Dark Souls

Darkness. It’s a scary word when you've never truly known it before. It swallows your soul and embraces you in a strong hold. Just close your eyes and imagine:

You are naturally a creature of light and day, but all too soon you see your luminescent light shimmering and fading. Slowly the shadows of long, tall, trees stretch across the ground steadily climbing to your feet.

You back away from the darkness that creeps toward you only to back into a wall, a set of bars to be exact. It is then you will receive your sickening reminder that you are trapped. You can move and run and fight all you want, but nothing will ever escape the darkness. Try to build a fire if you wish; but the wind favors darkness and chooses to aid it with a frosty nip that snuffs out even the best attempt at a spark.

The sun edges further and further from your vision, leaving you once more; betraying you once more. The sun has always been your hope, happiness, and love. However tonight, like many others to pass, it leaves you to the many hours of torture that a cold night bears.

Then, as if someone flipped a switch, the light is gone. You would think someone would be able to see still with the initial gradual shift from light to dark, but no moon shows to guide your eyes. The moon had long since left you to suffer. It grew tired of night’s endless reign and bullying and simply left. You’d begged it to return or take you with it, but it didn't ever come back. Even had it returned to take you with him, night’s guard of the cage remains strong and is even stronger during its hours of life.

Even the sun cannot free you from these binds, for you've been shrouded by night so long that you can no longer even be seen by day. Tirelessly, the sun is the one who searches for many hours only to give up and move on when he cannot find you after a prolonged time of watching and waiting.

No sounds can be heard by creatures outside the cage. Sometimes deer wander by, but even they don’t see you or hear you when you scream and shout. They just graze as if you don’t exist.

Many times you've wondered if you even do exist in this world. If you did, then wouldn't things respond to you? But then again something does. That something is what you fear most.

“Wandering birds should be ashamed…” A dark and silky voice spoke through the darkness. The sound makes your eyes widen as you try desperately to see through the thick darkness. It was almost as if a black mist guards your vision from anything, as if walls of concrete had been erected outside of the cage; making it echo from one wall to another.

A cold gust of wind runs through you, flicking your hair from your head and throwing it behind you in a rush. Your eyes squint against the nipping cold and naturally you turn your back to the wind and hug yourself to try to keep warm.

“No one is strong alone… no one is brave alone.” The voice gave a soft chuckle. “When you are alone you have nothing to protect but yourself. No one to build your confidence, only yourself, and I to tear it down little by little~”

“Go away!” You shout, knowing the creature only mocks you. You've experienced his punishments a few times prior, but even with experience, you could only fear that being’s voice. It claims dark secrets, authority, and strength. And worst of all, it holds an even darker allure. Once you’d almost given into him. Night by night he tempts you with ideas. Even offering to free you from your cage of darkness should you join him. But you know that when you do, the sun shall never find you again. So you sit and wait, hoping one day soon the sun would return to free you.

Sadly, Night holds a strong veil, shrouding you from every attempt the sun gives to locate you. Long ago, you’d learned quickly not to cry to the sun for help. It only angered night who laid in wait, watching in silence. When he would come from his hours of rest, he would reprimand and punish you for calling his enemy to aid you.

“But if I left then the little bird would be alone; though, I suppose it already is… is it not?” The voice chuckled once more. “Besides,” dark shadows begins to compress around your body and even in the lack of light, you can see the dark moving, as if a fog surrounding your entire body. You cling to the bar in hopes of keeping the cool metal in your hands; it has been the only thing that reminded you that you were not really suffocating in this dense air. “This is my world, and in my world…” He pauses as the dark shrouds seem to harden around your body and pull at you slowly, making you have to fight to grasp the bar. “you are mine, and only mine.” With a hard yank your fingers come free of their grip and the cold metal is left behind, only the memory of it being there left on your sore hands.

“Let me go”, “Put me down”, or “Just stay away!” Those are the normal things that you would say now; the words that show night that you do not want his ways. For fighting him though, you receive a punishment. The fog’s grip tightens until it’s so thick between your limbs that it feels like you’re trying to fight sludge or tar from taking you under.

“Birds make pretty sounds when they sing. Won’t you sing for me little bird?” Your silence that follows the taunt only serves to anger him and he forces the sludge, that surrounds you, down your throat. With your arms hardly mobile there was no way to fight it. Even if you closed your mouth he would only send it up your nose, or should you manage to block both from him it would creep in through your eyes, using a duct there that attaches itself to the nose. The large mass of gunk traveling inward, no matter the way in, is so thick it stretches whichever path until a near breaking point.

Or so it seems anyway. When it appears your lack of oxygen will lead you to pass out, the sludge removes itself from your body and returns to surrounding you once more, leaving you gasping for air.

“Pets should listen you know.” The voice would mock. “All you have to do is sing for me, be mine and I’ll let you leave your prison.”

Still in shock from your air problem, you are silent to his offering. And he knew this would happen. He knew that you’d be incapable through coughs and gasps of air, to reply to him or do as he asked, but he still punishes you anyway.

What feels like strong hands grabs each limb and forces them straight, the sludge forming the solid mass that hangs you up like a shackled prisoner in the middle of the cage. Through the darkness you can’t see anything, but never has your hearing been impaired.

The solid crack of a whip sounds not once but twice in quick repetition. Blazing pain runs from one shoulder down to your lower back. Another runs from the other down, forming a solid X on your back. Any air that you managed to gather before is forced out in a gut wrenching scream as the whip tears open old wounds that have yet to heal.

