Desmond fans are probably going to be irritated (not furious, don't worry) at what I put him through in this chapter. Myself included; I am ashamed that I even thought of this..

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
-Albert Einstein

The gods hated him. More than likely, it was still the lights out to get revenge, but Desmond didn't really care about the details. All he cared about was the absolutely terrifying nightmare he had.

Yeah, he was nervous for the next day, for getting back into the Animus, but the only cause of his nerves was the fear of more damn visions. He'd gone to bed with a heavy heart, after Lucy insisted he get some rest.

He had been pretty tired, so the moment his head hit the pillow, he was out. But not the good type of out.

As soon as Desmond closed his eyes, he was presented with a dark, dimly lit basement - like the kind from Saw or something. When you see one of those, you know it's never a good thing.

And it wasn't. Squinting, his eyes adjusting to the light, Desmond could just about make out a shape that looked an awful lot like a large cage sitting in the centre of the room, standing around three feet tall. There was a mass huddled in a far corner. Except it was sort of like a blob - there was no distinguishable objects, limbs, or otherwise protruding from it. It was slowly throbbing, as if it was breathing, and moans occasionally escaped it.

Knowing he was going to regret it, but somehow not able to stop himself, Desmond padded forward slowly, trying to see what was in the cage.

It was a person, hunched over on itself - herself. Limbless and nude. Both her arms and legs had been amputated, not very cleanly, and recently. Nothing had been bandaged or stitched up, exposing muscle and bone. There was small, threadlike pieces of flesh and muscle hanging from places where her limbs used to be. She was curled up in a corner of the cage, as curled as she could be with no knees to grab on to or hands to grab with.

Blood everywhere - there was a thick layer covering the entire bottom of the cage and the woman's flesh had taken on a slightly pinkish hue from the blood coating her entire body. As Desmond stared in mute horror, eyes wide, she raised her head to look in his direction. Her face resembled that of a caterpillar. Two large pincer-like objects had been thrust through her top lip, the tops of which sticking out from just under her nostrils. And that's all her nose was - nostrils. There was no nose on her face at all, just a large hole in the middle of it. All her teeth had been pulled - ripped - out. She opened her mouth to moan again, revealing a strangely empty mouth - no tongue either. It looked like her eyelids had been sliced off, giving her eyes a wide, bug-like appearance.

Desmond reeled back in shock and horror - who the fuck would do that to a person? As his eyes travelled down the length of her short torso, he saw that both her breasts had also been crudely amputated, exposing two large holes in her chest that still oozed blood, pus, and other bodily fluids.

The woman's eyes were wide, pleading. She stared up at him with a helpless expression on her face, moaning again in pain.

And Desmond - oh-so-useful Desmond - just stood there, staring wide-eyed at her. It was so terrible... and yet he couldn't look away. It was like the begging, pain-drenched look in her blue eyes was pulling him in...

Blue. Eyes. "No," Desmond gasped, falling forward on his knees. Her face was nearly unrecognizable, but those eyes... there was no mistaking them.

"Lucy?" he gulped. Dim recognition dawned in her eyes, as if she hadn't heard her name called in a long time. But it was still hers, the one thing she could cling to.

Desmond slowly crawled closer to the cage, the smell of sweat, blood, and fear washing over him. Lucy still lay curled, pleading with her eyes. She had absolutely no other way of communicating with him - no tongue to speak with, no hands to mime with.

Desmond felt so sorry for her. Stuck in that fucking cage, suffering... There seemed to be no door on her cell, and no lock to unlock, but then his hand hit something as he was crawling, and he looked down.

A small, silver, .22 pistol. Lucy's eyes lit up. It was absolutely absurd, someone actually gaining hope when they saw a gun, but... As Desmond picked it up and cradled it in his hand, the barrel seemed to direct itself toward her head. She nodded quickly, sharply, the pincers in her lips clicking together with the movement. Her neck stretched toward him, as if she was trying to get closer to the gun - it was her only saviour.

Hand trembling, Desmond placed his finger over the trigger. She wants this, he reassured himself. It's the only way.

