Author's note: I've also uploaded this story to Archive of Our Own. I recommend you read it there instead because I was able to include illustrations.
A roaring clang met his screams as the metal doors sealed shut. All at once the glow of the night sky and the street lamps vanished, and boy was swallowed up by darkness. For several moments he sat there in stunned silence.
Slowly, he stood up, his fists balled up and shaking at his sides. He stomped a foot in childish rage. How could he be defeated by a bunch of— a bunch of— DROOLING, MANGY MUTTS?! This would absolutely not stand. He needed to get back there at once, and show those miserable little pups what for!
Rearing his head back, he called for Cuddles.
The echo of his own voice responded and nothing more.
He shouted for his pet again, to open up the stupid doors, but once more he was met with deafening silence. A frightening thought suddenly hit him. ...could it be that Cuddles couldn't hear him?
Could anyone hear him?
"No... n-no...!"
A wave of panic washed over him. He tried to overcome it. To keep himself together. Push down the growing terror of the situation, but within seconds he was hyperventilating. Dear god, was he trapped?
He raced to the nearest wall and banged against it with all of his feeble might, screeching at the top of his lungs. "HELP! LET ME OUT! GET ME OUT OF HERE!"
He'd never been afraid of the dark before, but the pitch-blackness of the metal box suddenly felt downright suffocating. He couldn't even see his own hands as they hit the iron wall. "CUDDLES! OPEN THE DOOR!"
He kept at it for minutes— hours — but no one answered. Only the clanking echoes of is own panicked banging. The dread in his stomach grew thicker, and soon he was in full-blown hysterics. It was pointless, as he knew she was all the way in Switzerland, but he found himself screaming for his aunt. Maybe by some miracle his cell phone had landed near the crate and she would hear her dear grandnephew's cries for help and come rushing to his aid.
She was stern, sure. Perhaps some might even say sadistic, but it was only because she didn't want him to become soft. That was her old fashioned way of showing she cared. But if he were ever to be in any real danger, she would fly back to London immediately. He just knew she would.
"Great aunt Cruella!" he wept, voice trembling as he dropped to his knees. "... p-please... help me!"
Time kept passing. He couldn't tell how long due to the lack of light, but the cruel passage of time kept trudging forward regardless. All the while he felt frozen. Like he was trapped in limbo while the world kept going on without him.
He tried to calm himself during that first day in the crate. He paced back and forth, rubbing his arms and muttering to himself to relax. His butlers were sure to wonder where he'd disappeared to. They'd contact his aunt, or even the police soon. They'd find a way to track him down, so there was no need to panic. He would be all right.
He would be all right.
He would be all right.
Everything would be all right.
The hours dragged on. One day became two days. Then three. Then four. Five. Eight. Ten. Fifteen. They bled into each other, with Hunter having no clue when one day ended and another began. Where on Earth were the police? Where was anyone?! Hadn't anyone noticed he was gone yet? Didn't anyone care?
It was that very realization that haunted him the most as he waited endlessly in his self made prison. The realization that he was so unimportant... so insignificant and worthless, that no one— Not his servants, his driver, his online followers, or even his own pet, was in any rush to save him.
It couldn't be true. He had to matter to someone.
His mind kept going back to his great aunt and everything he'd ever done for her. He remembered how frequently she expressed her disappoint in him, but Hunter told himself that her harsh words only meant to motivate him. Yes, she only said those things because she wanted to better him.
Surely deep down she had to have had some form of affection for him. Why else would she have kept him around? Molded him after her own fabulous image and spoiled him with such luxuries his entire life? The tower, the helicopter, the phones and the clothes. Surely that meant she loved him.
...but then why, he thought as another pitiful sob escaped him, hadn't she noticed he was missing yet?
He had to matter to someone. He had to matter to someone.
He sat in a corner of the crate, rocking himself back and forth, repeating the mantra over and over again in his head. He had to matter to someone.
