Two Knight's Closing
Devil in the Wishing Well
A familiar smell. He couldn't open his eyes, he wouldn't. He knew where he was but didn't at the same time but he knew not to open his eyes.
His knees hurt. His face hurt. Rough material around his wrists itched but told him he was being held. He didn't remember. He didn't remember.
His head was foggy, full of sensations he was only half conscious of. Stimuli designed to not even register.
He knew who had him.
Was Charlie here? Tara?
Did they get Sophie?
The smell of cheap beer and sweat hit him, faint like a memory but strong as a punch to the stomach.
He opened his eyes without opening his eyes. Dark figures moved around him. A voice asked a question and his mouth moved to answer.
Slippery. His mind was slippery. Out of control. Like him.
He couldn't control it. They could.
Fear penetrated the fog. Not for himself. Never for himself. He'd left that kind of fear behind a long time ago. But he felt answers at the edge of his mind. Answers that he couldn't let them have.
Answers they could get so easily.
Pain, white hot, filled his body but cleared his mind. Pain was familiar.
Pain made you pay attention.
He knew how to do this. He'd known this could happen. Memories safely buried for twenty years, half recalled lessons on how to hide them again flashed across his mind.
"What happens if you're questioned by the enemy?" Samuel asked, using a handful of his hair to pull his head back. The very distinctive click of a lighter warned him before the heat came painfully close to his skin.
"A Liar's House" He answered, taking a breath to make sure his words didn't slur. He could feel the fog of drugs pressing down on him but Samuel wouldn't be satisfied if he let it show. "A trick of the mind where you build the memories and identity of an alias within yourself. A place where you can go when questioned where your alias is the t-t-truth..." The flame came closer to skin as he stuttered, he bit down on the shout of pain, finishing the response. "and you don't even know the secrets you're trying to protect."
He knew what to do.
He closed his eyes and closed them again. He could see the hallway, the Liar's House he'd constructed, using what Samuel himself had taught them.
He reached the first door and stood in it, looking out at a seven eleven parking lot, at a scared fifteen year old and the start, when fate changed course and now he had to change history.
His knees hurt.
Funny, he had a frickin' hole in his side ( he hated guns now, you couldn't really hate them properly until after you'd been shot) and his mind was stuck on how his knees and face hurt.
Okay, so the bullet was gone and the hole had been sewn up. He'd even snatched some of the real nifty pain killers they'd had him on before he left the group home three days ago and was taking half doses at the appointed hour. It wasn't enough to make his head go fuzzy, as nice as that was, but it was enough to deaden the pain in his side.
And wasn't he getting wimpy? Eight months without a thorough beating from That Man and he was taking pain meds and focusing on the fact his face and knees hurt.
Shouldn't the pain meds take care of that?
No. He was probably focusing on his knees and face to ignore his stomach.
He hadn't had much of anything to eat since the night before he slipped out of the group home with nothing but his new (well, newly in his possession at least) shoes, jacket, and the clothes on his back. He had nothing else worth taking. His one picture of Joey had been in his old jacket's pocket and his jacket was now… well he didn't know where.
No money, no possessions… nothing but the name Eliot Spencer and a bullet hole in his side that testified he'd almost reached his sixteenth year no easier than any of the years before.
Well nothing but that and a desperate need to eat.
He sat on the curb of a Seven-Eleven's parking lot, hidden from the bright (dangerous) light streaming through the store's windows and the ever watching (more dangerous) eyes of the store clerk (and everyone else), by the two dumpsters he sat between.
He didn't even notice the smell anymore.
In a half hour the clerks would throw away the leftover doughnuts and sandwiches and as soon as they were back inside and switching off the lights he'd climb into the dumpster and finally get something to eat.
But only if they didn't see him. If they saw kids like him waiting out here they'd put rat poison in the food.
To discourage the rats.
A shadow crossed between him and the lit parking lot, a figure coming to stand in the space between the dumpsters. "Hey there, kid."
The voice was gentle, cautious, but Eliot scrambled to get to his feet anyway. The figure was bigger than him and he'd already learned that dark figures carried guns and knives, and mercy had never been a word in his world.
"Hey, don't run. I'm not here to hurt you, kid. Just checking by to see if anyone was waiting here tonight. They've been spiking the food every night for the past two weeks."
He cursed, mentally scrambling for the next best place to catch a quick meal, or any meal.
"Hey kid, how old are you?" the voice asked, softening his words a little more.
