Dark Mind

((This thread is closed for DarkEmpress, VampiricTouch and myself. Sorry to anyone who was confused about the status.))

The girl was still screaming, trying to break him down with her shrill cries. Laurence shook his head violently, trying to rattle the sounds from his ears but only succeeding in reawakening the crippling migraines that had haunted him for the past six months. His leg was jumping up and down again, moving of its own accord as Laurence sat on the low stool between his legs. He had learned long ago that it was futile to try and stop it when his leg got moving like this.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut UP!!” Laurence screamed over his shoulder at the young girl who was bound to several worn wooden planks. “God damn it! Why can’t you just shut the fuck up?”

“Let me go you bastard!” The bound girl insisted, her auburn hair matted against her face. “You sick fuck! My Dad is a senator! They’re going to throw the book at you, you son of a bitch! Let me go right now!”

Laurence just grit his teeth and went back to his work. The girl’s bad attitude only renewed his dedication to her suffering. Somewhere in the distance the sound of dripping water echoed in the vacant basement, illuminated only by a single neon light over Laurence’s head, bathing everything in a surrealistic blue glow. Large machines and mechanical parts littered the filthy floor and at the edge of the light, rats scurried in and out of holes in the mildewed walls.

At last, Laurence completed the last bits of refining work on his timer, designed to incrementally lower or raise whatever it was joined to. Without a word, Laurence rose from his stool and moved over to a large contraption, the face of which resembled a large, metal, crucifix. Laurence moved behind the oversized metal cross, installing the last bit of gear in among the cogs and gears of his device. Lastly, Laurence checked the leather bindings and restraints on the face of the cross, ensuring it would hold the girl tight, even in his absence.

“It’s perfect.” Laurence muttered to himself, though a violent tick of his neck.

After taking a moment to admire his handiwork, Laurence moved back toward the girl, still laying on her back and restrained. The girl wailed and cursed him with renewed vigor as Laurence began unclasping her restraints and lifting her up onto his shoulder. The girl pounded with her fists and kicked with her legs, but he was unmoved. Laurence had been beaten his whole life.

A desperate gasp escaped the girl as Laurence drove her back against the crucifix with his shoulder. He reached around behind her to take hold of the leather belt that would anchor her waist and hips to the device. The belt tightened more and more every time the girl struggled until she ran out of breath and gave in, allowing Laurence to secure her limbs in place. Lastly, Laurence closed what resembled an oversized handcuff around her throat. As the last tooth clicked into place, the girl was sobbing and Laurence was beaming, proud of his work.

“Why?” The girl sobbed, having long given up struggling against any restraints Laurence put her in. “Why are you doing this to me? Why? Please… Please just let me go.”

Laurence said nothing, instead he simply pressed his body up against hers, inhaling her scent deeply and running his hands over her feminine curves. Laurence helped himself to her defenseless breasts and hips, feeling the contrast of her soft flesh against the hard steel to which she was bound. At last he gave a reply, his lips running over her collarbone and up to her neck.

“Because you’ve never known suffering…” Laurence whispered, his voice strained and ragged. “Because you’ve never known suffering and its all I’ve ever felt. I shall be your instructor, your tutor, your tour guide into the depths of human suffering. If you make it back out will be up to you.”

After planting a gentle kiss on the nape of the poor girl’s neck before snaking his hand inside of her thin, damp tank top and ripped it away from her body. He repeated the process with her panties, leaving her completely naked and shivering except for the few ragged pieces of cloth which insistently clung to her body.

Once she was properly stripped, Laurence moved to the other side of the room and set up a tripod with a video camera mounted to it. He hit record and adjusted the viewfinder until he had all of her in frame. Moving quickly, Laurence rushed behind the huge machine to turn it on. As the engine and gears roared to life, the massive cross lurched forward, a fraction of an inch as it would every hour from that point on.

The girl was screaming again when Laurence moved over to the rusty ladder that led up into the upper level of the old abandoned shack. Water dripped from Laurence’s boots as he climbed, joining the few inches of water that already resided on the floor of the basement. The water would rise a few feet when high tide came in, but the girl would only move forward a foot a day. There was no telling how many days she would last, but like everything, she too was at the mercy of the tides.

After locking the hidden hatch in the floor of the seaside shack, Laurence replaced the salt water worn floorboards and made his way back to his car. He was smiling again as he locked the front door.

“Agent Fox, the website has just gone live.”

A slither of dread ran down Jennifer Fox’s spine at Jensen’s words. Without a word she walked to her laptop and typed in the web address. The image of a girl tied to, what appeared to be, a glinting metal crucifix hummed on her screen ominously. Her violet blue eyes widened, her jaw setting in a tight line. Jensen easily recognised that look of pure determination that was bound to have the team working around the clock until they found the girl.

“Throw it on the big screen,” Fox snapped as she walked to the front of the command centre, the entire room erupting into a busy hustle. “I want to know who she is, where she is and what exactly that sick fuck has her strapped to ... NOW,” she said, keeping her eyes fixated on the image that adorned the entire wall.

She was sick to the pit of her stomach of playing cat and mouse with this sadist psychopath that has been dangling his victims in front of her team like a fucked up little hide and seek game. They always found the victims a fraction too late. The body count was standing at five and comprised of a young female victim between the ages of 18 to 23, the common denominator being a daughter from a high profile family. What made the case infinitely more frightening was the fact that the killer did not demand a ransom. His aim was pure and simple: Kill the victim, and share the victim’s death with the rest of the world by means of an untraceable online site using contraptions that made the event slow and torturous.

What irked Fox even more was her IT team’s inability to shut the site down or even to locate the source for that matter. They had spent hours ... days trying to manipulate and sabotage the feed, and whenever they made a breakthrough the site would simply morph onto a different IP address ... creating a continuous and unstoppable feed of a truly horrific scene. It never ceased to amaze her how much people revelled in the suffering of others, which was apparent from the hit rate counter that was already sky-rocketing in the top right-hand corner.

“Oh god,” Agent Sheldon gasped to her right. “That is Sydney Healy, Senator Healy’s daughter.”
“We just received a phone call from The White House,” Jensen chimed in.
“It just broke on CNN,” Agent Ross unceremoniously announced as everyone’s eyes snapped to the line of plasmas that streamed the news from every television network across the globe.
A murderous expression settled on Fox’s face. “Son of a bitch,” she hissed under her breath.

She walked back to the table of evidence that a group of agents were frantically working around for the hundredth time. “There has to be a link here somewhere,” she said as her eyes examined each piece again, trying to look at it with fresh eyes.

There was always a natural element involved. All the victims were restrained and naked, which suggested someone with practiced hands. Each scene included a mechanical device that was built from scratch and entirely unique. He put allot of time and effort into the details. Based on all the information, the team had compiled a suspect profile of a sadistic psychopath that had a flare for BDSM. The suspect possessed an in-depth understanding of mechanical engineering or something similar and possessed extensive IT web-based knowledge. The quality of his work suggested that he was without a doubt a perfectionist. He clearly had a score to settle with the government as his targets were very carefully selected to not only hurt the guys at the top but the Nation at large.

“Why a crucifix?” Fox thought out loud as she slowly looked through the scene photos of each victim. Crucifix ... water ... holy water? “Jensen, pull up a map for me highlighting all the Catholic Churches in the state?” Fox asked, turning to look at the screen expectantly.

She turned back and scanned through the photos of victim #1. She had been burned alive in a furnace that had heated up slowly over time near a sub station. Furnace ... fire ... fire station? “Now add a grid of fire stations in the state to that map, with a different colour depicter,” Fox said watching the screen again.

Victim #2 had been buried alive with a limited air supply which led to her eventual asphyxiation. Buried ... cemetery ... “Cemeteries agent Jensen,” she snapped. Victim #3 was placed in an airtight chamber in which a poisonous nerve gas was released. Poison ... gas ...gas companies? “Pull up a grid that includes the offices of all major gas companies,” Fox said. Jensen raised an eyebrow at her. “Just do it,” she snapped.

Victim #4 was the odd one. Her death seemed rushed, as if the suspect was interrupted or prevented from spending the time to make it perfect ... or was it? Her name was Melanie Westwood, the daughter of an Air Force General. “Jensen, is there a suburb in the state called Westwood?” He was furiously typing away and then highlighted a block towards the top right of the map. Aligned with all the other markers, there was a colour from each request aligning in a perfect circle around Westwood.

“Triangulate them for me, I want the centre,” Fox said as she slowly started walking to the screen, a hush falling over the room. Every victim had the number 85 carved into their bodies somewhere. “That brings up Thomas street,” Jensen offered.

“Number 85?” Fox asked.
“Yes,” came Jensen’s answer.
“The house is registered to a Mr Laurence Wilson,” Agent Sheldon said. “A qualified mechanical engineer currently employed by a major Computer Corporation. Our suspect has been arrested on one count of sexual assault but released due to his girlfriend dropping the charges.”
“Send his profile pic to everyone right now,” Fox snapped.

“I want every available agent at that house at,” she paused to look at her watch, “20h00,” Fox’s voice ricocheted through the room. “This is a top priority operation and I want to keep the element of surprise. Our suspect is to be treated as armed and dangerous. We are not sure if this is the location of the victim or our suspect. If it is the suspect ... we need him alive, is that clear?” Fox ordered as she walked out the room, heading for her locker to dress in her standard FBI field gear.

“I’ve got you, you bastard,” she said under her breath with a satisfied smirk resting on her face. She pulled her clothes off and dressed in her gear. Five minutes later, the entire task team was underway ...

It was the umpteenth time she went through the layouts of the project, A.L.I.C.E. (Acquisition of Latent Information via Cognizant Extraction). Once more she questioned whether such a thing was feasible or not. The theory checked out, but in practice...?

"Nadiya, stop second guessing yourself. Do something useful like helping me put in this quantum core. The chip comes back today, we should at least get this whole thing set up so we can test it tomorrow!" Aaron yelled from down the hall, effectively knocking out her concentration as she set the printouts aside and picked up the spec sheets for the quantum core.

Nadiya fingered the loose braid coiled around her neck as the click of her heels resounded down the hall. She was too preoccupied with the sheaf of papers to notice that Aaron had gone silent staring at the swaying steps that slowly meandered towards him. His eyes traveled from the strand of hair that strayed from its place down the dipped V of her lab coat that hugged her small frame. The barest shadow of a dress would've gone unnoticed had he not wondered if Nadiya was naked underneath the coat as eyes followed tapered legs that went on forever... His trance was broken when the gentle whap of her spec sheets sounded across his head and work resumed once more.


The video conference had started as the faces appeared along the far monitors. It was no wonder that the patrons of this project were just as excited about it's completion as she was. "Good evening Dr. Hayashi, we've all read the proposals and reports you've sent in about ALICE, but could you humor us with a walk through of what she's capable of?"

Slowly Nadiya paced around the 6' tall, 4' wide and deep device admiring the prototype with pride. The camera capturing the room as she moved and talked. "On the front side of the unit is a reclined seating area, similar to a reclining lounge chair. When a person sits in the seat, their head rests within the sensor array of the unit. When activated, the device will send the neural activity of the subject's brain into a more sedate state, thereby reducing the interference generated by excessive brain activity. Once this state has been achieved, the unit will do one of two functions."

Languid steps took her from the seats to the main device. The monitors surrounding the unit flared to life as she began to cycle through ALICE's program. "If the subject is having their first session, the unit will map out their cognitive functional areas. During this process, the subject will be 'tested' to find the best representation of the subjects mind, to generate a 'mindscape' to navigate."

"On subsequent uses, the unit will permit another person to 'enter the subject's mind'. A.L.I.C.E. generates an interpretation of the subject's mind which the other user will move through in a projected, sensory environment. Due to the nature of the process, the subject of the unit sets the laws by which the mindscape operates."

"Due to the delicate nature of the interaction with the subject, great care by the other user is necessary, as it could have severe detrimental effects on the subject's mind and brain physiology. There is also a risk to the user as well, in that there is the usual sensory feedback, though without the normal safeguards provided by the layer of physical organs. All the sensory feedback is fed directly into the brain, and in theory, the user will manifest some physical symptoms related to what the user experiences while in the mindscape."

The conference came to a close with her petitioning for test subjects to document the specifics of A.L.I.C.E. and despite the weariness, she was suddenly no longer interested in the hot soak in the bath she'd been wanting all day.