The bullet left the gun and exploded the right side of Lucy's head, spraying brains everywhere. She slumped down, the fresh blood only showing a minor difference in the red that coated her entire cage.

Desmond stood shakily, avoiding the cage with his eyes. He dropped the gun, and as it clattered to the floor, lights burst into bloom from bulbs all down the room that Desmond now discovered to be about as long as a hockey rink.

People - at least, they looked to be people - were chained all up and down the walls. A couple were like Lucy was, limbless and stuck in cages. The ones that were chained to the walls had so many things wrong with them it was hard to begin.

A man on the right wall, third down, had two arms and two legs - and more. There was extra hand sewed to his cheek, and another leg attached to the area between his penis and anus. It was extremely small, hanging down to about the man's knees. It looked a lot like a baby or young child's leg. Scanning the walls quickly, Desmond saw all adults. He didn't even want to know where that extra leg came from.

A man and woman, chained next to each other, looked like someone had attempted a crude sex change on the two. The man's penis had been amputated and sewn to the front of the woman's pelvis. Blood ran down between his legs, and Desmond looked away before he could see what it looked like.

There was a man hanging by his neck from the low ceiling about twenty feet from where Desmond was standing, rotating slowly, his the soles of his feet about two feet off the ground. When his back came round, Desmond quickly squeezed his eyes shut, but not before the image was ingrained in his mind.

Someone had taken a knife and sliced down the centre of the poor man's upper back, between his shoulder blades down to where his ribcage ended. Then, casting aside the knife and using their bare hands, they pulled apart his ribs at the spine and ripped out his lungs, tossing them onto the floor as if they'd mutilated him for fun.

Desmond spun around, opening his eyes. He needed to get out of that room. All the people in that room were dead except for him, and he was also the only one wearing a scrap of clothing.

There was no door behind him, only a solid gray brick wall. Reluctantly, Desmond turned back around and walked hesitantly around the cage Lucy's body - if you could call it that - was in, then strode to the far end of the room, trying not to look at any of the dead people or their wide, staring eyes. He edged slowly around the man hanging from the ceiling, almost slipping in the blood coating the floor - still wet. Whoever had done this had done it recently, and he had a pretty good idea of who it was.

A light materialized in front of him. "Ah, perfect timing," Desmond growled. "Want to tell me where the fuck I am, and why all these people are..." He trailed off. "...like this?"

The light pulsed slowly, giving off a soft purple-ish glow. "Look at all these people." It swept around the room, as if showing him all the carnage. Its voice still rang clearly in Desmond's head, no matter how far away it got.

"Look at them," the light continued. "Tortured. Killed. Murdered." It said the last word slyly, knowingly, as if it knew what Desmond did to Lucy. Which it probably did.

"Okay, but why show me this?" Desmond hissed at it. "Are you trying to give me a freaking heart attack? No offense, but this dream isn't really realistic. Because that's what this is, a dream, isn't it?" He was rather proud of himself for figuring that out.

"Oh no," the light purred, swooping back round to hover in front of Desmond. "This is no dream. Yes," it said as he opened his mouth in protest, "your body is asleep in the Villa, but you're actually here in spirit. This room is real. You're seeing it now, in real time."

"But-" Desmond sputtered, turning back around toward the cage where Lucy's body was. And, to no one's surprise, it was gone.

"That was a hallucination," the light admitted. "She wasn't really here. But all these others are real. Here, right now. Dead."

"...Where are we?" Desmond whispered, stunned that this would be happening. That people would let it happen. That someone was making it happen.

"Oh, I couldn't tell you that," the light scoffed in response.

Desmond huffed frustratedly.

"Are you scared, seeing all these people?" The purple cloud swirled around near his face, obviously trying to appear menacing as it grew darker and more red. Its glow radiated around the room, dyeing those parts of the people chained to the wall - that weren't already coated in blood - a reddish colour.

"Fuck," Desmond moaned, stretching out the word.

Let it all burn
I will burn first

"What's the point?" he yelled. "Showing me visions of myself slaughtering her isn't making me want to kill her any more. It's just... horrible, that feeling of knowing that her blood was on my hands. I'd rather kill myself before I murder her. You're not getting any closer to completing your sick prophecies," he spat.