Eliot stood up, standing at his full height, even though he knew it wouldn't do much to help dispel the "kid" in the dark he was small enough to pass as twelve better than just weeks short of sixteen. "Eighteen," he lied.
"Right," the voice said dryly. "You're a year older than me. I believe you completely."
Wait… What?
"Come out of there," he insisted. "Let me buy you something to eat before this place closes."
His stomach betrayed his better instincts. He took a step or two closer. "Why?" Eliot demanded. "What's in it for you?"
"While you stand there safely in that brightly lit area underneath those surveillance cameras eating the food I bought you, you're gonna listen to me tell you about a safe place nearby. After that you can leave. No strings attached." The boy took several steps back away from the entrance to Eliot's hide out, giving him room to get out while still giving the boy a wide berth.
"Alright," Eliot answered. "But I ain't gonna listen if you start talkin' 'bout god's mercy. He don't know what the word means."
Eliot went to stand in the "safe" (not safe, in bright light, never safe) spot pointed out by the boy and the boy headed for the door of the shop, looking like he was going to make good on his promise.
Before he opened the door though, he stopped. "Hey, kid, what's your name?"
"Eliot. Yours?"
The boy grinned. In the harsh light Eliot could now clearly see well worn clothes layered for protection as much as warmth, bright blue eyes, dirty and overgrown blonde hair, and a smile that had him unconsciously returning it when the boy responded, "They call me Charlie."
"They?" Eliot called back.
"They," was the smirking non-reply before the boy disappeared into the store.
That night Eliot first heard about New Sparks Youth Center, first heard the name Samuel.
But his mind was caught on Charlie, on blue eyes, kind voice.
Safeherehome
The first bite of food, Charlie calling him by name (and no one called him by name. He was an it, a thing, a rat. But Charlie used his name), the hand on his shoulder, the way the boy's eyes kept scanning the darkness around them.
It felt dark (safe).
Everything in Eliot's head told him not to trust. That Charlie might have knives and guns and worse things. That no one was safe. That Eliot was an it and Charlie had money and that made him not an it and its are supposed to be afraid of not its cause not its always wanted something and always hurt.
But when Charlie put a hand on his shoulder he didn't flinch.
He couldn't remember the last time someone tried to touch him and he didn't flinch.
His head was afraid, jumbled up thoughts of danger and pain and the terror that had overtaken every part of his life and kept him running scared constantly.
But the instincts that that fear drove, the ones that kept him alive because he trusted his instincts and ran the moment they told him to...
Those instincts didn't think of Charlie as a threat.
They said he was safe and Eliot followed his instincts when they said to run.
Only this time he was running toward what might be safety.
When Charlie told him about the Youth Center, offered to show him where it was, introduce him to the man who ran it Eliot nodded and followed Charlie as he led them away into the safety of the shadows.
He closed the door and turned, opening the opposite one. He looked in just long enough to see a fifteen year old leave a group home, the pamphlet for Flintwood Youth Center's martial arts program stuffed in his pocket.
He went to the next door.
Samuel watched them from the shadows of the doorway. Eliot could feel those eyes on him and he pushed himself harder.
With two months under his belt he wasn't the newbie anymore. He knew the routines. Knew that any time day or night he could come to the youth center and train. Go through the workouts Samuel helped each newcomer establish to build strength and endurance and go through the basic hand to hand combat routines Samuel taught them to practice between the self defense classes he taught.
It was exhausting and more time at the youth center meant less time scraping together food and finding a semi safe place to sleep.
But pushing himself hard and improving quickly might catch Samuel's eye. Samuel gave praise to anyone deserving but if you caught his eye, if you stood out and showed promise he might invite you to join his advanced class.
The advanced class was made up of the most promising of the boys at the youth center. He taught them actual martial arts, paid them a few dollars a day so they could stay at the youth center to train or help with the other students without going hungry, and even let them sleep and store their stuff in one of the back rooms.
And Charlie was in the advanced class.
He'd been disappointed to learn that Samuel gave Charlie extra funding to go out and bring kids into the center. At least until Charlie offered to buy him lunch five days after bringing Eliot to the center, his one condition being that Eliot train with him for a few hours in return.
Later he'd learn that each student in the advance class got a serious bonus from Samuel if one of the kids they brought in joined the advanced class and he gave out small allowances for trying to guide a kid in that direction.
But by then Charlie had stopped exchanging rushed meals for extended and intensive practices. By then he and Charlie would be spending most (all) of their free time together. Training together as often as possible during the day and lingering together until Charlie had to bed down for the night or be locked out.