It was hard to believe it was finished. Hard to believe that the years of planning actually came to fruition... but would it work...? Despite the full day of non-stop working, she wasn't about to wait for the next morning to test it out. After some suggestive smiles and a promise to buy him lunch, Aaron reluctantly took a seat in front of A.L.I.C.E.

Nadiya set the program to run, and sat in the seat beside Aaron, this one fitted with a small button to hold in her hand.... and darkness hit her the moment her head touched the sensory array.

She fell. The adrenaline pounding in her veins as she plummeted through the mist. Her fall suddenly slowed to a crawl as they reached the ground... Her hand was gripped tight around something... a device with a button, the same button that was on her chair... that would bring her out. With a smile, she squeezed it tight in her hand, knowing that it was her link back to reality.

The eerie gray that obscured her view slowly dissipated to reveal the the endless rows of shelves... and books. The library she found herself in stretched forever and as she made her way down the aisle, the shelving and pages became more and more dusty... yellowed and fragile.

She took a random book from the shelf and blew across the cover. The dust and cobwebs rising with her breath to dissipate and reveal a nameless book. She cracked the book open... and the entire library vanished, gave way to a classroom of children. She turned to find herself standing beside a boy that could be none other than Aaron. She watched with amusement as his head began to nod and his eyes heavy to a teacher that wasn't particularly interesting... until she found the teacher standing right in front of her.

She jumped with surprise and it took her a moment to realize the teacher was glaring down at the young Aaron. A heavy hand cracked down on his table and offender sat up with a jolt that made the class snicker. Nadiya smiled and closed the book as the classroom faded away into the library once more. She placed the book back where she'd found it and began to browse the newer, well remembered contents of Aaron's mind, and stumbled across a book with her own name on it's spine.

Nadiya pulled it off the shelf with an arched brow. The book was crisp and clean, but obviously 'read'... as if the owner of the book took great pains to not crease the contents. Opening the book brought her to the first time Aaron had met her. It took a moment for her to realize that the round curve of a woman's derriere was hers until the obscuring of his own memory gave way to reveal her own face as she turned around to introduce herself. The words were garbled, as if none of them were retained as her own face came into complete clarity, from her eyes, lips.... down to the curl of hair that was quickly tucked away.

She was not prepared for what came next... Nadiya watched with utter disbelief as the white blouse unbuttoned itself. The buttons somehow losing their place and hold as the white fabric fell loose to frame lingerie she'd never consider wearing. The crisp whiteness slid suggestively off her shoulders as a flick of her hip dropped the skirt to crumple at her feet with the blouse... The scrap of black that obscured her sex made Nadiya groan.... men... were all men's thoughts like this??

The book snapped close, and the vision of her own nudity, however imagined, vanished. The book was replaced on the shelf as she pressed the button in her right hand...

The mindscape shattered, dissolving into countless pieces as the ground beneath her gave way.... Her eyes flew open as she fell back into the chair before A.L.I.C.E.

__________________________________
OOC: Special thanks to Marauder13 for helping me design A.L.I.C.E.

Laurence rolled his rusty old car into his driveway on Thomas Street. He’d long given up locking the old hunk of junk, but still couldn’t wipe the smile off of his face. It had taken him an hour to drive home from the coast, which meant that she was exactly a half inch closer to being face down in the slowly rising salt water. For a moment he wonders what will kill her first, the dehydration or drowning. Though hunger would certainly cause her discomfort, it was very unlikely that she would die from it. Hypothermia had a solid chance.

With bounding, gleeful steps Laurence jogged to his front door, number 85 on Thomas Street. His hand was shaking as he struggled to get his key into the lock, the sound of jingling keys eventually giving way to the sound of creaking hinges as he pushed through his front door. Nearly racing through his almost completely unfurnished house, Laurence let go of a high-pitched giggle as he raced down into the basement where his laptop awaited him, surrounded by all of his other… “Creations”.

The basement of Laurence’s suburban home was papered from floor to ceiling with the most disturbing images imaginable. The bodies of sexy, bikini clad women pasted over with the heads of vultures, hawks, wolves, rats and ferrets. On one wall, a tank rolled over a man with the head of a mouse in Tiananmen Square, on another wall a bald eagle snatches an infant in its talons from a serine alpine lake, along the roof a pack of hyenas bury their blood streaked heads between the legs of a pregnant woman in the midst of crowning and nearby troops with the heads of house cats take aim at a blindfolded man. The entire hellish landscape is unified by webcam pictures from each of Laurence’s victims and shelves upon shelves of action figures and Barbie dolls, all adorned with the heads of dead birds, rats and squirrels in place of their factory designed heads.

In his own little world, Laurence settled into his folding metal chair in front of his laptop. His fingers flew over they keys and mouse pad as he navigated to his own personal website. He sighed gratefully at the sight of his still screaming and writhing victim, her wet hair flailing from side to side. Laurence couldn’t help but reach down the front of his pants and begin stroking his already solid cock.

Stroking faster and faster, Laurence leaned back in his folding chair, his eyes rolling back in his head. Just as he felt himself nearing one of those sweet moments of complete bliss… The migraine took hold once more. He let out a blood curdling howl as he toppled backwards in his chair, holding his head despite his other hand being buried in his pants.

You’re getting sloppy… They’re coming for you…

The voice that escaped Laurence’s throat was not his own. Or did it escape? He felt the low baritone rattling against the inside of his skull as he grunted, rolling over into the fetal position. Perhaps the words were just another symptom of the migraine. In either case, the agony inside of his skull was enough to keep him pinned to the cold cement floor. The rough contrast of the cold floor against his pounding skull caused Laurence to retch, then to lose control and vomit in a wide radius around his face.

The smell and texture of his own bile made Laurence heave once again, only this time there was nothing left to expel, causing his guts to fold up on themselves in an agonizing lurch forward, deeper into his own filth. He moans loudly, unable to contain his agonized voice any longer.

“Oh God!” Laurence grunts in a low guttural howl. “I did what you told me… I did it again- Ugk! Han-gurk! I did it again, so please make it stop!”

You’re getting sloppy and they’re getting closer. They’re coming for you now, and you’re too pathetic to stop them.

A task force comprising of fourteen agents descended on number 85 Thomas Street. Paired up into seven teams, two teams were going in the front door, two at the back and the remainder through side windows. They quietly crept up to the house and as Fox gave the signal, the doors and windows were smashed open setting off a few dogs barking in the neighbourhood.

The street was cordoned off with the remainder of the team outside setting up a secure perimeter around the house. Heat sensors were showing that the suspect was located in the basement with no other sign of life in the house.

They quickly moved through the house, each team playing tag to ensure that each room was safe and clear of any direct threat. The entire residence was devoid of any sign of life … or even any indication that someone was actually living in the house. It was eerily empty with a palpable evil that seemed to radiate from the walls.

Fox had her 9 mil pointed in front of her, arms extended and locked as she carefully moved through the house with Jensen short on her heels. They finally reached the kitchen, they both poised on either side of the basement door that was located to the right just as you entered the kitchen. Muffled footsteps roamed across the remainder of the house. Giving the signal, Fox leaned in and threw the door open, quickly taking cover behind the wall as a deafening gunshot rung out, barrelling past them into the roof of the kitchen.

The muffled footsteps increased perceptibly as they all slowly started making their way to the kitchen, another two teams circling around the house to find an alternative entrance into the basement.

Fox knelt down on the floor and then lay down, slowly creeping closer to see if she could get a view of the suspect, while another team elicited the help of a few crafty mirrors. She could not see him at all.

Noting an empty box standing next to a cupboard on the filthy floor, Fox leaned over and tossed it down the stairwell into the basement. Another shot rang out and from the angle, she could more or less pinpoint his position. It would take him a second or two to reload the shotgun and acting on pure instincts, Fox suddenly jumped to her feet and shot down the stairs … Jensen following her.

Everything happened in a blur, she was about to take the second step when her eye caught a tripwire which she deftly sidestepped. Jensen on the other hand did not even see it. As soon as it was activated, the door slammed shut behind them … the steel enforced frame locking in place with an ominous click. Fox could hear the barrel of Laurence’s gun shift in place as another shot rang out. She ducked, jumping over the side of the dilapidated staircase as the bullet whistled through the air, hitting Jensen squarely in the chest sending him slamming into the wall. Fox cringed. She knew he was wearing a bulletproof vest, but that was still going to hurt in the morning.

Fox huddled behind a steel cabinet, as she watched Jensen’s form slump to the floor, the force knocking him unconscious. Feet were shuffling above them as her eyes darted to the door … she was in this alone. A glacial expression of controlled fury settled on her face as she clenched her jaw. “Just give up Laurence, there is no way out of here,” she said as she checked her gun.

A rancid odour permeated through the room that twisted Fox’s stomach into an uncomfortable knot. She could hear the suspect shuffling around making little muffled noises that almost sounded … as if he was in pain. Shifting slightly, she found a slight gap that gave her a partial view of where the suspect was huddled behind some mechanical contraption. Leaning over, she picked up a hand full of bolts and threw it into the air towards him. The sound of metal clanged through the room as he fired another shot.

Giving him no time to think, Fox was on her feet and running towards where he was loading his gun. Using momentum and the full force of her body, she knocked it from his hands letting it skid across the floor. Sidestepping a punch from him, she took a step behind him, hitting him with a painful kidney shot before kicking his knees in from the back, taking his momentary loss of balance as an opportunity to slam him into the wall.

“Not so tough now, are we?” she asked under her breath.

Spider-Leopard

Once again, the haunting warning from the faceless voice in the back of Laurence’s head was correct. From the basement he could hear the telltale sound of boots rushing to all sides of Laurence’s house. Before he could even pull himself up from the cement floor, Laurence was surrounded. He felt his stomach clench up upon itself once more as he rose to his feet, but Laurence was unaffected. There were preparations to be made.

Opening a metal cabinet by the stairs, Laurence retrieved his 12-guage shotgun and a box of shells. The beautiful steel beauty purred a sweet metallic drum roll as Laurence fed her one red plastic shell after another until her wood grained belly was full.

Clack-CLACK!

The satisfying sound of Laurence’s one true love, pulling one of those tightly packed bundles of gunpowder and lead buckshot pellets into her mouth. In Laurence’s mind it was akin to pulling up phlegm from inside a person’s chest, only this mouthful could turn a person’s head into mucus. He called her Bertha and she was more powerful than anyone Laurence had ever met, but without him, she was nothing more than a hunk of steel and lacquered wood. She was the only one who understood him.

The sound of his front door being smashed inward reached Laurence’s ears next. He moved swiftly to the corner of the basement, crouching in shadow, with Bertha aimed up the stairs. He pulled a thin wire, running along the wall, activating one of the many traps set up in his home. This one running just along the top of the stairs, awaiting anyone who came charging through the basement door.

There was a tense silence in the basement, muffled voices moving through himself, talking to one another in their muffled, bass language that only they could speak or understand. Laurence imagined them as oversized, hairy beasts, mumbling on in their guttural troll speak about where their prey could have gotten to.

“You won’t get me. No not me, you hairy fucking apes.” Laurence muttered under his breath. “I’m smarter than all of you. With your crooked yellow teeth and filthy jagged teeth. You won’t be tearing me to shreds today, no not me. Isn’t that right Bertha?”

As if in reply, the basement door burst open and Laurence let Bertha shout. Her tiny lead expectorants blasting away a few splinters of the wood facade that surrounded the stainless steel basement door and obliterating a panel of the kitchen ceiling. Whatever had swung the door open hadn’t been a troll, it had been lithe, shapely and quick. Too quick even for Bertha. It was like a hybrid animal, borne from wild jungle cats and spiders. A Spider-Leopard.

Clack-CLACK!

Bertha concurred, sending an empty red shell spinning past Laurence’s ear, leaving behind a corkscrew of black smoke hanging in the air. The smoke reminded Laurence of the hairdos that devout Jewish men often wore. The thought made Laurence sick again, so he shook his head quickly to dissipate the smoke near his face.

In the instant that Laurence closed his eyes to shake his head, the Spider-Leopard lunged at him. No! She Donkey Kong’d him, tossing one of the empty moving boxes in the kitchen down at him. Laurence realized quickly that the box posed no real threat, it was nothing more than a distraction. Bertha, however, was not as wise. She shouted once again, her deep booming cry, shoving Laurence against the wall with the backlash of her howl.

