Chapter 6:
Kuroko POV
"Tet-chan! Hurry up!" Heavy pants. Hurried steps. My heart rapidly beating. I steady my breathing. We can't fail now. We have to get out now.
"We're almost there!" He speaks in a hushed frenzy. We pick up the pace as we near the exit. Please Kami-sama… Help us!
"Shit, there are two guards!" We crouch down in the shadows. No! Not when we're so close to our freedom!
"I'll distract them."
He nods. "We're gonna get out Tet-chan. We will."
I walk stealthily to the first guard. He's armed. My almost-invisible nature becomes my only hope. I creep up behind him and karate chop the side of his throat with all my might. He passes out on the cold floor but that attracts the attention of the other guard. He chokes me. I scratch anything I can reach on his body. Takao-kun comes to my rescue and pulls the guy into a punch. Both guards lie motionless on the ground.
The exit door opens with the sound of someone slowly clapping. "Very nice… You both learned new moves!" My scalp prickles and goosebumps rise on every inch of my skin. No… Not him…
Both our eyes widen in fear and our legs feel like they have been welded like steel to the floor. "Kneel." he growls. My knees wobble and my hands shake. My eyes well up with tears. Our knees meet the hard, freezing floor against our will.
"Very good." He cups Takao-kun's chin and he whimpers in fear. No. I cannot give in. I have to fight. The exit is right there. It's so close.
I battle the terrors in my mind and choke back my sob. My body won't move according to my will. It will forever respond to their commands. Commands they instilled in our minds through pain and fear.
I hear a sharp slap and Takao drops to the floor with a yelp. He pulls him by his raven hair and grips his throat. Stop… He's choking…! Stop!
My body jolts with newfound defiance and tackles him. "RUN!" I shout. Takao swiftly gets on his feet and flees. I begin to stand up but was brought down forcefully. My chest hits the floor hard, taking my breath away from me. "Tet-chan!" he wails, but I am being pulled harshly by him. I dig my nails into the cement but it's hopeless. "Run… Taka..o… Run…!" I wheeze.
He stomps on my back but I ignore the pain. Takao-kun has to get out. He must live. And the only way he can is if I stop him. He fists my hair and his punch connects with my jaw but I cling to his leg as hard as I can. Someone… save me…
"Shit. Follow him you useless idiots! He's gonna kill me if that hawkeyed escapes! And it's your fucking fault! You know what this means, do you? Time for your punishment!"
No! No! Anything but that! Please have mercy! Don't put me in there!
He drags my limp body across the cold cement and shoves me in it. It's so tight… It's so dark… Help me. I can't breathe… I can't see anything… Please…
"You'll never get out of here, Kuroko. Never."
And the walls squeeze me, cutting off my air supply.
"Hunnhhh." I gasp for air frantically, clutching at my chest in pain. My shoulders heave up and down and tears continuously flow down my cheeks. Give me air… I'm suffocating… I'm dying…
"TETSUYA!" A startling shout snaps me back to reality. Red and golden eyes bore into mine intensely. Who is this? I scoot away from him but he intertwines both his hands with mine. Don't touch me! Get away!
"Breathe through your nose. Follow me. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale." His tone is neutral but powerful. I gradually relax because of the repetitive pattern. The haze dissipates and I see Akashi-kun worriedly hovering over me.
"A-akashi-kun? W-what happened?" I realize there is a trembling in our entwined hands. No, not just my hands. My whole body.
"You were having a nightmare." He whispers in agony. "It's okay Tetsuya. I'm here. Nothing can harm you." He wipes my cheeks and I lean into his warm hands. Akashi-kun is here. Yokata…
I jerk backwards as a realization hits me. I was drugged! Is my baby okay? I remember that voice! "TAKAO-KUN!"
"Tet-chan…" I look at where the voice came from and I see him. Alive and well. No bruises, no cuts, no bleeding. He's alive. He's alive.
I place my shivering hand on my mouth as he approaches. I can't believe it. Is this real? Are we really both alive?
"Tet-chan..!" He weeps as he grabs the hand on my mouth and holds it tightly. He can hold me? I can hold him? Does that mean this is really not a dream?
Suddenly, visions pass through my mind and I am transported back to those places. Those dark, dreadful prisons…
"Tet-chan... It hurts." His body trembled and his lips were swollen and cut. His head was laid on my lap and I stroked his hair to at least give comfort. He complained about his behind hurting so much. It was his first time. And I pitied him because he was much more violated than I was.
"We have to be strong, Tet-chan. We have to get out of here." He said as we conducted our first ever escape plan. His hawk eyes that can see a wide range of vision. My natural phantom gift. We thought we could do it. But we failed. And our punishment was severe. We were not given food and water. He whipped us. It stung. The stench of blood was sickening. Sometimes the whips had thorns. It buried into our flesh.