Samuel took a step out of the doorway and Eliot turned, letting Samuel know he knew Samuel was there.
That got him an approving smile and Eliot grinned in return. When Samuel smiled at him like that he didn't feel like an it.
He felt like a good son.
"I have to say Charlie's faith in you was well founded," Samuel said. "I'd like you to join my advanced class. I think you can have a place here." Eliot held his breath, waiting to hear the name that would confirm it. Every member of Samuel's advanced class was known by the name he gave them when he took them under his wing, naming them as his own. "Echo."
He looked in, bitter taste at that. Pain. Though it might have been physical. He didn't know. His body didn't matter now. He shut the door.
What was this feeling of bile about?
He opened the next door.
Charlie held him.
The Roost, as the advanced class called the back room where they slept, was crowded. There were no beds, the room was hardly bigger than a walk in closet after all, but the shelves that lined either side of the long and narrow room were decent make shift five leveled bunk beds wide enough to squeeze in two street thin teenagers.
It was cramped and Eliot was so very glad he'd gotten over his claustrophobia years ago because the shelves weren't even tall enough for Charlie to roll over in.
But it was safe.
You could sleep a whole night and for once not worry about living to wake up the next morning. The heavy wood and iron lockable door ensured that. With the locking mechanism on the inside and Samuel the only one with a key to the outside they could sleep knowing not even late night visiting students could get into their private haven.
But the thing that made Eliot, no, that made Echo feel safest was that Charlie had invited him to share his bunk.
Pressed between Charlie and the wall in a dark (safe) room with the sounds of nineteen other boys breathing the only thing breaking the silence, the smell of wood and Charlie's leather jacket pillowed under their heads…
That was the safest he ever remembered feeling.
He closed his eyes. Breathing in the night. Breathing in the smell of leather and the faint scent of perfume that smelled like dark hair and tea and fashionable silk.
An arm tightened around his shoulders and Charlie told him to not to wake up.
Or was it to wake up?
He felt a bug bite the inside of his arm and he cursed. He hated spiders.
He stepped back, watching huge spiders try to chase him out of the room and down the hallway, needles replacing their fangs. He could still hear a voice telling him to wake up.
Were they drugging him? Were they trying to bring him back to reality?
He fought his own fear of needles and hatred of spiders, punching and kicking them out of the way as he struggled forward, finally reaching the door again.
He closed the door, finding himself in an empty hallway, wondering why his insides felt hollowed out from a loss he couldn't place.
He turned away, opening doors on the other side of the hallway, not even looking inside before reaching another door he needed to close.
Echo was sitting on the floor of the roost, rubbing his arm. Samuel had just given him and the rest of the advanced class a flu shot against the bouts sweeping through the area, especially the street kids.
He didn't want his advanced class to get sick.
Still. He felt strange. Good strange. But strange.
Charlie sat down in front of him, the door closing behind him.
It was the middle of the day so they were alone. From the look on Charlie's face he wanted it that way.
"Hey Echo," Charlie said after sitting down. His voice had gone back to that gentle tone he used when Echo got skittish about something.
"What?" Echo asked, thinking he knew but hoping he was wrong.
"You've been jumpy today." Charlie said. "Twitchy. More than normal." Normal for Echo was not letting anyone but Charlie or Samuel touch him. "And you've been getting jumpier for a while." Charlie's voice softened. "And your nightmares have been really bad."
They both had nightmares. Everyone in the roost did.
But the longer Echo stayed safe in the roost and lived rather than just barely survived…
The defense of not having time to think was melting away.
A soft hand on his face and another odd hint of perfume. "What happened to you?" Charlie asked.
Echo didn't tell him then. He couldn't put words to it yet.
But three days later when tempers were running strangely thin in the roost someone broke the unspoken rule that you don't touch Echo without warning him you're there first and he accidentally broke the kid's nose in his violent response.
Echo left like a flash and Charlie chased after him.
Charlie talked Echo through the flashback, walking with him a ways before another set in. He felt twitchy, like his skin was a size too small and his senses were too strong. Charlie's hand on his shoulder gripped just a little too tight.
He had two more flashbacks that day. The second one leaving him silently sobbing into Charlie's leather coat.
Charlie just held him tight, told him it was alright, and whispered the words that had floated in the dark between them for the two months they'd shared a bunk.
Echo whispered them back.
As they lay in the dark together that night Charlie held him as Echo whispered black words into the Oblivion around them.