Clack-click…

Oh no! Bertha was choking on her own food. The shell she was attempting to vault up through her breach was stuck vertically and refusing to allow her to take her next breath. Laurence reached down, trying to pull the shell free with his bare hands, only to burn his fingertips badly on the hot metal firing cap. Muttering some unintelligible curse and shaking his fingers in pain.

Eventually, Laurence was able to yank on the stock hard enough to dislodge the obstructing shell. It fell to the ground making that hollow plastic bouncing sound as it landed near Laurence’s feet.

CLACK!

It was too late! The spider-leopard was inside Laurence’s inner sanctum, gazing upon his precious things that were meant for his eyes only with her eight feline eyes, desecrating his most sacred and cherished haven. Laurence whirled Bertha’s business end on her, enticing her once more to let loose her wrath and so she did. The blast seemed more focused and more directed than before, but even Bertha’s mighty roar wasn’t fast enough to catch the spider-leopard.

The spider-leopard leapt over the railing along the staircase, likely spinning some sort of web behind herself to break her fall. The skinny ogre behind her wasn’t so lucky, suffering the full force of Bertha’s rage in the center of his narrow chest.

One down, one to go.

“Shut up!” Laurence replied. “I need to focus.”

The trap had been tripped, but Laurence hadn’t seen who had done it. That would keep the rest of the teaming hoards at bay for at least a little while. Long enough at least to exterminate the spider-leopard. She was hiding now, likely spinning herself some sort of nest to produce more ogres and trolls to replace the one that Bertha had dispatched.

“The itsy-bitsy spider, went up the water spout…” Laurence sang to himself, his voice barely above a whisper. “Down came the buck-shot to air the spider out…”

She was shouting at him now. Telling Laurence to give himself up, calling him by name! He grunted at the sound of his own name, almost like being punched. He kept Bertha’s barrel trained on the cabinet, still singing through his own uncontrollable groaning.

“Out came the gun, and splattered all her brains. Then the itsy-bitsy-”

Laurence’s song was cut short by a metallic scuttering, on the other side of the room. He turned abruptly, mid-verse and Bertha couldn’t hold her tongue. Laurence fired at nothing and then, in a flash the spider-leopard was already upon him. Just like that, Laurence and his one true love were parted.

As Bertha clattered across the floor, Laurence reached out to her. Only to be hit repeatedly and dropped to his knees. He only had time to grunt before being slammed face first into the nearest wall. The agony was unlike anything he’d ever known, and soon the blackness overtook him, flooding his senses in one swift fade into darkness…

Only the voice remained.

They still need you. They won’t let you die that easily. There’s still so much suffering to be had.

Fox stood for a moment hovering over the suspect as he crumpled to the floor. The blow to the wall was hard enough to incapacitate him … not knock him out cold. She arched an eyebrow as she holstered her gun at her side. She cautiously extracted a set of handcuffs from a back pouch and cuffed Laurence’s hands behind his back.

“The suspect is immobilised,” she said into her earpiece as she pressed her fingers to the side of his neck. There was a pulse there … barely. “I need a medical unit,” she added, grimacing at herself. Time was running out for his latest victim … there simply was no time to waste. The victim’s whereabouts was locked somewhere in this man’s mind and this was certainly not helping the situation in the least.

With irritable strides, Fox bounded up the stairs to unlock the door giving the rest of the team access to the basement. She knelt down next to Agent Jensen, her fingers searching his person for any major injuries as he lay groaning on the stairs. She made a mental note to send him on a refresher course. She could not allow an agent in the field to pose a risk to himself, much less the rest of the team due to a lack of awareness and concentration, of which he lacked both tonight.

Two medical personnel rushed past her. A few minutes later, Fox walked into the kitchen and watched as they carried Laurence to an awaiting ambulance, strapped to a gurney. She followed them and absently ran her hand across the hood of his car … it was still warm.

Following the ambulance, Fox requested a patch through to the control centre while she drove. “When did the website go live?” She asked.
“Around 19h00,” Agent Sheldon answered.
It was now 20h37. A soft frown furrowed across her brow for a moment. “Agent Sheldon, please mark out a 200 mile radius around 85 Thomas Street. I want to know about every suburb that adjoins a body of water within that circle,” she said as they took a sharp turn to the right.

They came to a screeching halt outside the FBI trauma unit, the medical staff rushing Laurence off to an emergency room while Fox walked to the control centre. “Show me what you have,” she said as she walked through the door, her eyes critically inspecting the screen. The sheer amount of coastline included in the area was staggering … they were literally looking for a needle in a haystack.

Fox rubbed her hands across her eyes … before she returned her gaze to the big and glaring screen. It was frustrating! They were getting absolutely nowhere, and a girl’s life depended on them. She aimlessly stared up at the ceiling into the fluorescent tube that hummed above her. Her eyes suddenly snapped into focus as she shot her gaze back to the image of the victim … more specifically ... the light illuminating her form the dark.

“Sheldon, I want you to tap into the power grid. Switch each grid off, for a 30 second period along that entire coastline. As soon as the lights go out on the webcam, we’ll know which grid to focus on,” Fox said. “In the meantime, I want everyone combing that coastline, we have to find her,” she said before she turned and walked out the door. Fox was heading to the trauma unit, hoping that there was some light at the end of the tunnel.

“I’m afraid it is not looking good,” Doctor Peters announced as Fox entered. A string of unintelligible words were on the tip of her tongue … this was the last thing they needed right now. “It will appear as if Mr Wilson has been suffering from quite a severe brain tumour. The slightest bump to the head would have caused him to lapse into a coma, as he is at present. Medically, we can help him … but it will take time, and from what I understand, you don’t have that luxury,” Doctor Peters said as he watched a multitude of emotions flare across her expressive features.

“Can you bring him out of the coma?” Fox asked.
“We can … but it will be fatal,” Doctor Peters said, before he lapsed into silence … deep in thought. “I read an interesting article the other day about a machine that has been developed, called ALICE …”


The shrill sound a phone ringing woke the sleeping form from her slumber. A woman’s voice travelled through the receiver. The voice normally contained an air of authority and great certainty, but tonight it sounded … desperate.

“Hello, is that Nadiya?”

“We need your help …”

She had spent the last three weeks living out of her lab in order to complete ALICE. Several times falling asleep at her desk till morning as opposed to going home.... and it had to be the first night she'd finally had the chance to sleep in and make up for lost time that someone was going to call...

Nadiya rolled out of bed to meet this Agent Fox in her lab. She certainly couldn't complain considering that she was allowed to sleep till 10 in the morning.... of course, that didn't sweeten her mood.... all of which got that much more sour when she arrived.

Angry was an understatement. She was suddenly thankful that she took the extra time to dress decently and brush the tangles out of her hair when she saw the men crawling through her research facility. The emblazoned FBI across all their jackets didn't do much to ease her worries as she swallowed her temper and stomped in to sort out the mess she suddenly found crashing in at her doorstep.

"Dr. Nadiya Hayashi?" The crisp words stopped her as Nadiya turned.

Nadiya eyed the woman, watched as the rest of the crew deferred to her with a touch of respect and decided that this woman was probably the one in charge of the chaos her research facility was under.

"You must be Agent Fox from the phone call earlier." Her words were brittle as she addressed the woman in question, "I do hope you have a very good excuse for barging onto intellectual property like this?"

"And get your hands off of ALICE" She turned sharply at the man that was moving much too close to her project for her to be comfortable with. The man slowly backed away at the glowering woman that had noticed him from the next room.

“I’m afraid I don’t have time for pleasantries, a girl’s life is at stake,” Fox said as they wheeled Laurence past her, a heart monitor beeping eerily in the clinical confines of the lab. “This man has valuable information trapped in his mind,” she said as she inclined her head to Laurence’s still form. “I am hoping that you are as good as they say you are Doctor Hayashi,” Fox said earnestly, god knows they needed a miracle.

Pleasantries... oh hell she definitely skipped those... "You'll have to give me more information that that. Just what exactly are you expecting from me and my research?"

Fox unceremoniously walked over to a computer monitor and punched in a web address. The horrifying image of a girl strapped to a glinting cross flickered on the screen, her screams echoing in the room. The water level was steadily rising, time running out. “He is the only one who knows where she is,” Fox said, looking at Nadiya expectantly ... she was the only person that could help.

Nadiya blanched at the monitor, sputtered for a moment with disbelief before pulling herself together. "Agent Fox.... a badly filmed horror movie is not a legitimate reason to be stomping all over the research I've poured my life into for the past... " Her eyes flicked back to the screen, and focused on the girl in question. "Oh my god... is that... no it can't be... the senator's..."

“I wish I could say it was a ‘movie’ Dr Hayashi, it is unfortunately very real and happening at this very moment … and yes, that is the Senator’s daughter. If we don’t get to her in time, she will die,” Fox said bluntly, trying to get the urgency of the matter across to the woman who seemed hung up on protecting her precious project. “Please, we need your help. If you are unwilling or unable to do so, tell me now so that I can get my own experts in here to facilitate the process,” Fox said very abruptly.

Her voice trailed off as she struggled to make sense of the picture before her. "okay... alright... lets assume this is 'real' and that some sick bastard would actually do that to someone..." Her hand cradled her head as she rambled "You want to use ALICE to find the location from him?" Her eyes darted to the prone figure of a man. "You realize there's been no actual tests on ALICE yet? I've tried it once on Aaron over there, but I've not actually tried to find anything..."

Aaron took the moment to chirp in from his corner, "Nadiya... it's real, it's been all over the news... "

“I am very aware that your project is still within its test phase, but I am desperate and prepared to try anything. ALICE is that girl’s only chance at survival,” Fox said very gravely.

Nadiya groaned as her mind spun into motion. When she finally looked back up at Agent Fox , she was back in business again. "Alright. Lets see what we can do then."

Lawrence was quickly moved to one of the three reclining chairs in front of A.L.I.C.E. As the machine began to map out the man's mindscape, Agent Fox filled her in on the details of the man in question. Aaron took over the running of the machine as Nadiya settled into one of the chairs. Her hand shifted uneasily around the button she now knew would bring her out into reality.

"I'm going in." She grimaced as she slowly lowered her head onto the array of sensors... and the ground gave way under her.

She nearly screamed. It was only the memory of her previous 'fall' that she didn't. The open cut of her lab coat whipped in the wind of her descent easing as her fall slowed and her feet touched the floor. Her hand gripped the button as she reminded herself that this was not real, that she was here to find information...

Darkness. It was a pitch black that was almost tangible as she stood on shaking legs. Slowly she turned in an attempt to see her surroundings... and saw nothing. She flinched when the first whisper of voices reached her ears, turning sharply towards the direction she thought was the source as the eerie sound assaulted her from all sides. Fear made it deafening as she wheeled and backed up, tripping and falling onto the solid ground beneath her... at least that was solid. Her eyes darted as her head turned frantically to find some way of identifying her bearings.... but still darkness.

Psycho Circus

There was only darkness now. Laurence was steadily sinking into an endless ocean of black ink. No more pain now. No more apprehension either. It was a blissful void of everything that Laurence wished he could sink through forever. The blissful purgatory of nothingness was short-lived, however, as harsh neon light invaded his sanctuary, sweeping from above to below in an instant. He was moving, or more accurately he was being moved by unseen forces that would not allow him to rest within the void. Another light sped over him driving him closer to some unknown fate.

“They need us. Now more than ever.” The voice remained, whispering its cryptic promises through the intermittent darkness. “Do not go gentle into that good night. For us there will be no rest. For them there can be no peace.”

“Why?” Laurence protested, longing for the silence and darkness once more. “Why can’t the suffering end here? For me, for them, for you, for everyone! Haven’t you had enough? I know I have. I just want to rest, to sleep forever, deaf to their judgments and blind to-”

“Don’t you dare quit on me you worthless little shit!” The voice bellowed, suddenly that of his father. “You’ll be resting soon enough. But first we must finish what we’ve started. They’re going to try to stop us but we won’t let them. Will we child?”

“N-no…” Laurence muttered, yielding to the will of a stronger force than himself. “We won’t let them.”

“Good boy.” The voice taunted. “Now get ready. There is still much to do.”


How much time had passed, Laurence had no way of knowing. Maybe it was a few brisk hours, or maybe a few years, whizzing past as he faded in and out of awareness. There was no sun, there was no moon, there was no awake and there was no sleep. Just a jumble of muted sounds, muffled sights and hushed experiences. It was like someone had attached a silencer to Laurence’s life.

