Sweat soaks his shirt. It's heavy, but he can't feel its weight at all. Move! his mind screams, but his legs do not listen, and they remain splayed out uselessly behind him. Lying on his stomach with his arms propping him up a few inches so that he can see the obscured figure standing above him, he awaits his fate.
Did it do this to him? He can't remember. He doesn't know why he's here. He remembers flashes of things: a numbness, a dim twinging in his chest, the rattle of some plastic object. And now he is here. But he needs to stand. Stand so he can run, or to fight, or even just to feel less helpless in front of this thing that oozes such a strong sense of malice.
Craning his neck as far up as it will allow, he tries once more to make out its face. He can't. There is only a mass of smoky, bluish-black tendrils crowning the entrance to some abyssal, dark pit. Seeing it, he is consumed by the overwhelming desire to escape. Pulling his body away from the thing is an agonizing and slow process, as he is unable to do little else but drag his torso forward across the smooth floor. Ever so slowly he begins to crawl away, but in his peripheral vision he sees the thing walking briskly alongside him. Casually, even, as if to mock his efforts.
Realizing that the effort is futile, he slumps to the floor. Beside him, the figure crouches and the pit comes to eye level.
"Why are you struggling?"
A voice. Human language. Yet laced with an undercurrent of surreality, a discordant rippling at the edges of its curious tone. Not human. Not at all. He refuses to answer, yet does not attempt to crawl away again. Whatever it wants, it will have its way at this point.
As if sensing his acquiescence, the figure takes on a more pleased tone.
"Good. I don't want to harm you anyways. In fact, I want to show you something. Do you want to see?"
It was almost like an excited child, but he couldn't bring himself to nod or shake his assent or dissent. It would do what it wanted. It takes his inaction as agreement.
"Very good! Now, do you want to be perfect?" It paused, waiting for an answer. He couldn't give it one. No words would form. How would one answer a question like that, given no prompting or explanation?
"I see. Maybe you think it makes you a bad person to wish that way. Maybe you think I'm a bad person. There are a lot of people who don't understand what I see. But I think you're different."
It rises to its feet, and out of his vision. It isn't until the hairs prick up on the back of his neck that he hastily squirms to flip himself over.
The figure stands over him in an aggressive stance, the blackish-blue smoke creeping over every inch of its humanesque form. But it is not this that so deeply disturbs him. It is the glinting gold eyes that now peer out from within the pit that provokes a cacophony of shrieking within his mind. They seem to reach hungrily into his soul, seeking to devour him from the inside out.
It is going to kill him.
"Please prove me right," it says, and instead of murdering him, it holds out its hand. Unlike the rest of it, it does not smoke, nor is blackish-blue. In fact, it looks disturbingly close to the hand of a real person.
He is unsure of how to react to this gesture. He knows nothing about this figure, other than it is not human, yet is quite adept at mimicking one. There is also the distinct possibility that it may be responsible for maiming him and putting him into this distressing position. The figure is frightening, for sure, yet at the same time, intriguing. Indeed, the more time he spends near it, the more his fear subsides and his curiosity peaks. He is so tired of lying here helpless like this. Would it be so bad, to take its hand?
In the end, he decides to do exactly that. He grasps the hand of the thing standing above him.
Its fingers instantly clench around his as if seeking to crush every individual bone in them beyond recognition. Its grip is disgustingly strong, and spears of pain lance up his arm and through every nerve ending in his wrecked body. The agony is so acute that he cannot even muster the strength to scream before foggy whiteness creeps into the corner of his eyes. However, before he slips into the cold sleep of the unconscious, a barely indistinct sound reaches his ears.
"The contract is sealed."