"I'm sorry Tet-chan." He cried. I have been discovered in my hiding place within the hollow trunk of a tree. Just a few meters away was the high wall to the outside world. They had used his eyes against me. But I can never get mad at Takao-kun as I was electrocuted. He's my friend.
"We'll never get out of here." I said in despair. He shifted in his prison cell and pressed his face against the rails. We were being punished for talking back to a guard who was beating up a new arrival. "We will Tet-chan! Someday someone is going to rescue us! Don't lose hope!"
"No one has ever gotten out of here alive! And it has been years! Nobody cares about us!"
"Don't listen to them! They're just saying that to break us! You know that!"
"I don't know how much longer I can endure…" I cried as I clutched my sides. They've done some surgery in my body. The four-eyes said it was a successful experiment. Whatever it was hurt like hell.
Takao-kun slumped on the floor and brought his knees to his chest. "I have to get back to Shin-chan. He's waiting for me. I'm sure of it. And your family and friends are waiting for you too, Tet-chan. I'm really sure."
I lay on my back. My whole body hurt. "I hope you're right." I whispered as I closed my eyes.
"NOOOOOO! DON'T TAKE HIM ANYWHERE!" Takao-kun shouted.
"Awww~ How cute~ You're so fond of each other! But he has to be punished for giving you food. We're still not forgiving you for hurting your patron."
"TET-CHAN! NOOOOO!"
They dragged me away from Takao-kun. I want to fight but I feel so weak. "Please… Forgive me…" I pleaded softly while crying.
"Nuh-uh~ You know how it is Kuroko-kun. And I'm really excited to put you in your new punishment room! But it's more of a box, hahaha!"
My heart constricted in terror. They opened a cupboard-like compartment in the wall. Please don't put me in there… I can't even fit in. Please.
They pushed me inside and I had to crawl up into a fetal position in order to fit my body. My breath came in frenzied starts and stops as I wailed and begged. "Good night Kuroko-kun~!" Don't close the door! It's so dark! I can't breathe!
"SHIN-CHAN! HE'S HAVING A PANIC ATTACK!"
"TETSUYA! CAN YOU HEAR ME? TETSUYA!"
"DO SOMETHING!"
"Sedate him!"
"TETSUYA!"
Takao POV
Poor Tet-chan. Even as he sleeps, he looks distressed. And he's pregnant. Damn it. I want to kill them. For everything they've done to him. For everything they've done to me.
My name is Takao Kazunari. I'm Shin-chan's fiancé. We were best friends in high school. I have just returned from Africa where I took photographs of wildlife and nature. Yes, I'm a photographer now. It was therapy for me at first, but I've come to love it as a passion and job. I travel around the world to take shots of anything, but mostly nature. I love travelling, but sometimes I think it's my way of getting away from my fucking memories of being imprisoned. You only cherish freedom when it's taken away from you.
Yes, I was Tet-chan's fellow prisoner. I had arrived a few hours ahead of him in a room full of scared male teenagers. Then he entered as the last one, his pale face shocked and tear-streaked. No one really noticed him, but I approached and befriended him. It took a couple of days before he revealed to me that he was raped. Hours after the revelation, I was called next.
"Ah… Hnnn… Unghhh! Hah…" Fuck it. I couldn't move my body. They injected me with something so that I only have enough strength enough to continue breathing. The sound of flesh pounding against flesh made me sick. My moans disgusted me. I silently cried as my orgasm took over me. Fuck I couldn't even control my own body. Stop! I shouted over and over. But they didn't, thrusting in and out me for several more rounds.
We were quickly taught the rules. First, we had to follow everything they say. Second, we could not escape. Third, there was punishment in everything we did. Several guys resisted and they were shot mercilessly in front of us. It was the first time I saw someone killed in front of me. Soon, our numbers dwindled and only a handful remained in the room. We were then taken away to another place.
I prayed that Tet-chan would be with me. At least then I would have someone to share my sorrow with. So I was happy when my blindfold was taken off and I saw Tet-chan in front of me. But my moment of relief was cut short as another horror came forth.
"You guys are our experiments now. Be obedient and we will reward you. Disobey and you will get punished. It's that easy." The megane scientist explained as we arrived in a hall with twenty people, fewer than our first room. Tet-chan looked back at me and we acknowledged each other with a small nod. Later, we were escorted in a room with white beds.
"What do you think will they do to us?" I asked and Tet-chan shook his head. One guy clenched his fist angrily, "What are we, guinea pigs?! They don't have the right to do this!" We kept quiet because any form of struggle would result to torture, death, or both.
The nature of their activities were perfectly hidden to us. We were afraid to ask our detainers because some were killed on the spot after they asked questions. We were always moved around, never staying at one place for too long. Sometimes we were taken to a clinic. We've also been brought to a sports facility, where I learned Tet-chan loves basketball even though he sucks at it. My appreciation for him increased as I was a varsity player myself. Sometimes they were kind and let us do what we wanted to. But being restricted to only our quarters, all Tet-chan and I could do was talk about our happy memories. And hope they don't kill us yet.