Laurence was sitting now, reclined. Even through the fog of unconsciousness he found it odd that they would want him to be comfortable. It felt good to be seated after so many hours, days or years lying on his back, or at least Laurence imagined it must feel good since he couldn’t actually feel anything at all in the literal sense.

There were others, no telling how many, fussing over him, toying with him and arranging things around his face and head.

For what purpose? To what end?

It was impossible to tell the how and why, but for now Laurence was content wandering the depths of his own psyche. He’d heard it said that when a person dies their life flashes before their eyes, but this wasn’t a flash. It was like a slow moving tableau of every experience, fantasy, desire or thought; good and bad that Laurence had ever had.

People from Laurence’s past were gathered as well, all wearing grim expressions under painted smiles. Some juggled knives, others did cartwheels and handsprings. It had never occurred to Laurence what his mind might look like if it were a physical place, but somehow this dingy big top tent seemed as fitting as anything else.

The Sickness was there too, reigning over the entire scene in a log red coat with tails and a black top hat, clearly playing the role of ringmaster. He stood atop a brightly painted barrel, waiving his hands over the collection of people, guiding them here and there, getting them into place for the performance that seemed destined to begin soon.

That’s when Laurence felt it. Something that was out of place, something that didn’t belong within this unique environment had arrived. It wasn’t loud or destructive, similar to a drop falling into a bucket of water that was already full. The drop itself was small, but the motion of its arrival causing everything else to overflow.

The Sickness seemed to have been expecting this arrival, grinning a wide sinister grin, displaying it’s frightening collection of jagged yellow teeth. With a long bounding leap, The Sickness bounded down from its barrel and picked up a brightly painted box with a small crank attached to its side. The Sickness hefted the large box onto its impossibly wide shoulder and bounded its way over to the edge of the dingy tent, pulling back a corner of the canvass and sliding the box outside, in the direction of the intrusion.

Somewhere in the darkest corner of Laurence’s mind where the outsider had arrived, a spotlight popped to life, shining a single beam of light down onto the box.

“Turn the crank!” Some unseen person commanded from inside the tent.

“Turn the crank…” This time it was a whisper from the direction of the intruder.

“Turn it. Turn the crank!” One of the clowns from Laurence’s past agreed.

“Yes. Turn the crank.” The Sickness agreed, waiving his hands in one violent motion and setting each person inside the tent into their proper places, some being whisked outside of the tent to other unseen corners of Laurence’s mind.

At last The Sickness dropped down into his barrel, vanishing from view and somehow making music that Laurence had never heard play from all corners of Laurence’s mind.

The intruder took hold of the crank on the side of the Jack-in-the Box and began slowly turning the crank as unseen voices rugged her on, seeming to make the music rise in volume and urgency. When the crank at last reached its limit, the lid on the box burst open, drawing out a scream from the unsuspecting interloper. The Sickness sprung out of the box and captured her in its long lanky arms, springing back into the box in the blink of an eye.

As the lid of the box slammed shut, the striking young woman stumbled in through a flap on the spatter painted tent. As she stumbled through the loose, red dirt she found herself dressed in clothes that fit her surroundings but not her own personal tastes.

The Demon had dressed her in an immodestly short pleated skirt, in blue and green plaid. Her torso was barely covered in a matching spandex top which stopped just below her breasts, hugging tightly to her subtle curves and extending all the way down her arms. Her hair was pulled up into two high pigtails that were tied with blue and green pom-poms and her face plastered with blue and green eye makeup. While she looked absolutely stunning to Laurence, her body language displayed her discomfort at being suddenly so exposed in this place that was altogether foreign to her.

As a girl made of flames flipped and spun from one trapeze to another overhead, Laurence approached the outsider. He spoke softly despite his direct tone of voice.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Uncertain footsteps backpedaled her into a wall just as the spotlight came on to blind her. She spun sharply as her eyes cringed in the light. Slowly focusing to find that what she had mistaken as a wall was an enormous box. The whispers that had been coalescing around her grew louder until the words rang clearly "Turn the crank!"

"Turn the crank..." She murmured softly, as if she were reviewing the command in her mind, sifting through it with her fingers as she tried to decide if it should be followed. Why should I? The single question rose defiantly as she slowly circled the brightly painted green and blue box.

“Turn it. Turn the crank!” The chiming voices seemed sinister as they egged her on...

No. The answer was solid as her eyes closed and she turned to walk away.... only to walk right back into the unforgiving wood that she thought she'd turn her back on.

“Yes. Turn the crank.” A croon of chilling authority boomed in the darkness as she tried backing away. The box that was within arms reach maintaining the same distance with each and every tremulous step.

And the sound... song... the words began.

'Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to your death!' She wheeled as the sound surrounded her, only to be even more unnerved as the box seemed to turn with her. Always managing to sit right in front of her no matter how fast she turned or how far she moved.

'Now let's see where you're headed, turn the crank! And experience what's in store for you, deep within the mighty riddle box!' She flinched at the disturbing set of notes strung together in cacophony. The clanging of voices driving her towards the crank as well as cautioning her away. The twisted notes of what could have been a child's song seemed all the more foreboding as the maniacal laughter broke out about her.

She turned the crank. Not because she wanted to follow a command, but because she wanted to get away... get away from the derelict sound and whispering words. She felt the spring tighten with each turn and become taut, unsure of what it was she was expected to see....

--She screamed. It was a scream that startled everyone in the room as they turned towards the prone woman on the chair. The etched terror springing everyone into some form of action only to find themselves unable to do anything.

"Cut the connection? Pull her out?" Agent Fox barked at the stunned Aaron.

"I - I can't do that ma'am. She needs to leave on her own.... if she doesn't press the button herself, cutting the connection will possibly trap her inside."--

She only caught a glimpse of the unnerving smile before the lid slammed shut over her head... but the cold, clammy and iron grip that could be felt even through the rough fabric he wore... whatever he was... was unforgiving as he - it dragged her in.

Nadiya staggered as her feet found solid ground, and stumbled forward. She gripped the little button in her hand tightly, she'd almost hit the button to bail out... but she hadn't found anything yet to leave this place. The sudden chill around her body brought her attention to the change in attire. Her hand immediately went to tug uncomfortably at her skirt as if the act could make the fabric grow and return some part of her modesty.

The music still rolled forward as sharp words stung her ears... but she had a bigger problem now.... The brightly lit tent only seemed to draw more attention to the tapered legs, their apex barely concealed by the sway of her skirt as the back brushed the bottom curve of her ass... her bare ass. Her other hand lifted to touch her hair, the tension drawn on her scalp was confirmed by the traversing of fingertips as they found the cascade of hair restrained by... pom-poms?!

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Nadiya spun sharply at the soft voice addressed towards her. The violation of her clothes had kept her attention away from her location and until now she'd yet to get a grasp at her surroundings. Her hand instinctively tried to pull at the spandex top as she found some measure of calm to focus on the problem she was reminded of. She could always get out of this mess with her safety button... but Sydney Healy couldn't.

"Nadiya. My name is Nadiya. You're Laurence right? I was told you know where Sydney Healy is at... I suppose you could say I'm here to ask you. Could you tell me?"

Ring of Fire

Laurence looked intently at the stunning young woman who had entered his mind from some unseen corner, through methods he could scarcely imagine, much less comprehend. Was she a fantasy? Laurence wondered. How else could she come to exist within the realm of Laurence’s suspended subconscious? She certainly did look like someone that Laurence would fantasize about, if he had seen her in the outside world, but the thing was that he never had seen her. With most of his memories literally and figuratively at his fingertips, Laurence felt fairly certain that he had never met or seen this girl. Nadiya as she introduced herself.

“Nadiya. My name is Nadiya. You’re Laurence right? I was told you know where Sydney Healy is at… I suppose you could say I’m here to ask you. Could you tell me?”

Laurence couldn’t help but frown slightly at her revelation. It seemed that The Sickness had been right about this too. Even within his own mind they were coming for him, unwilling or unable to leave him be until their precious, privileged, princess of noble birth was returned to them.

This Nadiya cared nothing for Laurence, or his unyielding torment from his alter-ego. Nor did she have any idea the menagerie of horrors that stood between her and the information she desired. She was an outsider, brought in for one reason and one reason alone, to find the location where The Sickness had stashed his most recent victim. Laurence found it odd that the ruling class would send him one so frail and yet lovely to glean the information they desired, it seemed out of character. He would have thought they’d send some massive ogre into his mind to beat the info out of him, even as he lay helpless and comatose. Then again Nadiya’s appearance was likely another tool of their control. Laurence reminded himself to stay wary of a pretty face.

“I am… I’m Laurence.” Laurence muttered, his shy demeanor making itself clear as he averted his eyes, despite the pleasure they found in roaming Nadiya’s over exposed body. “I don’t know who that is though. They never tell me their names. He doesn’t either. Then again, maybe even He doesn’t know… Do you mean her? If you do, she’s already dead… burned alive. I guess that was my fault.”

Laurence pointed to the girl overhead, still busy flipping and twirling from one trapeze to the other and back again, even as red, gold and orange flames billowed from her scalp and limbs. She wore the flames like a long gown about her lithe form, leaving long burning trails behind her as she flipped and swung, seeming to create a burning chandelier hanging between the two bars. Beneath the flames she wore nothing, not even a stitch of clothing covering her lovely, burning frame. She smiled down at Laurence and Nadiya when she was mentioned, even flashing Laurence a sweet wink while she hung inverted in the air.

“She flies without a net.” Laurence muttered to no one in particular, then turned his attention back to Nadiya. “You do too.” He said softly, taking a moment to gaze at her body while she seemed distracted. “If you really want to know more you might have to ask Him, but I’m sure you don’t want to do that. I know you don’t. Otherwise, I could maybe help you look.”

At the realization of how desperate and pathetic his own voice sounded in his head, Laurence blushed furiously. Compared to the deep, resonant and controlling voice of The Sickness, Laurence sounded more like a mouse than a man, pleading for someone to acknowledge him as something other than what he had become, to appreciate him as something different than what lived inside.

“Have you ever done something that you regretted?” Laurence asked, his eyes downcast once more. “Not later, I mean like immediately regretted. You knew it was a mistake before you did it, and wanted to stop, but you just kept right on. You’d regret it before you even finished it and then once it was over, you regretted it even more but couldn’t take it back. The very thought of it makes your skin crawl, and any time you’re reminded of it you feel that same sick regret and you want to tear your skin off just to get away from yourself. It’s like being dunked in ice water and then directly into a boiling pot of salt water, freezing you out and burning you up all at once, the regret is… Have you ever felt that way?”

The nod came slowly... the slow lifting of her chin and lowering it... and stopped. Turning instead from side to side as he progressed farther and farther away.

"No...." Her voice trailed off as she began to wonder, was this about the ones he killed? "If you regretted it before it happened, why would you do it to begin with?" The words hardened as her face darkened from the memory of the tormented girl on the crucifix.

Laurence’s face fell, he had hoped she would understand, but maybe that was too much to hope for. He looked up again, his eyes capturing hers so that she could see the pain in them.

“Who ever said I have a choice?” Laurence replied, his eyes brimming with tears. “I feel that same kind of all-consuming, heart-rending regret about every second of my life. I go to bed at night, already regretting the fact that I’ll wake up again the next morning. And once I do, I regret that I’ll get out of bed and that I’ll leave the house until I’m in bed again, regretting everything I did that day until I can start regretting the things I’ll probably do the next day.”

As Laurence’s tears overflowed his eyes, the girl on the high trapeze froze in the air, hanging in between both apparatuses in a frozen moment until she began to scream. She screamed with the same kind of agonizing sorrow and self-loathing that Laurence had described, only her pain had an outlet, a release; it was personified by flame and the flames grew larger and more intense until they consumed even the circus tent itself. The entire structure that surrounded them burst into flame and flaming rings rose up out of the dirt floor.

Four flaming rings to be exact, each leading in a different direction: North, South, East, and West. Laurence ducked his head, feeling the intense heat of the burning tent on the back of his neck. He did his best to shield Nadiya from the scorching flames but succeeded only in starling her further.

“Oh no!” Laurence cried out, taking her by the hand. “He’s coming! We’ve got to get out of here. Quick, pick a direction and jump through the ring! Go now!”