And Oblivion bore witness to Charlie's near silent vow to protect his Echo.
He held onto the doorframe. He knew he needed to do this. He knew he could change back. It wasn't forever. It was just a mental trick. He was forgetting and remembering but not really. It was all just in his head. He was just drugged to the point he was hallucinating. He'd used his Liar's House before with barely more than repeating his old name as prep.
He would get this memory back.
And he was running out of time.
He closed the door and moved toward the next door, faster.
Time was running out.
A week after Samuel gave them their flu shots everyone in The Roost was sick. They were shaky and suffering from cold spells and fevers and Echo wasn't sure what else. He was the smallest in the group and whatever it was, was hitting him the hardest. He was one of the three or four that couldn't even get out of their bunks when Samuel asked them to all come out.
Eventually Charlie came back in, told them all that the flu vaccines Samuel had been sold were tainted, but the company had sent him two sets of shots to be taken one now and one in a week, that should more than take care of any illness that befell them and then a new set of vaccines for the week after.
Samuel apologized profusely and ordered Pizza, a rare treat, as well as gave them all the day off.
Charlie gave Echo his shot and Echo started feeling better in a little while. The strange but good feeling was back.
Stronger.
That night he and Charlie played basketball after the sun went down and most of the boys had dispersed.
Echo had grown a little in the six months since Charlie first brought him to the youth center but he was still tiny for his age and as much as Samuel was working to teach him to overcome that he was still the worst fighter of the advanced class.
And not just because his size gave him a disadvantage.
He'd learned early on something just… didn't feel right…. When he fought an actual opponent. Maybe it was all the beatings he'd taken leaving him with an aversion to violence. Maybe it had just always been against his nature but he always held back in a real fight.
Those two things combined and there were days when he wondered about his position as a member of the advanced class.
And there were days when he hated the fact the other students gave him a respectful berth not because he broke Whiskey's nose when Whiskey startled him (he really hoped no one ever found out that the first thing he'd done after getting outside was throw up and to this day felt nausea at the memory of the bone breaking beneath his fist) but because Charlie was the top student. Charlie was the biggest and the strongest fighter and when Charlie made it clear Echo was off limits, everyone paid attention.
Charlie was his protector and as good as it felt to feel safe, he hated needing that protection.
So here they were, playing basketball, at night, and Echo was trying to sort through his head.
And, like always, Charlie just knew.
"You know a lot of things make people strong Echo," Charlie said, sinking his shot. "Muscle, size, brains…" He ran after the ball and threw it to Echo. "But one thing most people forget is spirit."
"Not really in the mood for a pep talk Charlie," Echo muttered back, scoring a basket of his own. They weren't even playing anymore, just doing something together while they talked.
"Not a pep talk. The truth." Charlie caught the ball and held it, pulling Echo's attention to him. "Spirit is what Samuel sees in you. That's what got you your place in the roost and why Samuel's giving you so much attention. You don't have just physical strength. You survived… hell. You get knocked down but you always get back up."
Echo gave him a look like he was crazy. Charlie was one of three people on earth who knew everything that happened before he left home.
"Echo, you're alive now. You're still fighting. You tried to lay down because it was that or watch That Asshole hurt your sister."
Echo shook his head. "That was an excuse. I… I was just tired."
Charlie slung the ball under his arm and walked over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you any less tired now?"
Echo looked up at Charlie, into blue eyes that meant safe, and considered the world he walked in, the fact even Charlie couldn't protect him from his dreams, that he was fighting himself to fight because this was the best chance he had to live through tomorrow.
That he didn't know what would happen the day after tomorrow.
He closed his eyes and let his head drop forward.
"No."
"But you're still here. You're still fighting. That's what makes you strong. You're fast. You've got a spider sense for danger and a freakishly good memory. But what you've got that makes you something special is you don't go… no… you don't stay down. You always get back up and keep fighting. That makes you stronger than the rest of us."
Echo smiled a little and Charlie tossed him the ball back.
Later, when they lay together in the roost, Echo whispered to the darkness. "When I'm with you I'm not as tired."
He whispered a promise, he didn't know what, and closed the door. He opened another, watching in fast forward as the newest member of the youth center got kicked around again and again. He already knew to take a beating but now he was learning how to Not take one. How to fight back.
That fire growing stronger every time he hit the ground.
Anger began to show, fire bursting into life from the last embers hidden in ash.
He moved to the next door.