We speculated that our kidnappers were a huge mafia organization. We learned at the expense of a fellow prisoner that they earned money by selling us to "patrons", people who buy us to fuck. Shit, I stopped counting how many fucked me after I reached a hundred. Every patron was different: from sadistic, older men to virgin businessmen. Some would hurt us, but others were kind enough to give us things. Maybe they did it to make themselves feel better about raping us. Tet-chan's the cutest so he got more gifts, but my gifts were more precious. They gave me useful information so we could get out.
But every single time we attempted a breakout, they would catch us again. The farthest we've been was two meters away from a low fence, and that's the farthest anyone has gotten to. Sometimes Tet-chan and I made plans for a single person, for either of the two of us, so that if one gets out he can get help. But fuck it all, we never made it out.
The punishments were harsh, cruel and inhuman. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we've been through any torture you can imagine. Drowning, electrocuting, whipping, starvation, sexual assault, induced mind hallucinations, burning, lacerations, you name it. The only thing they hadn't done was cut off our body parts, because duh, no patron would accept a slut missing a limb. And of course we had to look presentable, so they did something to our bodies to temporarily hide the scars.
Sometimes they have special punishments to break us, like Tet-chan being put into dark, closed spaces, inducing his claustrophobia. I even developed a hatred for televisions, because they put me in a room filled with monitors showing horrible videos all at once. My eyes could see all of them and I went crazy from the overexposure. I have a special ability of a wider field vision and to see it in my brain in different perspectives. They took advantage of that and created a trap for my eyes, injecting me with strong stimulants to keep me awake and thereby forcing me to watch everything all at the same time. My ability became a curse then. I still have nightmares about it.
The group must have functioned so covertly and secretly that neither of our friends or families ever found us. This is later proven when I got out. Akashi-kun is so far the closest a person has come to discovering their bases. I found out that when I escaped, he was bombing the mansion where the leader was, so Grey-Braid was the only "guard" in our place. I was found several days later in a trash can miles away from our prison by the police, who informed Shin-chan.
It took me 3 months to speak, and 6 months to let anyone touch me, including Shin-chan. They would always sedate me for being too violent or having too many panic attacks. But all that I could think about at that time was how I left Tet-chan. He would be surely punished for my freedom. I had to save him but I couldn't even get out of my room without having flashbacks. The nightmares were haunting. I always cried myself to sleep every night, praying for Tet-chan not to die yet so we could save him.
And now, after 2 years of my being freed, Tet-chan is here. He's finally out of there. He's here, where I can hug him and comfort him. My heart is finally free of the burden of guilt, although it hurts at the thought of what they've done to him. They changed his body to make him pregnant. Those sick, twisted psychos! They'll pay someday. It will be soon. Every crime has its consequence. Even if I have to bestow the consequence myself.
Shin-chan holds my hand and places it in his lap. I'm extremely grateful because despite how broken I am, he never stopped loving me. He fixed all my broken pieces and hugged me tightly to glue it all back together. If it weren't for him, I'd be in a mental institution right now. He's my savior and angel, and I hope we won't ever be apart again.
That's why I feel relieved as I see Akashi-kun clutching Tet-chan's hand firmly. I don't know about their history but anyone looking at them would see how much Akashi-kun loves Tet-chan, and how much Tet-chan needs Akashi-kun. He'll take care of Tet-chan and be his anchor from the demons and trauma of our past. He'll protect Tet-chan and the baby. He'll save Tet-chan, just like what Shin-chan did to me. I feel that they have a special connection, almost like a thread of fate linking them to each other.
Love can break the chains of fear. Love can liberate us from the bonds of our terrors. Love can set us free. I know because I've felt it.
Fin~
No, I am not sadistic, because this has already been toned down to fit the rating T. This is the safest I have managed.
Please don't take phobias and traumas lightly. When you see someone suffering from panic attacks, the first thing to do is to help them regain their breathing. Phobias cannot just be talked through and cannot be erased overnight. Believe me, I'm talking based on experience.
Wew this is catharsis for me. I have taken two mugs of coffee to write this in 4 hours 12amto4am. I almost triggered my own phobia.
Thank you as always Caithlinn and Akemi for being loyal reviewers! You're so awesome, every time I post I see your reviews almost immediately! The support is overwhelming it makes me want to cry. T^T
Sappyhire-chan, I'm sorry for the grammar errors! Hihihi. It was because I didn't want to make you guys wait! I am a fanfic reader too, so I know how it feels waiting for an update! Please tell me if I make too much mistakes! =D [AND THANK YOU FOR EDITING THIS CHAPTER! MWAAH ^*^]
Hi anne, it makes me happy to know you're waiting for this update. I hope I didn't disappoint you XD
I hope I didn't "kill" you again with this, guest! Please write your name so I can address you properly hehehe. Thanks for reviewing!
I love you guys! I wanna cry! T-T