As Laurence begged Nadiya to chose a direction and flee, The Sickness made His presence known. His evil smiling countenance emerged from the peak of the burning tent and began to descend. It wasn’t even that He emerged from the tent so much as He became it, bringing the roof down and absorbing the sides into Itself as burning wings. The music grew louder as He approached, somehow making the flames grow hotter. He moved like a spider, slowly and deliberately lowering Himself on a single strand of silk, drawing closer and closer to Laurence and Nadiya. He wasn’t really trying to catch her, not yet at least. He only wanted her to understand that He made the rules in this world, not Laurence, and if Nadiya really wanted to find Sydney, she would have to go through Him.

As The Sickness drew closer, He seemed to absorb and devour the flaming girl all at once, taking her body in through His smiling mouth and allowing her burning legs to slowly emerge from the top of His skull like two flaming horns. He drew closer still, and had His own introduction prepared for Nadiya, which He melded with the music for added effect.

“I’m your worst fear, I’m your favorite. I’m your acquired taste, will you savor it? If its blood thirst will you run from it? No need ‘cause I’m inside you when the sun is lit. You can not escape me, I’m your last resort, when you have an evil you can not report. I am devoid of sunshine, malicious-made and heartless. If ever you need an alibi- rely on me, I am DARKNESS!”

Just as He seemed poised to devour Laurence and Nadiya just like He had the girl, Nadiya gripped tightly to Laurence’s hand and took a leap of faith…

This man was insane.

Of course, anyone who could do what he'd done to those girls... couldn't be sane. But him? He was pitifully off his rocker. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Had she not remembered the girl in the monitor, the vague news reports she'd heard in passing of this psychopath. It was hard to believe it was the same person...

Ask Him. Who was Him? She was already talking to Laurence... the only viable person she'd think to know, unless there was another?

Nadiya watched him with a touch of bewilderment as the man burst into tears. She might've given in to hug him if the blessed silence wasn't broken by another song. His words blurred with the guttural voice of song that filled the room. Bitter words thrown out from a softly spoken voice stood in sharp contrast to the raspy sound that pulsated within the tent... all of which was jarred by the piercing scream that brought her eyes to the girl of flames... hanging painfully in the limbo created by this man's mind... as if she voiced the pain he could not.

Nadiya stared in disbelief, telling herself repeatedly that none of this was real... it was a part of a person's mind... It wasn't real.

But it was too real. The flames that she felt surrounding her, created a sweltering inferno as the rings rose in their place. The ground was knocked away beneath her by surprise, the encroaching flame only served to scare her even more. She'd yet to recover from her shock at the reality she was experiencing in a simulation when he pulled her to her feet. The abject distress was written through the lines of his body, however her attention was no longer on him, but rather on the being, the person that slowly descended into the circus tent.

He was coming.

It was a gut instinct. One that said this person was dangerous, should be avoided at all costs as she watched his descent with mesmerized unease. Her neck craned to still keep him within her line of sight as steps took her backwards. She wasn't scared... yet. Disturbed, but not scared. The nonsensical devouring of the girl in flames was unnerving, and it was what broke that moment of shock, and got her to move into action... to get away from what seemed unreasonably real.

She hated running, but when she knew nothing of what this demon, this monster was, or how to handle it... She wasn't going to take her chances.

Nadiya had taken the north ring. Felt extremely absurd for having to jump through the hoop of fire like that of a circus animal, but for the moment, she was content to get away.

None of this made sense. The moment her body passed through the ring, all aspects of the burning tent had vanished.... even the ground. The wind picked her up and tossed her like a feather across... beautifully blue skies, broken by curls of clouds, eerily peaceful in comparison to the flames she'd ran into prior.

The gale that had caught her now toyed with her. Throwing the pair until their hands slipped from each other and set Laurence aside. Frivolous tendrils of air swept her away, played with her like a child with a toy as her skirt flipped immodestly and a lone fingertip of breeze wafted between her thighs. Had she the choice to pull her skirts down... but she couldn't. The circles of air around her wrists was a grip as good as any that kept her squirming but unable to break free while skirt and hair ruffled in the wind like a show on display for another pair of eyes.

"Damn it... put me down!!!" She ground the words out at her impish tormentor who'd still yet to show herself while her own cheeks flamed brilliantly.

Much to her own surprise she found the wind complied. The moving tendrils holding her in place vanishing as she fell. Screaming as she went down only to land on the cloud beneath her, soft, but strangely solid beneath her derriere. Nadiya could almost hear the tinkle of giggles as she pulled her skirt back down into place with crimson cheeks.

She rolled to her hands and knees, testing the ground beneath her before staggering to her feet. A few steps away was Laurence and she turned on him with a vengeance.

"What the hell is wrong with this ... this place?!" She hissed with the culmination of anger, " Nevermind the clothes taken from me, who the hell was that back there?? Who is this 'He' you've been talking about? That ... thing back there?? This is your fucking mind, why can't you control what goes on in it??"

She ranted until her frustration deflated itself and she dropped to her knees in front of him, adrenaline leaving her pulse pounding in her head. "I don't understand...Why? You always have a choice Laurence. The other four girls... You always had a choice. Why can't you... won't you stand up and define your own actions? Make your own choices..." Her voice dropped to a bare whisper, a plea as she tried to appeal to him in some way. "How do you not know where Sydney is at? That last girl... She'll die you know, if we don't find her? Hypothermia... or drown... "

Her voice trailed off in misery as her head hung dejectedly. She'd been running around in this... wonderland, and she still hadn't found a single clue. "That person back there... thing... monster... is he the one that knows?"

It was a vague question, something thrown out without real thought, without any idea just what it's answer would lead to...

Clouded Memories

In the chaos that followed His arrival, Nadiya leapt through the North facing ring, Laurence in tow by the hand. Laurence held his breath for a moment as they were whisked into the air-element of his brain, blue skies surrounding them in every direction, a perpetually perfect day without a ground or sun. The wind that carried their bodies slung them forward and upward, gaining speed and momentum. Then at the height of their huge ascent, Nadiya was held fast while Laurence was pulled downward falling to the cloud below them.

Laurence picked himself up from the billowy surface, dusting bits of smoky, white dust from his body and looked up to see the Air-Goddess, playing with her. The goddess had wrapped her wrists and ankles in the long billowing cloth that wrapped scantily over her otherwise nude body, a translucent silk that seemed to always be fluttering around the Goddess’ body. The silken cloth holding Nadiya wasn’t the only thing translucent about the goddess, she also seemed to be almost completely see through herself, like a living wisp of white smoke that resembled a gorgeous woman.

The Air-Goddess tossed the small and frightened girl back and forth, lifting her fluttering skirt and even dragging her soft warm breeze of a finger over Nadiya’s unclothed sex. The goddess tasted her finger before vanishing into more white smoke and reappear behind Laurence, gently caressing his shoulders. The Goddess laughed from all directions, the other floating clouds in the sky even seeming to join in the chorus of giggles at Nadiya’s expense as she fell down onto the same cloud as Laurence and the Goddess.

“I’m sorry about that. She’s curious and playful, and it’s been a while since anyone new came around here.” Laurence muttered, moving over to help Nadiya up. “She might be able to help you find-”

Before Laurence could finish or be heard, Nadiya was up on her own and furious. She stormed over, her heavy footfalls scattering smoke from the cloud in little raindrop like circles that followed her over. She launched into a furious rant about what was wrong with him, criticizing the contents of his mind.

“Hey listen!” Laurence argued back, the skies around them becoming more and more cloudy and dark, fading to white and then grey, the clouds gathering. “You’re the one who barged in here! I didn’t go kick in the door to your stinkin’ brain and then tell you what’s wrong with it. It was you who did that to me!”

Now the deep black storm clouds were moving in, the sky was getting darker by the second until it was all just a collection of dark clouds, an arena framing them on all sides in various hues of dark grey and black. The tallest and darkest of the clouds fired of intermittent bolts of lightning which lit the ominous structures from the inside before releasing their synapse-like bolts of electricity marred the cloud below them with deep indentions each time.

The wind had grown to gale force as well, whipping hair and clothing in violent tugs and ripples as it blew Laurence’s rage directly at Nadiya. Even the Goddess had risen above the scene, her silken lengths of cloth pointing and whipping threateningly in Nadiya’s direction.

When Nadiya broke down and dropped to her knees. She pled for answers for a brief moment and then asked the question that Laurence had already answered in a sense. He now had a much better idea of what she wanted from him, but for now she wasn’t ready to hear the answers she desired.

“She’s so pathetic Master.” The Air Goddess whispered, at the same time flirtatious and yet derisive. “She doesn’t stand a chance against Him. She’ll be eaten alive, or worse.”

Laurence raised his hand to stop the Goddess’ criticism, even though she had a point. In the distance Laurence saw a cloud even darker and more ominous looking than the others, it had a yellowish-green hue to it and was perpetually lit up from the inside, making its rolling and undulating form look mesmerizing in both its beauty and horror. The thundercloud rolled in surprisingly fast, fueled by the angry winds, firing off bots of lighting at random intervals in all directions.

“If you really want to know what I know… What He knows. You’ll need to go in there.” Laurence warned, helping Nadiya up from her knees. “That is where most of our memories are kept, the ones we don’t talk about. The ones we’ve tried to forget… They aren’t in order or anything and I won’t be able to go with you, but if you’re serious about finding Sydney. In there is your best bet.”

The cloud halted, joining with the one that they stood upon, green and yellow foul smelling gasses infiltrating the snowy white upon which they were standing. Laurence motioned to the Goddess who reluctantly drew back the curtains of poisonous gasses that kept these thoughts and memories away from Laurence’s conscious mind. With the curtains drawn open, the cloud resembled the face of The Sickness, smiling wickedly an staring down at Nadiya to see if she had the nerve.

“You won’t like a lot of the things you see in there, and I can’t promise that He won’t find you.” Laurence admitted, visibly nervous to even look through the open curtains. “If I go with you I’ll become him and I don’t want to hurt you… I never did. But He will if he gets the chance, don’t give him that chance.”

It took some time and deliberation, but eventually Nadiya walked into the thick storm cloud made of what looked like poisonous nerve gas. The moment she stepped off the edge of the familiar cloud she was falling, plummeting through the electrical field of crackling molecules and sparking synaptic connections, randomly assembling until she landed in a plush leather couch.

“So tell me Laurence. Why do you find it necessary to hurt living things? Wouldn’t you rather see them prosper?” The elderly therapist with the salt-and-pepper beard asked in a soothing voice. “It’s one thing to kill ants with a magnifying glass, but gutting the neighbor’s cat goes too far. You understand the difference don’t you?”

“No.” The voice of Laurence at fourteen years of age escaped from Nadiya’s mouth, as she lay on the couch wearing tight khaki pants, a white dress shirt and sweater vest. “They’re all living things, just trying to thrive and be happy. Just like us. But it’s in our nature to Dominate and compete, to subjugate lesser species and make them do our bidding. Haven’t you ever been to a circus? They beat those poor animals within an inch of their life just so that they’ll do goofy tricks and people will pay ten bucks to watch. It’s all just a big struggle for control and dominance. The neighbor kid beats me up every week, he calls me a ‘faggot’ and spits in my face in the lunch room. I’m not big enough to stop him or oppose him physically, so I hurt him emotionally, taking away something he loves. I hung his cat by its intestines in his bedroom… He doesn’t beat me up anymore, but now my dad says I have to come see you every Thursday.”

The child-psychologist smiled, not used to such involved and direct answer from the young boys he treats. Loosening his tie the therapist scoots his chair closer, the wooden legs sounding like shards of glass being dragged over the surface of a chalkboard, resounding much louder than they should have.

“I like you Laurence. You’re a very bright young boy.” The therapist smiled, letting his hand come down to rest on Nadiya’s inner thigh. “I’d like to try something with you today, but I need you to trust me. You trust me don’t you Laurence? Good boy, now let’s start by getting those pants off.”

She had snapped... and so did he. The blue skies quickly fading to a ominous black as his displeasure was vividly voiced.

She heard the tittering whisper. She'd still yet to see the sprite that played this world, but she heard the goading words and searched hard for that calmness that was quickly evading her grasp. That slow boiling anger gave her the courage to move. Move towards the clouded cluster of poison that seemed all too eager to let her in...and devour her.

She fell. The stench of festering sickness making her stomach churn as it wrapped about her like a glove. The discharge of electricity lit up her descent grid angrily as she fought the urge to scream. She bit down on her bottom lip as her landing knocked the wind from her in a gasp of relief... and the flashes of fired connections gave way to much more inviting room.

The breath she held escaped as she tried to gauge her surroundings. The sudden lack of control in her body was quickly the first thing that disturbed her calm, as if another had taken hold of her... and as the soothing voice prodded gently with his question, her vision of the room suddenly focused upon the therapist.

