Zomg, I'm done! Exams are done, thank god, so I can finally post a new chapter. Although the main purpose of this one is to introduce a new character. I think this chappie is consistent with my murderous mood today, though. Exam results just got sent in. Thank you, school for the wonderful Xmas present (shakes fist at administrators).

Merry Xmas, y'all.

 8 

She awoke bleary eyed and foggy-headed. The numbing darkness gradually ebbed away from the center of her vision until it only dimmed its edges, though everything was still a bit blurry. A groan escaped her lips of its own accord. What happened?

She remembered so little of her last conscious moments before…what happened? There had been lights, many of them, glowing in the air about her. It was nighttime; was it still nighttime now? It was hard to tell considering everything around her was artificially dark. And…she had been with someone and she had been having a glorious time with him. She knew, for a fact, that she had never laughed so much since her Mami's death. They had been walking, and then he led her into a dark alley righted between two taverns. She recalled being scared and her heart racing a million beats because she was still a virgin. And then…nothing.

And then she was here, waking up to brown darkness and a muddled mind. God forsake, this was many times worse than a hangover. Certainly there was nothing worse than the frustrating fuzziness in her head save wearing a corset. …She was wrong.

The feeling in her body started to come.

More groans sounded, but this time, purposeful. Her limbs ached and felt overstretched. And that's when she realized she was suspended from the ground, bound at the ankles and wrists. And there was something…Her head. There was a large amount of pressure applied to her head, as if a rather tight band made for a child had wound itself around her instead. But thank the heavens; at least it wasn't a corset. With that she couldn't even breathe.

But the concept of the matter itself: the tied limbs, the shackles, the mysterious date, the unknown location, everything; it was ten times worse than her physical situation. It gnawed on her in the form of a pounding fear confirming an unknown entity watching her every move if not completely manipulating them. Her breathing came in rasps as a dreadful fact only truly sunk in now; she could die. Her breathing worsened when she realized with horror that the binding on her head was slowly but surely tightening.

She gasped silently when she heard the unmistakable sound of locks unlatching from across the room. By the sounds of the echoes that followed it seemed to be a large room. The door groaned in protest as it was slowly swung open. No light came from the other side of the entrance; it was as dark if not darker than where she was now. But there was no mistaking the figure of a man standing under the doorway. Tall and lanky with slick black hair. He was so unambiguously someone she knew. Someone she had just met.

"John?" She breathed in revelation. How could he? Didn't he enjoy their date as much as she did? But then, even as she wondered, more memories slowly started to come back; a tall, skinny figure swinging at her face with a jagged piece of metal before she passed out. But surely…

"John?" He finally said. "Surely you don't think I'd give away my actual name."

She trembled within in her shackles. His voice...it had been so warm that night (this night?), it showed her the endless warmth and joy he offered. She heard so much in his hearty laugh. He had enticed so much of her with his deep tenor. But now. Oh dear Lord, just hearing his voice made her pray many times inside her head, begging to let her survive this. His tone was so chilling, and she could hear the leer buried indiscreetly within. It was cold and, worst of all, cruel. Her body screamed to be let free. She just knew, already from that voice that he didn't return her feelings after all. Her mind screamed: killer! The band around her head tightened.

"Why?" She gasped out. "How could you do this? We were having such a good time!"

"A good time?" He whispered, but not soft enough for her not to hear. She wished she hadn't said anything. He seemed angered. "Do you think someone can have a good time knowing he is laughing with a person whose mouth he wants to drive a jagged piece of bloodied knife into?" His voice grew louder, but it retained its corpse-like qualities.

"Wh-what?" Now she was utterly perplexed. "Whatever did I do to you?-"

"You laughed at me!" He screeched. She was taken aback and had to withdraw her head on instinct when she saw a glimmer of metal swing brashly towards her. Lucky. She had been lucky because now it really did seem to be that bloodied knife he was talking about. "Whatever did you do to me?(!) You mean to say you don't even remember!"