Outside this wretched container, Cuddles had to have been worried sick for his master. His servants were scrambling, overturning every inch of the tower in a frenzy trying to find him. His followers were leaving worried messages on every one of his most recent social media posts, asking where he'd disappeared to, and his great auntie— his poor auntie— was leaving voice mail after voice mail, demanding he'd pick up and reply already.
He kept on lying to himself. It was the only thing still keeping him sane.
The pangs of hunger had become unbearable back on the forth or fifth day. He still couldn't tell how long or how little it had been. All he knew was that if he didn't eat something, then the only thing anyone would find of him if the police ever did finally arrive would be his trendily dressed little skeleton.
But all he had were bags of kibble.
At first the boy adamantly refused. He may have been beaten, but there was absolutely no way he would stoop that low. He still had his self-respect, damn it. He'd never let those mutts back on Dalmatian Street have the last laugh. He'd never lower himself down to their repulsive level.
But the growing, stabbing pain of hunger wouldn't relent. He held his stomach and wept bitterly, before finally succumbing to opening a bag. With trembling hands he picked up a tiny pellet, eyeing it with disdain. Tears of shame rolled down his face as he forced himself to eat it, hating himself with every disgusting bite.
If his great auntie saw him now, what would she think?
She'd be completely appalled, that's what she'd think! Disgusted and utterly ashamed of him. He could practically hear her voice in his head loud and clear, sneering at what a complete disgrace he was to the de Vil name. He was no better than a dog.
Those blasted dogs.
They would pay for what they'd done to him. For all this embarrassment and misery. They. Would. Pay.
The moment he got finally out of there, he would have his revenge. Everywhere he looked, he could see their taunting faces. All ninety-nine of their tiny heads seemed to pop out of the dark, wagging their little tails at him cruelly, their mouths twisted up into unnatural grins. He wouldn't rest until he saw each one of those smug mutts shaved. That would teach them! And oh how he would laugh at the sight of them! Their sad, bald little faces, whimpering in pathetic defeat.
He pulled at his own hair and gnashed his teeth as he stewed in his own rage.
Being awake was horrible, but it was still better than sleeping. Whenever he was able to somehow drift off on the uncomfortably cold floor, he would be haunted by the ghoulish image of his auntie. She loomed over him, bony arms crossed and glaring so hard that it cracked her face even worse than usual.
"Pathetic!" she spat at him. "Outsmarted by DOGS. Of all the embarrassing blunders."
He cowered beneath her unforgiving gaze. "...please..!" he groveled. "I won't fail again, I promise!"
The old woman scoffed. "Well it's a little too late for that now, isn't it, boy? It doesn't look like you'll be getting a second chance any time soon. And frankly, why should you? You've had years to prove your worth. Yet in the end you wound up caged and gobbling dog food."
She was right. The boy was a horrid, miserable sight. He covered his face in shame, dissolving into hopeless sobbing at her feet, but the ghostly vision of his aunt was unmoved. With a final sneer she turned her heels away from him and walked off into the darkness until her thin, sickly form vanished from sight.
How many days had it been now? It felt like months even. Hunter could feel himself slowly losing it with each passing minute. His feet were sore from all the relentless pacing, and his fingers numb from all the clawing and beating he'd done to each one of those four accursed walls. His hair, unruly and wild, was beginning to grow down past his ears and to his shoulders. His face was a slight green from queasiness over all the kibble he'd been forced to consume.
It was all too much for anyone, let alone a kid, to bear.
The darkness. The nightmares. The nausea. The deafening silence. Oh, the silence was the worst thing of all.
What he would have given to hear the honking horns of a traffic jam again, or the incessant chatter of a crowded coffee shop. The early morning sounds of construction outside his tower window, or even Cuddles' high pitched yowling when he begged for dinner. All the little noises that used to irritate him would have been heaven in that moment, instead of this maddening, endless silence.
And still no one came for him. Even after all this time.
If his butlers and servants still hadn't sent out some sort of search party, then that meant... that meant...
NO.
No, no. Hunter didn't want to accept it. He didn't want to finally succumb to the painful truth. He didn't want to believe what his nightmares kept telling him. That his fears of being forgotten were real, and that they were happening right there and now, with every excruciating minute that passed as he remained locked away in the dark. No, he couldn't take it.