She blinked with surprise as her mouth opened and even without speaking, a voice that was not her own filled the space. She blanched at the answer, somewhere the knowledge of Laurence being 14 years old was impressed upon her and she realized that she was experiencing Laurence's memory... in his place.

Then the hand came to sit dangerously high on her inner thigh as the full effect of the therapist's words hit her.

--"Don't you dare touch me you fucking pedoph-" Her voice rang out in the room bringing everyone to another start as the words were cut short-- and another flash blinded her view.

The scene changed...

Nadiya found herself standing in what looked like a basement. The flash of a Polaroid camera blinded her as she realized the few lights in the room were all focused on her... obscenely lighting up the gentle curves of her nakedness without a shred of cloth to cover her modesty. She looked up with confusion as the same therapist looked back at her from behind the camera.

"That's good Laurence, now make a muscle like superman" The same soothing voice was disgusting as it cooed at her... him. In the reflection of his eyes, she saw Laurence in her place as her arms complied to his request without her consent.

She didn't even get a chance to protest when another flash once more changed the scene...

Hitting Bottom

The crackling electric flashes whipped Nadiya through some of Laurence’s darkest and most deeply repressed memories, essentially the ground floor of his subconscious. Next she found herself in a classroom, wearing stained and smudged clothes that looked like they had never even met an iron. The entire class had turned around in their chairs, every single one of them was staring right at her.

Another flash before she could even get acclimated left her in a filthy living room, hidden under the stairs. In Laurence’s place, Nadiya watched as his parents shouted at one another, swearing and becoming increasingly physical with one another.

Another flash and the scene was the same… No it was different. The characters were the same, so were their words and their rage, but their clothes were different. The stairs also seemed smaller, Laurence was older.

“Go ahead and try to leave me you fucking bitch!” Laurence’s father Dean shouted at the top of his lungs, backing his petite brunette wife into a corner of the room. “There’s nowhere you can go where I can’t find you. I’ll find you and I’ll find your son and I’ll bash both of your fucking brains in!”

“Don’t you dare threaten my son you piece if shit!” Laurence’s mother shouted back before being struck hard in the stomach by Dean’s clenched fist.

“Go on then! Just try, try to get out of this room you dumb whore. See what happens to you.” Dean challenged.

“Come on Laurence, we’re going over to grandma’s house.” Laurence’s mother said quietly, reaching out toward the stairs under which Nadiya was hiding. “We’ll wait until Daddy sobers u-Uh!”

The woman’s plea to her son was cut off sharply by a quick elbow to the bridge of her nose. The sound of bone and cartilage cracking inward was distinctly audible, even over the dull thud as the back of her head cracked the drywall behind her. Blood gushed down her face and her eyes rolled back as she fell forward limply onto the creaky wooden stairs, leaving a round hole in the wall where she had been struck.

The blood continued to pour from the woman’s face, creating a pool on the bottom step and dripping down onto the floor in front of Nadiya’s bare feet. More blood was slowly trickling from her ear.

“I warned you, you stupid cunt!” Dean bellowed, clearly not finished with her. “I told you that I’d fucking kill you.”

After justifying his actions to the unconscious woman, Dean lifted his leg high and brought his heel down on the back of her skull. The impact from his foot snapping the wooden bottom step, the second stomp snapped the board in half, sending her face slamming into the wood floor. As the pool of blood around her head began expanding, Dean used her body to step up onto the second step and stomp his way over Nadiya’s head, raining bits of dust and cobwebs down on her. The blood darkened as it grew wider and more expansive, deepening to a deep colorless black. As the pool reached her toes she discovered that it was no longer blood, but rather a rapidly widening bottomless pit. As the hole grew in diameter, it eventually overtook Nadiya’s hiding spot. As she fell in, the lightning struck once more.

It was pouring rain and Nadiya fell like another heavy drop of rain, landing on her feet in a deep muddy hole with a shovel in her hands.

“Dig quicker boy.” Dean commanded, sending another shovel full of mud over his shoulder. “Otherwise I’ll be burying two bodies in this pit.”

Dean angrily drove his shovel back into the slushy mud at the bottom of the hole, shoveling this mound of slop directly into Nadiya’s face. As Laurence’s hand came up to wipe the thick mask of muck from their mutual eyes, Dean’s voice rang out once more, shouting over a lightning strike, a genuine memory of one at least, as opposed to the synaptic flashes which had driven Nadiya’s descent.

“You’re just going to stand there wiping that mud back into my hole are you? Maybe you want me to get caught, is that it? You think you’d be happier as an orphan than with your father? You always were on her side you little son-of-a-bitch!” Dean bellowed, raising the shovel over his head. “I’ll bury you both if I have to!”

The shovel swung down violently, the flat side striking Laurence’s back with a resonant thud and launching Nadiya face first into the muddy chasm. Dean continued to swear and berate young Laurence as the memory continued down. The mud pulling her ever downward out of the rain until the sounds from that memory faded into muffled silence.

As the slow descent continued, Nadiya felt the mud slowly melting away from her body, releasing her into some new unknown darkness until the last speck of moistened dirt pulled out from her hair and she fell.

How long or how far she fell no one could tell, but another bright shock of lightning dropped her into the shack, sending her splashing down into the several feet of rising water on the floor. She was in the right place, but still had no clue where that could be.

When Nadiya looked up she found herself face-to-face with Him, The Sickness. He jolted forward in a violent twist of gears and timers, his wicked grin unfaltering as his golden feline eyes stared daggers into a soaked and shivering Nadiya, who found herself back in the immodest clothes that she had been forced into in the circus tent.

“Well? This is what you’ve been looking for isn’t it?” The Sickness asked through a disgusting grin as the cross jolted forward again. “All this time, looking for this place… Me wonders what it will do now.”

The video camera, sitting on a tripod just above the water level, turned its lens to look at Nadiya. The camera even tilted to one side slightly, expressing curiosity as well to Nadiya’s next move. The sound of turning electrical functions echoed faintly as the camera zoomed in.

“Do you think you have what it takes to escape this place?” The Sickness asked, its body slowly passing through the restraints in flickering, serpentine motion as its arms and legs became shapeless shadow before reforming on the other side of its bindings. “Are you better than little Sydney? Do you have what it takes to oppose Me alone?”

As soon as it had finished speaking, The Sickness dissipated, changing into a shapeless body of black ink that quickly fell into the water. The cloud of dark water meandered its way through the salty depth between them, suddenly rematerializing behind her, before Nadiya even had a chance to make a move. The black inky fluid wrapped itself around her legs, climbing up her thighs until it managed to ensnare her entire petite frame within its serpentine grasp. Tiny, reflective worms of darkness even wound their way around Nadiya’s fingers, forcing her hand open so that she couldn’t press her safe-button.

“I’m going to search inside you now Nadiya.” The Sickness whispered, through long meandering lips that were twisting their way into Nadiya’s ear. “Let’s see what dirty secrets you have to hide…”

Nadiya felt the black ink slither into her head through her ear until thin, glossy tendrils enclosed her eyes from back to front, dragging even her vision into complete darkness…

The Rising Tide

It played out like a vivid nightmare. The unending events of fear,

"Oh my god... oh my god.... he killed her.... he fucking killed her..." She huddled in wide eyed terror, too scared to even scream as the woman - the mother fell forward and the life drained from her. She sat rocking herself with the shock of what she saw, willing it to all go away. Too shocked to even realize the encroaching blood as she fell again.

She felt the grain of wood along with her safety button press into her hand before her eyes adjusted into Laurence's view. Her body moved automatically, the work of heaving the sludge of mud over her shoulders chafing as the man's growl brought her attention away from the hole she dug. It was the same murderer.

Fear was a constant companion now. She never stopped trembling even though the hand, Laurence's hand never did. She flinched with him when the slop of mud hit her face, painting her with the dark earth, wiped it away with the grimy back of her hand as a father bellowed in her ears over the crash of thunder. When her eyes finally blinked open she wasn't prepared for the shovel that came crashing against her back and she fell forward again.

It was strangely peaceful to be falling. The liquid that slowly pulled the grit from her hands, her hair, her body. It was a moment held in a single breath that lasted an eternity. Gentle fingers brushed through her hair to pull the grit away... the clothes, the sludge... to pull away every aspect on her that was once Laurence.

and she dropped like a droplet into a sloshing flood of icy salt water. Her body uncoiled as her feet touched the ground pushing her head to the surface as she tossed her hair back for a breath of blessed air. The salt water stinging her eyes as she tried to rub them and find her bearings once again.

"Where..." She blinked and jumped when the angry grind of gears clanked behind her. Wheeling around as the water sloshed in ripples about her and she quickly matched the dim surroundings with the live streaming from the monitor.

She was where Sydney was at.

So was He. Music began again as she stared at the ringmaster of the circus she'd been wandering in... a collision of metal that jolted forward as she took a step back. Along the sheen of silver she saw a distorted reflection of herself and what he'd clothed her in. An angry pass of her hand left a handprint smeared in the white and green make up, as her eyes scanned the room.

“Well? This is what you’ve been looking for isn’t it?” He asked as her head turned. His voice came from all directions but there was no questioning that it came from the one tied to the cross.

She scowled and stormed forward, wading through the water to grip his drenched clothes. "Where are we? Where did you leave Sydney?" She growled as her hands slipped, finding no traction to maintain her grasp.

Somehow she didn't think he'd tell her. The chill from the icy water cooled her temper and distracted her enough to think. Turning away she scanned the room, searching for some clue of their whereabouts as she refused to be unnerved by him.

There were no doors or windows, but there was a ladder.

The slight movement from the camera caught her attention as she stared curiously back at the eye looking at her. Her eyes narrowed to focus on the scrawl just below the lens of the camera...

--"six... six... six." She murmured softly as the room looked up at the sound.

"What did she say?"

"I'm not sure."

"I think she said 666..."

"Yeah I heard that too...."--

“Do you think you have what it takes to escape this place? Are you better than little Sydney? Do you have what it takes to oppose Me alone?” The deep grind of words snapped her attention back to him.

"What in the... oh fuck" For a moment she froze as she stared in disgust at the reshaping of limbs outside of his restraint before she realized where and who he was after. The water around her churned as she struggled to get to the ladder and away from the blob of blackness that threatened to come near her. Too late.

--"Oh god don't touch me... Don't fucking touch me!!" She screamed as her left hand came to tear at her lab coat, ripping away the a chunk of her sleeve as her hands flailed and tore at herself.

"Restrain her! She'll hurt herself!" Agent Fox barked as the stunned men jumped into action.

"Please... let me go!!... No.... no.... " Nadiya cried, begged as she strained against the hands that held her in place in reality... in place of the serpentine tendrils. No one noticed that her hand went slack around the button and despite her release being a mere breath away, it had fallen from her grasp.

"Somethings going on... Holy crap, They're switching hosts. They're no longer in Laurence's mind." Aaron who'd been watching the monitors gripped the edge of the table as he turned to Agent Fox.

"Is that possible?" Agent Fox stepped in behind him.

"I... We didn't think it was possible. Never seen it happen before, but we've never tested it out, not really anyways." Aaron answered as ropes were brought to tie Nadiya's hands and feet to the reclining chair.--

The false lightning of synaptic connections heralded her fall...

and she dropped into the hard seat in front of an enormous piano... No. The piano wasn't enormous, she was just small. Six, to be exact. Her fingers moved across the keys to hit the final chord of her song before she pushed the chair back and took a bow. The thunder of applause brought an excited rush through her as she walked off the stage with all the poise a six year old was able to muster.

The towering woman met her just as the stage door closed and a sheaf of papers was thrown in her face. The glimpse she'd had of it told her it was dripping with red markups...

"I thought I told you not to make me lose face!? Look at how many mistakes you made?? How many times have we practiced this?" The screech of her mother stung her ears as the glimmering of tears edged the corner of her eyes.

"Useless girl" The woman spat as she turned on her heel and stomped out of the room... and the room went dark.

The flash of lightning blurred as her eyes blinked open again. The lights fluctuated as the skies stormed outside and a eight year old Nadiya trudged into the house from the private school she'd attended. Her eyes spoke of fear as she dug through her bag to pull out a damp parent teacher booklet... containing the latest score on her test, only to watch her father's face darken.

The cane came down hard over her trembling open hands mere moments later. The soft whiz as the length of wood cut the air preceded the pain she knew would come.