The first day of this hell was the easiest of all of them. The first day, you received many scars including the very X the voice had just now re-slashed into your back. Receiving the scar had hurt, had made you nearly gag on your own air as you tried to breath and scream. But now, now he cracks the whip with precision. Each night the barely scabbed wound is ripped open once more with only two swings, making sure you remember your old scars as well as the new ones to come.

“You have a beautiful voice little birdy….” The whip cracks and you jump in fear which makes him laugh. Soon you realize he’d only snapped air and not swung at you, making you feel foolish, but besides your breathing and his voice, no sounds are made. Not until you scream or the whip cracks that is.

“I would like to hear it again, wouldn't you?” Without waiting for a response the whip cracks once more and slaps you at the hip, tearing a fresh wound there. Your eyes bulged as you suck in air from the hit, a small whimper of pain leaving your lips, but not the same full scream that had let loose before.

The air thickens around you, you can almost feel his disappointment at your lack of sound. “Little bird, why do you hold back what I wish? You know what I desire will be given to me.”

There is a moment of silence from both of you; except for your breathing which is heavy even as you try to control it.

“I’ll make you an offer once more. Join me little bird. Do as I say and you’ll never have to feel this pain again.” Your head hangs against your chest as he spoke, your eyes close as you try to calm down. “Little bird…” his voice sounded warningly. You begin to feel something trailing up your skin; something course and rough. It trails from your thigh, to your hip where it roughly passes the swollen flesh, to your stomach and chest. It taps your cheek twice, making your head shift slightly. The small movement grants the thing enough room to slide under your chin and tilt it upward.

Slowly you open your eyes to see what is touching you. Looking down you see nothing, only more blackness; you can’t even see your own flesh below your head. But when your eyes lift upward they are met by a pair of floating red eyes. “Answer me little bird.” His vice is firm and hard, demanding an answer. You can feel his eagerness in front of you. No matter the answer he is guaranteed to have pleasure in it, that’s for sure. If you agree, you’d be his; if you did not, you are his to punish until you choose to be his, which he seems to enjoy very much.

Would it be bad to accept him? You don’t know. You've never known the answer to that question. All you've ever had to go on is a gut feeling that your life would never be the same if you accepted this thing that tormented you. But, wouldn't it all end? Wouldn't all of the pain stop?

The eyes floating before you arched upward in amusement. It watched your face intently, waiting for an answer; its eyes holding a threatening promise should you deny him. It takes all you can manage to find your voice and what you say comes out in a mere mumble at first.

“Speak louder; I want to hear you properly.” The voice is once more mocking, but holds a new tone of amusement, as if he knew this was the end.

“I accept….” You manage to croak out through the heavy air that still surrounds you.

“You accept what, little birdy.”

You close your eyes unable to hold the creature’s gaze through the darkness any longer. “Y-Your offer… I accept it.”

“Open your eyes little bird, and say it to my face. I want you to look into my eyes and tell me that you will be mine.” His tone is eager; the thing under your chin gives a quick tap to your jaw keeps holding it in place.

Knowing this wouldn't end until you did so, you opened your eyes and looked at the red pair before you. Once more your stomach twists into knots. This doesn't feel right, but it’ll end the pain. Won’t it?

“I am yours.”

Even without seeing the creature’s mouth you can feel the air shift as a dark laugh left his lips, echoing within the walls of your cage. “Good… now I need one thing from you before you are free.” The rough object that you now believe to have been the whip leaves your chin, letting your head drop once more.

“In exchange for your freedom little bird, I require compensation. I enjoy your voice too much to take that from you so I’m going to take something else instead; something that will forever remind you of whom you serve.” A short dark chuckle left him again.

Curious, you lift your head to look at him, but his eyes are gone, all you see is the darkness once more. You move to turn your head and look around for him only to feel your bonds tighten in grip and your head pull back by the hair; a rough hand pulling it back by a fistful at the roots. Your eyes meet for a moment before you see nothing. The hand holding your hair remains firm and un-moving. The grip in itself was painful on your head and your neck hurts at the angle it is forced to lean back at. But both are merely uncomfortable when compared to what happens next.

Pain, blinding pain fills your head as fingers press into your eye sockets, stretching them; ripping them both open at the same time. The fingers don’t stop there, they kept going. They move until they dig to the back of the orbs within those sockets and begin to pull. It is a small tug at first which caused your body to jerk and a cracked sound of agony to leave your mouth as it hangs open in near silent pain. Then, the big tug, the tug that rips every muscle and cord keeping your eyes within your head. Now your body arches and silent screams leave your mouth.

As your body drops to the ground, reality comes rushing back. Your body lurches upright in your bed and your hands seek your face, touching your skin and your eyes. You panic as you realize your eyes don’t seem to see anything, but your fingers poke the squishy flesh of an orb that is your eyes.

Then you remember. Darkness is normal for you. You’d lost your vision a long time ago during a crash. Doctors had thought you wouldn't make it out of the hospital unless it was in a coffin. You’d been dropped into a coma for a year; a year of no memories, only of this nightmare that played a different hell every day during your unending sleep; until you’d accepted the things demands. Calming down slightly, you lie back against the pillows around you and let your mind rest, hoping to return to sleep.

The voice of your dreams returns and speaks in your mind one last time. “Life or death, you were mine from the start little bird. The sun would never find you before I was finished, and now your soul is mine. Didn't you know, your soul was in your eyes?”

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There is no special reason for this, I was merely bored. Let me know what you think; I haven't written in a while nor in second person (I think it's second for the 'you' form) and present tense before. Hope it wasn't too bad.