Four days after the supposed cure they all started to feel sick again and by dawn of the fifth day Charlie was the only one able to even get out of his bunk to go and get Samuel. Samuel had rushed in, administering the second dose, promising to get a doctor in ASAP to get to the bottom of this and would close the youth center down a few days, just until they figured out what was going on.
The second dose seemed to do the trick. By that night they were all more or less mobile when the doctor Samuel promised came in and gave them each a proper checkup, stating they were all fit and should be getting better but prescribing another dose of medicine each. Their poor living conditions were likely weakening their body's natural immune systems.
But another dose should have them back to good health.
That night Whiskey got up long after lights out and told them all that they were fools if they believed everything was just as Samuel said. He was leaving while he still could.
They never heard from Whiskey again. Samuel spent the next two days looking worried and seemed distraught when he told them later that Whiskey had gone to a hospital, and that they had called child protective services and returned Whiskey to his father, who had beaten him to death.
None of them questioned it. They all knew Whiskey had run because of his father.
They all feared it happening to them.
Four days after the last dose Samuel gave them their final dose and reopened the youth center.
Congratulating his students for coming so far he started having them pair off to fight.
Echo did his best to find somewhere else to be whenever that was happening.
It took only two days for Samuel to confront him about it and Echo was surprised to find how understanding Samuel had been when Echo finally confessed it just felt wrong.
It was not an easy thing to hurt someone when you yourself have been hurt, Samuel had told him. Just give it time. Play it by ear.
And know Samuel would never respect him less if he chose the way of a pacifist.
Something inside him rebelled, cried out, remembered. A warning was there. For the Boy. For That Echo. The sound of a slamming door echoed in his head even before he slammed the door shut.
He didn't want to remember that loss. And now he didn't.
He turned to go to the next door but the hallway was distorting, the floor buckling and tossing him. He staggered, nearly falling into the next open door.
Two days later the sickness hit the roost again and Samuel didn't offer any medicine.
When Charlie tried to get out to get help, one of the few still just barely walking, he'd found the door locked.
And the internal locking mechanism not working.
Hours later Echo had watched in a pained and twitching haze as two men came in and carried out November and his bunk mate Alpha. Figures seemed to move in a haze and Eliot felt Charlie being taken away from his side moments before rough hands lifted him from his resting place.
He moved his lips, half formed protests about not touching him dying before they left his throat.
The figures carried him down a flight of stairs into a basement he hadn't known the center had and deposited him unceremoniously on the floor.
A needle bit into his arm and he mentally apologized to Whiskey.
He'd been so very right.
He was still groggy and weak but starting to come to when Charlie (his jacket had a very distinctive feel and smell) helped him to sit up.
He looked around, his roost mates were sitting around, against the walls, all handcuffed to something keeping them in place.
It wasn't right. Not like this. This was later and earlier not…
"What?" Eliot asked, Charlie had said something. His entire world felt shaky. His head still spinning. They must have not given him a full dose of the drug.
The drug.
His mind clicked far too late.
His eyes unfocused, drifting. He couldn't make them focus. He needed to get back to the hallway. He couldn't get lost here. They had him again. He had to shut down his memories before they found the team. He leaned into Charlie's hand when it touched his forehead, liking the cool. His body was warm. Too warm.
"Try to relax," Charlie whispered, fear in his voice. "You have a fever and they didn't give you enough to pull you back."
"Hot," Eliot muttered. His skin was starting to burn and he moved to scratch at his arm, feeling tiny things bite up it and the feeling spreading. The world went crooked around him and he gasped, grabbing onto Charlie's hands as they moved to try to stop the scratching.
"Eliot…" Charlie's voice held a hint, more than a hint, of panic now, her British accent thick with fear. "Eliot I need you to stay with me."
Echo turned toward the voice, the world coming in and out as he stared at those blue eyes. He ran toward them even as arms tightened around him where he lay.
He opened his eyes, not knowing when he'd closed them again, stared up at brown eyes wide with horror. Gentle but shaking fingers ran through his hair. "That's it." She whispered. "Stay with me."
She looked away, glancing up and shaking her head. "No. Leave him alone."
Rough hands grabbed his shoulders, dragging him upwards though his legs refused to support his weight. Pulling him toward the hallway. Toward the light beyond.
He watched, removed, as Not-Charlie got up and came at them, trying to fight off the ones holding him, and he moved his mouth to warn her away. She was going to get hurt and he had to protect her.
But Charlie was supposed to protect him and he blinked and Not-Charlie became Charlie before flickering back. The Hallway unraveled around him. Doors opened and closed and fell through a void in his mind.
