Warning: this chapter conatins high triggers for torture and rape. Please read with caution.
Surprise struck Roman's nerves. She was actually going to tell him? After him asking repeatedly, he would finally learn what the young girl had endured.
Roman's rejoicing was short lived, however, as he realized his companion was shaking with fear at what she was about to replay for him. He immediately regretted all his bickering.
"Neo, if you're not ready to tell me, you don't have to," he started, brushing strawberry-colored hair from her face so he could look at both vanilla eyes. "I'll wait until you're ready."
Her face shook with sorrow, and at the same time, it contained a thankful manner. She grabbed his hand and shook her head, her beautifully-colored hair swiftly shivering across her shoulders. She squeezed his hand and gave him one last long look. Green and white almost seemed to fade to sage, a beautiful mixture of trust mingling between the two. Then the girl waved her hand in front of her, and Roman was immersed in her illusion.
A younger Neo walked with her parents, two young men that held hands and giggled to each other and their beautiful girl. The ice cream cone of a girl skipped ahead of her parents, giggling and yelling at them to catch her if they could. She wore a pink dress to match half of her hair and eyes, and her long hair was braided down her back, intertwining the two tingling flavors. Even three years younger, she exuberated a striking beauty that would persist throughout her whole life, and it only made her more beautiful that she didn't know it. How such a young girl could possess such allure was beyond such comprehension.
Roman nearly stopped watching as he realized this illusion took place in the exact same spot that his own misfortune took place. He couldn't help but think that it was odd, but wanting to continue watching, he brushed it off as a coincidence.
The girl stopped skipping to whip around and tell her fathers to hurry up.
"Come on, slowpokes," she teased.
Roman nearly gasped at her voice. It caressed his mind, a sweet, lathery voice that slipped through his mind as he tried to grasp it. He wanted to remember it, the one voice he had of her, a savory taste of what could be, but it melted through his fingers just like ice cream on a hot summer's day.
The parents' eyes widened in fear, looking behind the young girl who was oblivious, and they reached out to her. Too slow, too careless. A man grabbed the girl from behind, his bicep bulging around her neck. She gasped.
"Let me go!" she yelled, hammering her tiny fists on the arm, not even making a mark.
When the man didn't let go, the girl started to panic, trying to stomp on his foot.
"Daddy!" she called out to her fathers, and they were rushing towards her.
"Stop right now or I'll snap her little neck," the perpetrator grunted.
They stopped, fearful for their daughter's life. Their eyes were widened, pupils dilated in anticipation of what was to come.
"Please, just let her go," the brown-haired one said. Her gripped the hand of his husband tightly, wishing this were just a dream.
"Come with us, and nobody gets hurt," the man demanded. It was then that other men melted from the shadows, just as menacing and towering as the one holding the young girl. They circled around the fathers, and they had no choice but to follow the ugly men.
The family was led to a dark abandoned house far from the city of Vale that they wished they were in right now. The house was run down, but still liveable in. As they entered the living room, the fathers nearly fell from what it held: the living room seemed a torture device in itself. Knives were hung up on the wall, some still bloodied, and two chairs sat in the middle of the room with buckles connected to them. A cage sat in one corner of the room. A table was pushed against a wall containing whips, scissors, lighters, and an assortment of jagged hangers. The floor was stained with the blood of past victims, and the room smelled of a heavy coat of blood and sweat. The screams of past victims could almost be heard, a lingering presence that warned of what would happen.
"Throw her in the cage," one man commanded. He seemed to be the leader of the operation, his hair flickering a black flame of terror. He had a tattoo that wrapped up his neck and around his left eye, making him easily distinguishable from the other torturers.
He motioned for some of the other goons and then motioned towards the two chairs. Two burly men grabbed the parents and strapped them into the chairs.
"Please, please let us go," the strawberry-colored hair parent begged.
The leader laughed, surveying the collection of knives hung on the wall. After contemplating for a moment, he selected a small dagger of about two inches and walked over to the strawberry-colored man. Leaning down, the leader stuffed his nose in his face.
"It would be a waste of time to let you go," he said. "We're just here to have some fun."
With a swift movement, he stabbed the dagger into the man's thigh, and the three members of the family screamed, one from pain, two from fear. The leader dragged the dagger down his thigh, pulling it out when he reached the knee. The smells of fresh blood mingled with the stale blood that still hung in the air.
The girl had been thrown in the cage, and she sat on her hands and knees, her eyes glued to her father that had just been stabbed. Fear constricted her heart, it's own claw wrapped around it. Warm tears trickled down her cheeks, but she paid them no attention as she was completely focused on her harmed father.
"Daddy!" she screamed.
"Shut up, bitch," the leader spat, pointing the dagger at her. The dagger that contained the blood of her strawberry-haired father.
"No, Daddy!"
Anger coiled through the leader, and he stabbed the dagger into the already-injured man's shoulder. He cried out in pain.
"Please, honey, be quiet," the brown-haired father said to her. He looked her in her now-white eyes, and she saw the tears that threatened to spill out of his eyes. Her mouth shut immediately, and she nodded to her father that had yet to be harmed.
The unharmed father shot his gaze back to the leader, his teeth clenched together in anger and fear.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked, nearly spitting on the man.