"I..I'm sorry," she said, hoping it would calm him down. In all honesty, she didn't even know what he was talking about. Yes she did laugh in good jest with him during their time together, but surely he wouldn't be mad about that.

"You don't even remember, do you?" He screamed even louder. A box appeared to have been situated below her. He climbed atop it so they could now see at each other's eye level. She felt herself shake even more when they finally faced each other. His voice had told her he was meant for murder, but his eyes, revealed only through their light gleam, confirmed all her worst fears. The eyes of a murderer. He wouldn't care, not at all, that she had a family, her own life, that second chances mattered much. He would kill her with his own damned, cold blood. She has never feared anything more.

Her breath hitched in her throat. She didn't exhale for fear breathing on his face would enrage him; she didn't inhale for fear that stealing his air would anger him even more. She didn't know whether to stare at him or not, either. Every miniscule detail in her movements had to be watched; every tinny wrong move would most certainly mean an agonizing death. But in the first place, she was here for that very reason; his satisfaction out of her dead body. Death.

"Alright then, considering your rather tiny brain capacity to remember things that can haunt one person for the rest of his or her life, I will retell the encounter that has caused you to be in this particular predicament." He leaned towards her. She saw his hair, his real hair, not the wig which she now realized he had been wearing before. Now it was loose, shaggy and somewhat thinning; slicked to the side. Oh god, was it smeared by blood?

"Y'see, five years, seven months, one week and three days ago, when the moon was in the exact same position it is now, I decided it would be a nice time to walk around near the port. I passed by this club with a window, it was a frosted kind of window and I saw this sickening shade of lemon yellow and I knew it was from the lamps. It was called the 'Broken Bottle' I believe."

Her eyes widened slightly in remembrance. It was her 18th birthday and she and her cousin decided to go out for their first time ever drinking. The Broken Bottle had been where their parents first met in a double blind date so they decided to commemorate that. The light of the lamps did seem ghastly at the time but she couldn't remember the details. They had taken a table near the window and…There had been a boy; a little younger than here by the looks of it. He had passed by; tall, lanky, skinny, thinning hair, frightfully ugly. You laughed at me! Oh dear.

"You were there! You laughed at me! You didn't even KNOW me! Why would you laugh at someone you don't even KNOW?! How could you? How could you? How could you?" He was in hysterics rashly swinging the brown and red stained knife. The air whistled wherever it sliced, magnified by the echoes that bounced in and out of the large room. He transformed completely before her eyes. From the calculating murderer, he was now the crazy homicide. She eyed the knife in his hand, hoping he was watching where he swung it. Wait no; on second thought, she prayed he wasn't even noticing her now.

"I'm so, so sorry," she pleaded. "I was terribly drunk..I-I didn't know what I was thinking."

"Drunk? You DARE lie to me, you bitch!" He screamed. "There wasn't anything on your table! NOTHING!"

"He's mad..horribly mad." The thought raced through her head, unable to stop. It raced frantically, running and running at different intervals, different speeds. This was it then? If his madness couldn't be stopped then what of his intent to murder her? She closed her eyes, feeling tears sting their corners. Her Mami came to mind, joyful and on her deathbed, but smiling, still smiling. And her cousin, too. Her only sister at heart, still was despite only having seen the last of her before her wedding six years ago. Her Papi was there too, buried in her memories. Was this what they were talking about? Your life flashing before your eyes before your very death? She wished not.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, sincere, but it wasn't directed at this wild man in front of her. It was directed at all the regrets she's never had the opportunity to right. This was this. This was death.

"Sorry?" He held up his knife well above his head, with the point unmistakably aimed at her head where the band tightened even more. She squeezed her eyes shut with a muffled moan leaving her lips. The air hissed as the tip of the blade pierced the gap between them as it went. Closer and closer…faster and deadlier…

It never came.