Colors and sounds, the whole universe pressing in around him.
He closed his eyes, his stomach churning as a wave of nausea hit him before revolting entirely, trying to reject the nothing he had in his stomach.
Instinctive terror, learned hard and buried deep, roared through his mind as another hand grabbed his wrist and he watched Not-Charlie become Charlie once again. Samuel put his hand on Charlie's shoulder. Talking but saying something Echo couldn't understand.
Suddenly Whiskey stumbled into the space between them, face beaten black and blue, looking as dazed as Echo felt.
Wasn't Whiskey dead?
His hands are sticky.
He heard a click of a gun and looked up, seeing Samuel hold a gun to Charlie's temple. "Echo." The word reached through the haze of pain and drugs and fear. Samuel seemed so calm. Why was Samuel so calm? Why was he doing this to them? "The drugs I gave you are laying the ground for behavioral modification and neural programming. With time you will be unable to resist the commands I train into you. Those lessons start today."
That wasn't…
A needle slid into his arm again and he heard someone scream.
He couldn't even tell if it was him or someone else.
"I had such high hopes for you at first you know," Samuel said, though as Eliot watched he seemed to distort as much as the world around him. "So broken, so easily influenced, yet so disciplined in your training and with that little spark of something. But this… aversion to violence. I saw it even before you did. I was just about ready to give up on you… until I had a thought." A hand touched his chin, the sensation exploding across his mind like he'd been punched. "It's not really that you don't like violence is it? You feel it don't you? Just a hint of something powerful, something your step-daddy put there. Anger. Rage. Fear." The hand slid down his neck and Echo could see in his mind the face of That Man, could smell whiskey and cigars, could feel… "You've got a monster inside you."
He broke free, head butting forward, raising his hands to force the head down to meet his knee, dropping That Man to the floor. He followed, fists flying with fury but also cold and brutal accuracy, beating and beating until bone broke and skin ruptured and blood flew and the thing left was nothing more than a steain on the floor.
He blinked and just as suddenly Samuel was staring him in the face again, smiling, eyes beetle black and something terrifying about him, an aura of gore and a stink of rot.
"It's sleeping. You're so very good at keeping it sleeping." Samuel said. "You protect and you survive and you keep the monster sleeping." A gun pressed against the side of his head. "I normally use death as a motivator for our little training program here." Echo closed his eyes, waiting for the bullet, waiting for the end to finally come, waiting for peace and god knows he'd kept his promise to Willie. "But that wouldn't work with you." There was a regretful sigh and the gun pulled away.
"But you're a protector aren't you?" Echo opened his eyes, seeing the gun pressing against Charlie's head. "So here's how it's going to work. Let the monster wake up. Kill Whiskey. Or I'll kill Charlie."
The world fractured as the hands holding him let go. As he fell to the ground gunshots rang out in his head, bouncing all around them. He saw Charlie's head implode, a bullet ripping it apart, tearing the light from those eyes, tearing the one safeherehomehe had left from this world.
He couldn't breathe.
Yellow light, the stench of beer.
He could remember. He couldn't con…
"You know how." Samuel's voice echoed, mixing in with the sounds of guns. "I trained you to kill. Just give into instincts."
"Echo…" Charlie called out and Echo braced his hands against the floor, pushing himself to his knees, setting his sights on Whiskey.
He couldn't.
He had to.
A hand closed into a fist and something inside of him just broke.
His heart swelled at the rush as he rose from the floor, blood pounding in his ears, muscles moving with precision trained into them these past few months.
A crunch of bone echoed throughout the basement and he pushed it away, like he'd learned to at the hand's of That Man, shutting it out and pulling back. His head snapped back, eyes locking on his tormentors.
They stumbled back. They could tell the difference.
"No, please." One pleaded, British accent odd for a local thug. "Come back."
He just smiled, showing teeth stained by his own blood.
Doors slamming, his world, his universe, his mind tearing apart and colliding back together, a noise beyond pain beyond anger released from his lungs. A creature without a name, a being with no direction besides the nightmares, real and imagined, that had shattered a conscious mind, broke the restraints holding it.
The chair he was tied to gave way and he lashed out.
A bright red burst of pain across it's shoulder, hot blood, and it turned. Violence learned far better than any other spoken language met the violence and the instincts of a killer, of a survivor, crushed the last resistance.
It rained red until it drowned the world and he surrendered any knowledge, any lingering consciousness, to the peaceful nothing It offered.