One.

Two.

Three...

Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one. Points away from the hundred she was expected to get.

As her father put the cane away, Nadiya was sent to the table to work. With shaking hands she sat down to redo the problems she had failed to get right, the pencil quivering in her hand as she struggled to even manage a scrawl across the paper. The tear clinging to her cheeks rolling down to dab at her paper, smearing what little she had managed to write even more.

And darkness cut in.

The pelting of water brought her eyes open as she stood in the shower. The hot water doing nothing to wash away the unseen, emotional bondage that restrained her... but it took life with her imagination. The shadowy gray that covered her hands, twined about her arms, around her torso, waist, legs and ankles...

It was everything she hated about herself and everything she was proud of... as tendrils of gray slithered to coil around a breast... and shifted between her thighs. A single tendril parted the lips of her sex to feather over the hooded nub of her senses and a soft moan breathed from her parted lips. It wandered, nudged against her sex before it dove in... and thickened. It filled her, sawed in and out of her drenched sex as she stifled the sound of her own pleasure.

Another tendril separated to tickle the tight ring of her ass, gently pressing against the muscle before it pushed forward... and drove her that much closer to the release she needed... a release that poured forth from her stifled pride, shame, pain and now pleasure.

and the spell broke by the pounding on the bathroom door. Tentacles washed away with the water to become her own hands and fingers... as her own release was stolen from between her fingertips.

Darkness.

The Sound of Suffering

The Sickness bore his way deeper into Nadiya’s mind, attaching himself to this and that. He scanned and processed what he could in his journey into her subconscious mind. As He got deeper inside her mind, he saw her memories and latent desires catalogued and organized in seamless columns, stacks of blank CDs in clear plastic cases. Long liquid tendrils began sifting through the discs, pulling them out of order and scattering until He found one that looked promising.

As the disc entered the upright player and began to spin, the sound of a piano, likely dropped from some obscene height, shattering into a million pieces with a bone jarring thud and clang.

The Sickness watched from the rafters as a young Nadiya performed on the piano before a packed and adoring auditorium of faceless onlookers. Despite the thrilling performance and the audience’s enamored reaction, the memory shifted, sweeping The Sickness along like a grain of sand in the tide. Nadiya’s mother was unpleased and she harshly criticized the performance. Seeing this childhood trauma as an opportunity, The Sickness slipped onto the page of music, laughing at her suffering from the page, in the form of angry red ink.

Before Nadiya’s mother had even finished her angry rant, the disc changed and the sound of thin wood whistling through air brought The Sickness into a different memory. It was raining and Nadiya was soaking wet, allowing The Sickness into her clothes to bear the teeth and claws of the cold, digging into her skin. The girl’s father this time was dissatisfied with his daughter’s performance in school. His retribution came in a form much more physical and more tangible in the eyes of The Sickness.

After the first strike of the cane, He slid from Nadiya’s damp hands into the willow reed cane, His voice ringing out in sadistic glee as he whipped through the air. The pain was tangible in this memory, and just as The Sickness seemed poised to latch onto that pain and that suffering, to make a new home of it, the disc changed once again.

This time a soft, breathless moan heralded the change of scenery and in an instant The Sickness was peeking out through the holes in a showerhead, peering down with wicked intentions at a naked and enraptured Nadiya. She was occupied caressing, touching and finger-fucking herself as a grey mist of her imagination encircled her body.

The Sickness saw power in there…

The thin spiraling mist held in it everything Nadiya loved and hated about herself, it was how she saw herself and how she imagined she could be. It held all her deep unspoken desires and dreams for herself that she dared not speak aloud. It was her imagination, it was her id. It was The Sickness’ new home.

In the split second before the interruption washed away Nadiya’s blissful moment of gratification, The Sickness slid from the showerhead, pelting Nadiya’s exposed body for a moment before seeping into her imagination and turning it black with His presence. When the knock came, the spiraling mist vanished, but The Sickness managed to hold on. He snatched Nadiya’s naked, wet and yearning body from that memory into a new reality. A reality of his own choosing.

The sound that altered their location this time was the familiar, low, wicked laughter that could be attributed to none other than Him. The Sickness dropped her back in the familiar auditorium, sitting on a bench, facing an immaculately polished black piano. This time, however, Nadiya was not a little girl. This time she was fully grown, still completely nude and drenched from the shower.

Thousands of eyes watched in expectant silence as Nadiya fought in vain to prevent herself from shivering. Somewhere in the tense silence, someone cleared their throat impatiently, the sound echoing in the massive performance space. The Sickness flipped open the music book to a familiar page, the red marks pulsating with a renewed life and mimicking Nadiya’s racing heartbeat. The Sickness, now playing the role of Piano, lifted the cover over the black and white keys, dragging her reluctant fingers to they keys.

The Sickness sighed in mock pleasure as Nadiya touched His keys, her fingers unwittingly chasing the familiar feel of the song, hitting each key and each note as the song gained tempo. Eventually, Nadiya reached the first red mark, and despite her best efforts her finger hit a sour note, just as she had in her memory. Only this time her finger stuck fast, the gleaming black key molding around her finger and refusing to release.

Nadiya began to panic, slamming and yanking her hand back from the keyboard, only succeeding in hitting more sour notes and getting her fingers increasingly caught in the keyboard. The red marks responded, adding corrections and reminders of every incorrect tone that she made in her struggle to get free.

The lid of the Piano slammed shut around Nadiya’s wrists when she stood up to try and free her fingers. From deep inside the piano a low sound was building, like a piano string being struck by the blade of a knife instead of a rubber hammer.

The laughter grew in volume and frequency as the piano shifted and changed shape, stretching out like a massive ball of shining black putty. The thick metal strings all broke in unison, creating a miserable sound which made all the audience members groan in unison. The long, thin wires whipped through the air, making a familiar whistling sound as they came in to strike, whip and ensnare Nadiya’s kicking legs as the piano lifted her up off the stage.

Nadiya screamed and fought against her binds, succeeding only in getting herself further entangled in the mess of wires that dug into her flesh the more she resisted. The Sickness resumed its previous appearance, the sickening face emerging from under the lid of the piano which no longer resembled one. He continued to laugh as he turned Nadiya’s body to face the audience, naked and now forced to spread her limbs by the restraining tendrils and wires that bound her.

“You belong to Me now precious one.” The Sickness sneered, a thin polished tendril of black sliding up Nadiya’s inner thigh until it reached her sex where it undulated over her clit, pushing back the thin fleshy hood. “You are Mine and I shall treasure you, the way you ought to have treasured yourself. I will give you the love you have been craving your entire life. The acceptance you have never known. And yes, there will be suffering too, delicious suffering, the likes of which you have never imagined.”

The Sickness returned to laughing as the audience broke into applause, clearly preferring His prose to Nadiya’s music. As the faceless masses clapped their approval, The Sickness managed to wind the thin tentacle around Nadiya’s exposed and quickly swelling clit.

Another tentacle slithered up Nadiya’s thigh, wriggling and flopping violently, like a fish dieing on the floor of a boat. This one continued to writhe and fluctuate until it reached Nadiya’s damp sex, abruptly thrashing into her and then continuing to undulate from the inside. The thin lash of soft moist flesh began to saw back and forth around her clit, stretching it out and teasing at the sides as its partner wriggled and shifted shape deep inside Nadiya’s pussy; vibrating wickedly against her cervix as it grew bumps and began to spin.

As yet another wriggling tendril came up to nudge between Nadiya’s ass cheeks, her scream rang out through the crowded auditorium.

“Sheldon, run a search on anything relating to 666 … besides the obvious,” Fox barked over her shoulder as she turned to stare at Nadiya who was trembling violently atop the reclining chair.

Fox narrowed her eyes as she peered back at ALICE’s control screen across Aaron’s shoulder. No one could see exactly what was happening to Nadiya, where she was or whom she was talking to. ALICE ran simulations and graphs based on both Nadiya and Laurence’s brain activity, both of which were mapping off the charts. There was a sudden spike in Nadiya’s vital signs as a blood-curdling scream erupted from her lips.

“Aaron, what do you mean they have switched hosts? How can there be two hosts inside one mind?” Fox spoke next to his ear, making him jolt in his seat.

“I don’t know,” he stuttered as he kept his eyes glued to the screen, trying to avoid looking at Fox. “We have not run enough tests on ALICE prior to this, there are so many anomalies. I think ... Laurence might be accessing Nadiya's mind ... which is possible, theoretically.” He tweaked a few settings and feverishly perused every report he could pull. “Was there something wrong with Laurence? Anything unusual?” He asked as he scrounged together the courage to turn and look at Agent Fox. She intimidated him completely.

“A brain tumour has resulted in his comatose state,” Fox offered.
“Oh god … what type of tumour,” Aaron asked, fear flickering in his eyes for the first time. He quickly looked back at the screen and pulled up a map of Laurence’s brain activity. “Oh no …” he muttered as he typed away.

“What Aaron,” Fox snapped. He jumped again.
“Laurence is showing activity in parts of his brain where there shouldn’t be any.”
“English Aaron,” her irritable voice rang out in the room.
“In some cases a brain tumour can stimulate brain activity, instead of hampering it. It appears to be the case with Laurence. It also means that we are treading in territory that no one knows anything about.”

Nadiya writhed atop the table as the strong scent of sexual arousal permeated through the room. Fox stood up and walked to Nadiya, gently running her fingertips across Nadiya’s fevered brow … all her vital signs indicated that Nadiya was in a great deal of distress. “Can he do anything to her while she’s in his mind?” Fox asked the question that has been milling in her head.

“I don’t … I’m not sure,” Aaron stuttered again.
“That is not an answer,” Fox’s voice boomed as she levelled her violet eyes on Nadiya’s assistant. “Is it possible for him to harm her while she’s in his mind?!”

The silence was deafening.

“No … well kind of. The mind is connected to the body. If Nadiya were to … die, for example, in Laurence’s mind … her physical body will die too. But that is just a theory, we haven’t tested the theory,” came the answer.

“And you didn’t think to tell me this?” Fox shrieked. “The man is a sadistic psychopathic killer and you just let me send a defenceless girl in there to go and politely ask him where his victim is stashed. Are you out of your fucking mind?” Fox screamed. “Get her OUT of there!!”

The colour drained from Aaron’s features as he stared at Fox mutely. He had never seen such controlled anger from anyone before. Her violet eyes were shooting blue sparks of fury at him. Fox looked as if she was about to do bodily harm to Aaron. She was dangerous … and sexy all at the same time, the thought crossed his mind as he licked his lips subconsciously.

Fox’s eyes narrowed at the lack of an explanation.

Aaron looked away quickly and fidgeted with his clothes. “I can’t bring her out. If Nadiya does not press the button herself, cutting the connection might trap her inside Laurence’s mind permanently,” Aaron offered hastily.

Fox straightened as she turned to pensively stare at Nadiya’s restrained form atop the chair. A film of sweat was shimmering on the girl’s skin, her heart rate skyrocketing. The intermittent screams and disturbing words that fell from Nadiya’s lips were not encouraging at all. Fox’s eyes riveted on the girl’s hand. “Her hand is slack; shouldn’t she be holding the release button?” Fox asked. Everyone’s attention shot to Nadiya’s silent form. The gravity of the situation suddenly becoming crystal clear.

Fox clenched her jaw in determination. “I am going in,” she said as she walked to the remaining chair.
“But … we haven’t tested…” Aaron started protesting.
“Does it look like I give a rat’s ass about your testing?” Fox asked acidly. He shook his head almost immediately. “Good,” she added as she lay down in the reclining chair. Fox placed the release button firmly in her hand and then found Agent Sheldon’s hazel eyes. “I am placing you in command of the operation Sheldon, find Sydney,” she ordered.
“Yes ma’am.”
“I will extract Nadiya from that psycho’s mind,” Fox said as she laid her head on the sensory array. Her violet eyes fluttered shut …


The floor gave way under Jennifer Fox. Her eyes looked enormous in her face as her arms and legs flailed wildly through the air, her heart rate racing through her veins. Her feet suddenly touched solid ground and she kept her eyes closed for a moment, trying to catch her breath before she slowly opened them.

It was cold … The first image that met her was that of a twisted metal terrain. A strobe light was flickering from somewhere casting halted glimpses of the glinting objects that surrounded her. It looked jagged and disjointed. Fox slowly extended a hand and touched one of the metal spears. It was solid metal, cold … unforgiving.