"Oh, aren't we?" the light said knowingly. "I can see your thoughts, your fears, your wants. I know-"

"Cut your bullshit!" Desmond hissed. "I know what I want. And it doesn't involve killing anyone."

The light pulsed redder, faster, but then seemed to calm itself as it settled down. "You say that now. But I know there's a dark side to your thoughts, Desmond Miles. Sooner or later, you will see the right thing to do."

"The right thing? The right thing?" Desmond exploded, but before he could rant anymore, the light sucked itself up into the ceiling, taking all the light in the room with it. Desmond was plunged into murky darkness again, the only light coming from a small window set high up the wall, letting a tiny bit of moonlight through it.

"Okay, so how long are you planning on keeping me in here for?" Desmond called to the empty room. No answer, as he'd expected; the lights were probably mad at him for not going along with their plan. Typical. He decided to continue with his earlier plan, to find out if there was a door anywhere.

Turning on the small light on his watch, Desmond continued slowly forward, taking care not to step on... anything. He looked back once more, just to check the cage was still gone. Nothing. It made sense that woman in the cage was a hallucination - it explained why she didn't bleed to death or die of shock like everyone else in the room.

At the end of the room, there was clearly no door. Desmond slammed his fists once against the bare brick, trying to repress a sob. He bowed his head, squeezing his eyes shut.

There was a thump from above. So he wasin a basement. Desmond raised his head slowly, training the weak light from his watch on the ceiling. It was largely normal, dark lights hanging from it, covered in dust and cobwebs. But on a square disturbed area, there was a ringed, circular handle - a trapdoor. Desmond padded over, wary of any more noises, and tried to reach the handle. He wasn't even close. Someone on the other side would have to lower down a rope or ladder before he could climb up. And judging by the state of the people in the room, Desmond wasn't sure he wanted whoever had done this to them to come to his rescue.

Okay, so he was trapped in there. How long could he stay alive before his real body died, faded away to nothing? Was time even passing back at the Villa? Was Desmond just doomed to stay in this hellhole for the rest of his life, with nothing to do but watch dead bodies decay?

God of time, am I lost in your eyes?

Might as well try to find a light switch, Desmond thought, determined not to die in the dark. He cast his small light around and wandered from one end of the room to the other, trying to find some sort of switch.

Well, there was one. Right in between the man and woman that had had the bloody sex change - and the word 'bloody' was used in a literal way.

The two unfortunates were chained up rather close to each other, leaving a small gap between for the switch, which was, like everything else, coated with blood. The man's head lolled and his eyes were closed - he must've gone without much of a fight. But the woman's wrists and ankles were ragged where she'd pulled and kicked against the chains. Her eyes stretched wide and terrified, a light shade of brown.

Tearing his gaze away, Desmond reached gingerly in between the bodies and flipped the switch.

Bulbs burst into bloom like flowers in the spring. Desmond shielded his eyes against it for a couple seconds, then lowered his hand again.

The room seemed even more terrible with the lights on - he almost wanted to turn them back off. But he'd gone through a lot to turn those lights on, damn it, and they were staying on.

"Okay, so now what?" Desmond asked, half to the non-existent light, and half to himself. No answer from either.

Just standing there was pissing him off and making him feel nervous, so Desmond started to walk in little circles around the room. He did figure eights, reversed direction, and spirals every couple minutes to keep himself entertained. And soon, he was running, pushing himself, challenging himself to keep sprinting faster, to take sharp turns and not slip on the blood caked floor.

Soon realizing how much of an idiot he was being, Desmond slowed and stopped, panting and sweating. Who knew how much water there was down here? And there was still the problem of how fucking long he was going to stay down there.

Desmond looked around for what felt like the millionth time for a way out. The window was too small and too high to climb out of, and had bars anyway. There was no doors, only a trapdoor in the ceiling that could only be opened from the other side. He wasn't particularly optimistic about escape, and not even sure he wanted to know who lived in this house.