The leader's eyebrows rose. He ventured over to the table and grabbed a lighter. Taking his time, he walked back to the outspoken father and stopped in front of him.
"I told you, this is for fun." He held the lighter under the father's fingers and waited. The brown-haired father screamed in pain as his fingers bubbled under the heat.
"Please stop!" he begged, gritting his teeth in an attempt to bear the pain.
The leader chuckled, but he relented. Burnt flesh wafted through the room, a rancid smell that had some of the men retreating out of the living room. However, the leader was only getting started. He held the lighter against the long cut on the other father's thigh. Screams reverberated through the house, and they bounced around the girl's head, who was locked away, unable to help her parents, forced to watch them slowly be tortured. Her entire being seemed numb, attempting to deduce what was happening and why these men were hurting them. Why couldn't they just let her daddys go?
Continuing his torturing, the two fathers now had several burns on their bodies, and the strawberry-colored parent was becoming dizzy from blood loss. They begged for him to seize, to just let them go. A wicked grin displayed on the leader's face.
"Oh, are you tired? Should I give you a chance to rest a bit?" he asked. The grin on his face only told them that he was playing with them, but the fathers nodded, wishing he would leave them.
"Well then, I think it's time to play with the girl then." He stalked over to the cage, and the daughter shrunk away from him. The fathers' protests rung through the house, shouting at the man to come back and hurt them instead. To please leave their daughter alone.
Ignoring their requests, the leader opened the cage and yanked the girl out by her arm, a vice-like grip on her. She yelped in pain.
"Do you want to watch what I do to her?" the leader asked, shooting a smile to the parents. Neither of them answered, but their lips trembled in fear for their baby girl.
"P-please, don't hurt her," the brown-haired father pleaded. "Do whatever you want to me, but please don't hurt her."
The leader's smile only curled more, a menacing glint shining in his black eyes. He dragged the girl in front of the fathers and threw her on the ground. She gasped as her hands cut slightly on pebbles that were littered on the floor. She looked up at her parents, her eyes glazed a complete white. They felt the same way, and their faces showed it, their eyebrows scrunched together.
"I decided to let you watch," the leader's gruff voice said. "I bet you'll love it."
He turned to the few men remaining in the room and waved them off. They lumbered off, no emotion showing on their faces. Then the leader dropped his pants.
"I'm glad you're wearing a dress. Just makes it so much easier."
Screams echoed through the house yet again, but they persisted. Profanities were slung around, directed at the leader, threats of murdering him resonating through the house. The fathers struggled against the bonds ferociously.
Roman couldn't bear to watch. He turned to Neo, pulling her into a hug. He could already feel the warm wetness seeping through his shirt from her tears, and his own tears ran down to drop into her hair. The vision didn't stop though.
When the leader was finished, the girl lay on the ground, her bottom half a bloody mess. He called in another man, and he did the same. And after that, another man. And another. And another.
The girl had passed out on the floor after the leader. That didn't make it any better though. The parents continued to scream, still cursing the gang for their actions. The strawberry-colored father, lacking a large amount of blood, finally passed out too, but not before he let loose a full string of words that would slice any normal being in two. The brown-haired father watched as the last man threw his daughter's limp body back into the cage and locked her up for later. The leader, finally tired from his playing, picked up a coat hanger and stabbed it into the neck of the unconscious father. He gurgled, but nothing was left of him. The screams of the brown-haired father bounced off the walls.
"You're fucking annoying," the leader said to him. He wanted to end it quickly now, for the screams were giving him a headache. He also wanted to rejuvenate after his ejaculation so he could do it again. It had been a long time since he had a girl victim, and he wanted to take as much advantage of it as possible.
He stabbed the other father in the neck as well, and his eyes fluttered with the life seeping out of him. A chuckle escaped the leader, and he left the torture room to rest.
Roman hoped it would end there, but he was wrong. His companion's tears littered his shirt, but she seemed unable to stop the vision. It continued to play, and Roman watched, his eyes unable to tear away from it. The girl's fathers were discarded of, and she was carried upstairs to a bed in which they tied her to. Every time one of the men felt the urge, they visited her. And every time, she passed out from pain and fear. The bed was disgusting, full of her blood, semen, and urine. She was rarely allowed out from the bed, only to eat. It was her own torture, and she had no way to stop it.
The vision faded, and Roman sat stunned with his arms around the girl. He knew it must have been awful, but he had never imagined this. The fact that someone so evil even lived within the kingdom was disgusting. His own memory seemed so minor compared to hers. He held her tighter, burying his face into her hair.
"Neo," he whispered into her beautiful hair, "Neo, I'm so sorry."
The two cried into each other's arms, an unspoken sorrow mingling between them. The girl had endured something much worse than Roman, and he felt awful for his own selfishness when it was her that needed the comfort. She was the strong one between the two of them, enduring such awful torture and not letting it stop her once. Roman instantly wondered how his savior had escaped the gang of men, but it wasn't important at the moment. What was important was comforting the girl in her time of need, trying to bury the memories of an endurement that happened three years ago.
The salty tears of the two companions mixed together, a shared connection between the two of them. They eventually tired and both fell asleep within each other's arms, the orange and ice cream hair intertwining in a connected web. And secretly, a greater need of protectiveness for the girl settled in the pit of Roman's stomach.