A moment was spent in wondering whether death had finally reached her, or if she was lucky and he missed before opening her eyes, one at a time. The very tip of the blade was, at best, a millimeter away from the bridge of her nose. A single drop of sweat meandered down the side of her face. She finally let out her bated breath; a sigh of relief or a sigh of something else, she wasn't sure.

She risked a look at him. His eyes were narrowed in what looked like annoyance. He was poised for attack but his pose showed that he had been completely interrupted. Interrupted by what, she didn't know. Neither a sound nor a force of disturbance went noticed by her. His attention finally turned back to his victim, much to her dismay. "It seems I am being called by a deary old friend of mine. Please wait for your impending doom while I speak with her, although it could take an awfully long while." And with that, he stepped off his leverage and walked away, his back turned to her.

Freedom? Surely..oh praise the Lord, she was being left to her own devices? She could think of a way to get out of her prison by then. She had a path to survival; that was all she could ask for of this moment. Hope. Thank you, thank you, thank-

"Oh and by the way," he said before walking out the door. He pointed to the cuff on her left hand. "Well, there's a rope tied there. If the cuff happens to open it will get cut by the blade attached to the wall above it. The rope is attached to a wheel and axle which is attached to a rather large rock. If that rock were to fall into the deep abyss which I have not yet measured, the other rope attached to it, which is attached to your pretty head band, will be pulled down with it, causing your band to tighten unbearably quickly. Either your skull will get crushed or your head will snap off I don't know." He shrugged.

"Or if you happen to relinquish the band first before the cuff, the rope to it attached to the rock is also tied to a chain. If that chain were to be set free due to your strap coming free, then certain devices will allow that large blade below you (where I just stood on, if you remember) to swing up and cut off your pretty face. Well either way it doesn't matter, because the wheel and axle I mentioned where that rock is attached is pretty old and is falling anyhow. In about an hour it will detach completely from the wall, falling into said abyss with rock. Please do scream when you're dead because I really must know whether your skull will get crushed or your neck will get snapped," he explained all in a nonchalant manner, with a shrug and a sigh of regret at not having killed her himself. He walked away and closed the door gently behind him. The sound of metal hitting plaster wall rung heavily in the air, roaring and crushing all the space it could take its hands on.

She hung there in the darkness, stunned, her breathing as heavy as lead. Too dazed to move, to cry, to fear the end that hung in the stagnant air. It was then that a creaking sound reverberated across the room, as if to say it was too old to simply hang from the ceiling, carrying the weight of an impossibly heavy object, and that it would rather fall into the endless, unmeasured abyss.

She prayed one last time to her Lord that her neck would snap instead of the alternative. It seemed the quicker.



Elizabeth woke suddenly as if from a nightmare, though she had none, but she was unnaturally cold. The moon was still high in the sky. The soft pulse of the ocean still apathetic outside her window. She took a moment to wonder why she had woken during the wee hours of the morning, or during the aged phase of pre-midnight. The date, maybe?

She ticked off the days on her fingers, rewinding through the week. 7…8…9…the 10th. Today was the 10th of May. Her cousin's birthday then. The last time they had seen each other, it was her 18th, a bit before Elizabeth's failed wedding day. She'd be turning 24 today then, no doubt a grown woman.

She smiled wistfully, wishing her dear cousin a happy Birthday, before positioning herself more comfortable on the bed and drowning back into deep slumber.

8 

Ngya! Finally done! Along with another great arc of xxxholic, which will only serve as more great inspiration for this fic along with, duh, POTC.

Note: I do not take full credit for "John." I had to take some references out of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, err…homicide-wise. But the torture rack (headband, cuffs, rock, wheel and axle, etc.) was already my idea before I read it, so please no bashing. JTHM, in case you were wondering, is an awesome, psychological, smart, stupid, controversial, paperback comic which I DO NOT RECOMMEND unless you're prepared to read it without having your perspective on life changed for the worse.

Please state all the wrongness you find here or anomalies that I should fix. Flames are welcome, praises are adored, constructive criticism is encouraged. All of those just as long as you review. ;D