"Shit!" Desmond yelled loudly, turning and slamming his fist onto the closest thing to him - which was the brick wall. The hard brick wall. His hand collapsed under itself with the weight of the blow, and he felt at least one finger break. Letting out an agonized wail, Desmond cradled his hand close to his chest. He'd broken a few bones before, every Assassin had, but this hurt more. Maybe it was because of all he'd been experiencing, and it all just piled up and boiled over.

Gasping in pain, Desmond stumbled toward the window to inspect the damage - his watch was on his right hand, the one he'd broken, and the light was positioned in such a way that it would be near impossible to maneuver it to look at his hand.

Already, the hand was starting to swell up, and the knuckles were cut and bloody. Desmond cringed; would he have to reset the bones by himself?

There was a noise behind him, from the far end of the room - where the trapdoor was. Whipping around, Desmond backed against the bare wall as the door swung down and a ladder was lowered.

"Did I hear someone down here?" It was a woman's voice. Desmond blinked; he didn't expect the person who'd done these horrible things to be a woman. Maybe she didn't actually do it, but was the wife of whoever was, and he was out.

A foot stepped down on the top rung, followed by another on the second. When the legs were in view, Desmond hurriedly switched off his light and stepped out of the moonlight; maybe she wouldn't see him.

She'd brought a torch with her though, and soon it was flashing all around the room, illuminating the dead men and woman, before finally landing on Desmond.

The woman squinted - she was in her mid-50s, with glasses and graying hair, giving Desmond even more belief that she hadn't done all this. "Who are you?" she asked. Her voice was slightly shaky.

Desmond opened his mouth, but she shook her head. "Doesn't matter," she said, without waiting for an answer. "You're just what I need for my collection - I haven't got any with hair like yours yet." He reeled back further.

Eagle Vision activated itself. The woman illuminated the room with the redness of her body. Switching back to normal vision, Desmond looked around desperately for something he could defend himself with. He had nothing, only his fists... fist.

The woman crept toward him slowly. Desmond's eyes darted up to the ladder - maybe he could slip past her and escape - but then she turned and pushed it back up into the ceiling.

"You're very naughty, sneaking into my house like this," the woman scolded. "You'll have to be punished." Switching the torch to her left hand, she withdrew a very long, very sharp carving knife from inside her clothes. Desmond's adrenaline kicked into high gear, and his heart pounded faster as he looked around for some way of escape. Being cornered was nothing new to him, and he knew how to disarm someone, but they'd never practiced with broken hands. Still, he'd have to try.

Crouching down in a defensive position, Desmond watched the woman's every move as she advanced on him, studying her. She limped slightly, favouring her left leg - he could take advantage of that.

All his tactics were deemed useless, however, when she threw the knife with an expert hand straight at him. Yelping, Desmond jumped out of the way a second too late. The knife stuck itself into his thigh, burying itself deep into his flesh.

Completely panicking now, Desmond ripped the knife out of his leg and threw it to the ground, all thoughts of defending himself lost. "Okay!" he howled at the ceiling. "I'll do it, just get me out of here!"

The same purple light shone into existence in front of his face. "If you are not being truthful... We shall have to do the same to your other friend as we did the first," it warned him.

"I am, I am!" Desmond screamed. "Don't let her kill me!"

The room was gone, replaced by the Animus loading area. Desmond collapsed to the floor, sobbing, ignoring the pain shooting everywhere through his body, and ignoring the fact that the pain was still there. Hadn't I been dreaming..?

Desmond's eyes flew open. Of course, back in the Sanctuary. In his little cot. Except this time, there was no Lucy there when he awoke. He lay there for a few minutes, just thinking about the dream he'd had. He promised the light he'd kill Lucy, and they probably expected it soon, or they'd do the same to Rebecca as they did to Shaun. Desmond couldn't stand to see another friend hideously murdered, but there was no way he was going to be doing the killing, either. So there was only one solution - run, and hope to God the lights didn't catch up.

Yes. There's a light on Desmond's watch. Get over it.

Okay, so the scene in the basement, what the woman did to the people, was inspired by what Delphine LaLaurie did to her slaves in the 1800s. I mentioned only a few things she did, go search her on Wikipedia.

Poor Desmond, being scared out of his wits by an old lady D:

But still, please review!