean we're gonna be besties, etcetera?" he asked her breathlessly, beginning to bounce on his knees while his eyes remained on hers intently. The happiness and excitement radiating off him towards her made Casey almost feel lightheaded and giddy.

"Um..."

"I've never had a real best friend before, none of us has!" His pinky finger was still gripping around hers and it tightened to the point Casey was struggling not to show any flinches of pain. While he may have seemed like a nine year old boy mentally, his strength was that of a normal man. "Miss Patricia sometimes says I'm too silly to ever have a best friend, especially a girl, and she makes me feel bad."

"Well, Miss Patricia's wrong. I would love to be your best friend, Hedwig."

"I have to go before I get into trouble!" Before Casey could mention anything more about food or attempt to work an advantage her way in getting out of the room, 'Hedwig' tore his pinky finger out from hers and jumped towards the door urgently.

It was only after he'd shut the door that she seemed to finally make sense of it all, in some way. 'Hedwig' believed he was a real nine year old boy. Then there was 'Patricia' and 'Dennis'- all the same person almost physically, but... multiple different identities?

"Oh, you poor naive child, thinking she is to be your friend." Suddenly, from where she knelt on the ground, she heard the voices coming from behind the door, only it wasn't Hedwig still. It was the English woman. Casey could hear the condescending manner to her voice, the spite.

"But... but she pinky promised!"

"She's not here for you, to be your friend." The woman's voice was deadly quiet, yet had a certain level of cutting sharpness to it. "You know her purpose perfectly well, she's tricking you!"

Crying. Casey heard a whimpering crying noise next. It occurred to her a second later that it was Hedwig.

"There, there, dear. It's what girls like her do best. They're not fit for this world, you see? They know nothing..."

Thank you all so much for your response to my story, I am so overwhelmed and amazed!

This will follow Split but I wanted to mix it up a little so it isn't too word-for-word haha so I hope I am doing Ok with keeping the characters somewhat true to themselves. Hope I'm doing OK?