He threw back his head and let forth a hellish scream, the likes of which he'd never screamed before.
"AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!"
Frustrated and raving, he ran to the furthest wall and threw his entire weight onto it. Which unfortunately wasn't very much, due to malnourishment, but his fragile frame be damned, he had to get out of there!
He threw himself shoulder first against the wall again. And then again. And then again. No matter how many times, no matter how much it hurt, he wouldn't stop. He couldn't think clearly anymore. His only frenzied thought was that he needed to get through this wall.
His brain was screaming at him, as though he were drowning and the only thing standing between him and a breath of air was that cold, unmoving wall. It had to budge. It just had to budge! Please, PLEASE, why wouldn't it budge?!
It couldn't end this way.
He couldn't just sit there and be forgotten.
He threw himself harder, screaming at the top of his lungs, far louder than he had ever managed to sound before, in the desperate hope that someone on the outside would finally notice. Notice him, dammit! Why did no one ever notice him?!
The pathetic display eventually died down. Weak and exhausted, the boy slammed against the wall one final time before collapsing to his knees, staring despairingly down at the floor. His eyes silently welled up with tears as the crushing weight of his fate bore down on him, finally consuming him once and for all.
Throat hoarse and body broken, he crumbled to the floor and curled himself into a small, quivering ball.
Laying there in the dark, he held himself and he cried. He cried over how scared and alone he was. Not just there in the crate, but even back home in his tower.
He cried for all those lonely birthdays he'd spent waiting in vain for his aunt to send him so much as a text.
For all the times he'd seen other kids his age walk past him on the street with their parents, and how he'd always feel a bitter twinge of envy well up inside him as he watched them.
For all the times he'd never been tucked into bed, pat on the head or told 'I love you.'
...for months on end, Hunter cried.
Time had no meaning anymore. Neither did thought.
Honestly, the moment Hunter finally stopped thinking, the better things finally got. Not thinking meant no more sadness. No more anger. No more fear. The calming static of an empty mind was bliss.
The boy sat quietly in the center of the crate, idly squeezing a dog toy in one hand while staring off into space with wide, vacant eyes. Visions of his disappointed auntie's face and the giggling, taunting puppies were gone. There was nothing but white noise in his brain now.
He lost more and more of himself every day.
The layers of his already fragile mind were peeling away, and he was helpless to stop it. Not that he even cared anymore anyway. He was content now to just let everything shut down. To let his brain turn to mush.
He sunk deeper, body lying limp and lifeless on the floor. His clothes and hair were in complete disarray, but he was too far gone to take notice. Slowly, with each passing hour, day and month, he forgot how to do even the most basic of things, like how to speak and how to walk.
He was comatose. Lost in a death-like trance he couldn't wake up from. The only indication that the boy was even still alive was his occasional blinks.
Every now and then he would sluggishly rise and crawl over to the scattered kibble bags in the corner. Down on all fours, the child would mindlessly eat, quenching his hunger, then return to the floor. Like a sort of zombified puppy. This process repeated everyday. Lie motionlessly. Eat. Sleep. Continue lying motionlessly.
The isolation had truly broken him.
He couldn't even remember his own name anymore. Did he even have a name? ...what was a name?
Completely unaware that the final weeks of his confinement were drawing to a close, his eyes remained large and hallow. They gazed up at the ceiling with each passing hour, as though mesmerized. One could even swear there were tiny spirals swirling within them. His mouth hung open slightly as a trail of drool dripped down his chin. The last remaining pillar holding up his crumbling mind broke with one last, unsettling snap.
...
…
...
Hungry. Want more food. Food good. Food yummy.
Want play.
Ball.
Ball fun.
Play with ball.
Rolling over, the little dog barked and raced to the nearest toy. He clamped down on it hard with his teeth, growling as he thrashed it about. It flew from his mouth to the other side of the crate, thus he happily followed after it.
Playing with ball was fun, so the pup continued to do so, barking merrily to himself without a care in the world.