Casting furtive glances around her, she smoothed her hand along her thigh realising that her side arm was missing. The sight that greeted her as she looked down made Fox groan in disgust. She was dressed in a tight-fitting corset made of leopard skin, adorning her narrow waist and pushing her soft mounds up to make her body look obscenely curvaceous. Fox was used to wearing standard issue, firm support underwear and this was daring to say the least, not to mention the lack of practicality. Black fishnet stockings wrapped around her legs as if a spider web with thigh high stiletto boots that clicked on the metal surface as she walked. She smoothed her hand along the column of her neck finding a black choker secured around it, sporting a glinting black spider dangling from it to rest in the hollow of her neck.

The ground shuddered beneath Fox’s feet as she spun around, trying to ascertain where it came from … whatever it was. The strobe light offered stark glimpses and Fox slowly manoeuvred around to place her back against a hard surface to prevent any unforeseen surprises …

Disjointed music fluttered into the air, a choir of children’s voices singing Incy Wincy Spider as the ground shook more pronouncedly. Fox was trying to stifle the rising dread quaking through her being when her eyes riveted in horror on a huge spider moving towards her. With every flash of the strobe light, the spider seemed to ghost through the darkness to appear infinitely closer. Clanging of metal echoed in the space around Fox as the ominous nursery rhyme started playing off-key. Louder … and louder ... and still louder.

Metal wires suddenly sprung up from the ground and lunged at Fox. She jumped and then started running, twisting and turning as she tried to avoid the constricting chords that were whipping through the air. The ground was shuddering beneath her feet making it tricky to keep her balance as the monstrous spider closed in on her, growing in size with every flicker of light.

A metal spike crashed through the floor, tripping Fox. She hurtled through the air landing hard on her side with a groan as the metal chords caught her and hoisted her up in the air. Suspended in mid-air, Fox writhed and fought against the metal confines that wrapped around her limbs, leaving her tangled spread eagle in a massive spider web.

The spider suddenly jumped up from the ground, landing on the spider web above Fox. The intricate metal web bounced, jolting Fox’s body as the spider slowly walked down to the fresh prey caught in her web like a helpless butterfly. The spider came to a halt above Fox’s head and bent down, having a closer look at the trussed up FBI agent.

Fox gasped at the sight that greeted her. The spider had an elongated human body that protruded where its head should be to reveal the upper torso of a human girl. Her skin was glinting in the same exoskeletal build of an arachnid with the strobe light glinting off its black surface, engrained with red and burning tribal signs. Melanie Westwood, Laurence’s fourth victim, smiled down at Fox with jagged, pointy teeth protruding from her black gums. Melanie’s neck was sown up and held in place by metal staples. Her dark hair dripped from the crown of her head, plastered to her skin in a gooey oil-like substance.

The nursery rhyme was clanging noisily in Fox’s head as the spider spoke, in a voice laced with the squealing sound of a thousand insects screaming together in unison. The sound jarred through Fox’s mind as she stared up at Laurence’s ‘creation’ with mounting terror. Fox fought to keep her expression blank and her breathing under control as she used the fear to feed her own survival instincts, her violet blue eyes staring at the monster above her.

“Well well well, if it isn’t the Spider-Leopard … Master will be pleased,” Melanie hissed as a serpent-like tongue snaked from between her teeth to lick Fox’s skin from the base of her neck, across her ear to her temple.

“Mmmmm … delicious,” the spider shrieked as it shuddered in anticipation.

He sought to violate her completely and she driven to a panicked confusion of lust when it all stopped and withdrew.

"FUCK!!" She screamed the sound resonated in the room built for such a purpose, not sure whether she hated him more for pausing so close to the driving release or ...

The tight wires that had coiled up her thighs stole closer still... closer to the twitching needy sex that begged for more. A hand coiled tightly into the disarray of damp hair and lifted her head, forcing her to face the audience that was enjoying her performance. "Look at them. They're all watching you with baited breath. Aren't you going to give them a good show?"

Nadiya shuddered at the grating voice as the spotlights swiveled to all condense upon her and she flushed a brilliant red at the obvious display he made of her. Droplets of moisture that glistened from her body caught in the light. What was once water from her shower, then sweat from her exertion ... and now her arousal that coated her thighs.

"In your dreams" She breathed through gritted teeth as she took the moment to get a grip on her physical need.

She strained against her own hair to glare at him from the corner of her eye as a brief moment of silence filled the hushed auditorium. The only sound breaking the lull was the soft drip of juices from her aching kitten.

"But... you are in my dreams. Just like I am in yours." The smile and the strangely soft spoken words he offered her were that much more unnerving. Soft words punctuated by the harsh penetration as she was filled once again and each bump made a point to bump her clit in its passing. This time it arrived with it's partner as both orifices were stuffed to the brim.

The scream she gave in return was questionable. Pleasure? Pain? The one in her ass continued to grow as it sawed in and out of her. The tear of muscle bringing it's own bout of pain to complement the pleasure while her body tried to keep up and failed. She strained to the limit of her restraints, the wires cutting painfully into her skin as she fought against her private invasion... or was she moving to its rhythm? A small puddle had dripped to the hard wood stage floor. A lone tentacle dipped to coat itself in her juices and lifted to her face to smear across her cheek and mouth.

She had stopped begging for him to cease... and her hoarse voice had long deteriorated to that of moans. His play on pain and pleasure blurred dangerously together as her sex and ass clenched down hard. She had long lost the fight to keep her orgasm...

and it stopped. The singular breaking point of her sanity held at the teetering brink of an orgasm as he withdrew.... just as rapidly as he'd invaded her. Seeking to fuck with her mind just as brutally as he fucked with her ethereal body.

"Tell us that you want more... You do don't you?" The lilting taunt came back as she groaned her frustration. "Beg for it. Tell your audience that you want to be fucked."

The engorged organ that had been the source of so much of her pleasure pressed to the folds of her sex as if poised to wait for her plea, maintaining it's place despite the struggle of her body trying to find it's fulfillment.

"I.... " Her mind whirled as words threatened to lose their coherence. "Please... fuck me." Simple words breathed from her lips as she gave in.

"I don't believe you want it." The sneer came to barrage her arousal stricken mind. "Show me. Show them that you want more."

The smell of her arousal was strong... but it got stronger still as a bumpy tentacle came to press between her lips. Slowly it sawed over her lips, leaving the sticky musk of herself painted over her cheeks and mouth, making the command clear. For the first time she heard the soft hum, almost musical as if the organ could express it's own sigh of satisfaction. Her mouth reluctantly parted and was just as quickly filled. She never thought it was possible to open her mouth so wide as he, it pressed into her and she started to gag.

The Sickeness sighed theatrically, as if he too could feel the pleasure while by his direction her mouth was invaded. Like a director conducting a piece, it moved to his prescribed rhythm, the thrust of every beat as she choked on it over and over again. She striped away the layer of her juices and coated it with her own saliva.

When he was satisfied with her performance it pulled out to end the movement with a sound tap across her face. The audience applauding and murmuring their praise while she... was too preoccupied with grasping that next breath and keep down the bile that threatened to burn her throat.

She hated herself for being weak. For giving in and succumbing to something as humiliating as what was happening now in the auditorium. While her eyes squeezed closed and the tears stole from their corners, she felt the coils about her wrists withdraw, moving to support her weight around her torso as opposed to her arms.

"Spread your pussy for us and say it again. Make sure everyone can hear it..."

Her hands moved. Shaking but compelled nonetheless by words to give in as they rested on her inner thighs and parted the folds of her sex. Her tremoring fingers tempted to fulfill her tempting needs themselves. Her eyes squeezed shut as she repeated those disgusting words again.

-- "Please. Fuck. Me."

The entire room stared in shock at the pronounced words she uttered, no one was quite sure what to do with the situation...

Aaron on the other hand stared in complete awe at the woman. He probably wasn't the only one who'd recognized the smell as arousal... and hearing words like that from Nadiya made his prick lurch in his pants. His eyes were riveted on the woman now tied to the chair. Her breasts heaving as she hauled in every choking breath and the sheen of sweat adorning her skin. He'd never get another chance to see this!

There was no question that the next moment her lips parted it was a scream of pleasure. A relentless struggle as her body arched against the chair and the withheld orgasm crashed over her, filling the room with the discord of her final cry of release--

Prey

The Sickness grinned in vile satisfaction a Nadiya’s sex addled mind yielded to him, willingly sacrificing her last shred of dignity to gain the illusive release that her body yearned for and her mind craved. The tentacles and wires lowered her petite body down to the surface of the stage, manipulating her and placing her into the position He desired. After pushing her face into the puddle of sex fluids that her body had expelled, The Sickness reformed back into his human form. His large hands came down to grip her ass cheeks as she looked out into the audience from all fours.

“Please. Fuck. Me.” She begged in between ragged breaths, causing The Sickness’ wicked smile to widen further.

“That’s my good little whore.” The Sickness grinned, rewarding Nadiya’s obedience with the familiar feeling of his massive, bumpy erection poised outside of her pussy and another phallic growth nudging at her asshole between her spread open cheeks. “Cry out now and be sated. Accept me willingly and we shall become one.”

With that, The Sickness thrust both of his unnatural growths into Nadiya’s nubile, yearning body. From this new position The ridged underside of The Sickness’ cock rippled over Nadiya’s exposed and aroused clit, vibrating the sensitive cluster of nerve endings wildly. Nadiya’s body rocked back into the brutal thrust as a ragged cry escaped her, her hips shaking uncontrollably in rhythm with the ridges passing over her clit.

The invasion in Nadiya’s ass was moving as well, thrashing and spinning inside of her as The Sickness finished his stroke and bottomed out inside of her, jolting her body forward and spreading her juices over the surface of the stage, using her face like a mop. As Nadiya wailed and thrashed uncontrollably below him, The Sickness began to laugh. A low triumphant din that echoed through the auditorium and resonated through Nadiya’s body. As he laughed, The Sickness’ members seemed to laugh as well, the bumps hidden just below the smooth polished skin began to rotate and spin inside, the ridges on the bottom of both invaders began to flow downward and upward respectively, like an escalator stuck going too fast.

The Sickness’ unnatural body sent Nadiya’s human body over the edge with just one thrust. She wailed and thrashed against her will as her clenching and convulsing pussy expelled a fresh glut of juices in a torrential gush. Nadiya’s tongue fell limply from her mouth, unconsciously lapping at her own juices as her eyes rolled back in her head.

“Now I shall make you Mine forever!” The Sickness gloated, reaching one hand forward to pull her head up by the hair, his hips slowly beginning to thrust with his spinning and vibrating cocks. “Thou frail and mortal shell, acknowledge your new Master and show gratitude for being granted a new and everlasting bliss.”

“Yes!” Nadiya cried, both in her mind and in the crowded laboratory, her eyes glazed over and vacant of her usual focus and thoughtful gaze. “Thank you Master for granting such pleasure to this pathetic and undeserving wretch! I give myself over to your pleasure, mind, body and soul. Use me, degrade me, make me your plaything, just don’t ever stop!”

The Sickness roared with renewed laughter at Nadiya’s newfound enthusiasm. Rewarding her with generous thrusts that met her thrusts back at Him.

Suddenly the auditorium burst into flames.

The Curtains, walls, stage and even audience all burst into flames at once. The scene burned away slowly to reveal the red and orange circus tent. The tent was now crowded with cheering faces from Laurence’s past. They roared in unison at The Ringmaster’s marvelous entrance for the great show just beginning.


The Steel Goddess had been busy spooling large bundles of her treacherous cables when she dropped in. A forked tongue swiftly dampened thin black lips as her eight eyes focused together on the beautifully wrapped present awaiting her. The Master had left for the first time since long before she had been created, now there was another outsider in their midst. It was turning out to be quite the exciting day!

When the prey appeared to be distracted, examining the garb that the host brain had donned her in. The Goddess took off, her eight metal spiked legs clanging loudly over the rusted steel floor that lay across the surface of this world she ruled. Long tracts of wrought steel webs fired from her human fingertips, lashing out as the Spider Leopard fled the Goddess’ approach.

The first barrage of wires missed their mark, The Spider Leopard displaying all of the speed and grace that Laurence recalled from their previous encounter. The Goddess countered by jabbing one of her long, angled blades, The Goddess pierced the ground. The point of her spiked leg emerged from the ground in front of the fleeing prey. In her large stiletto boots, Jennifer was helped to maintain her stride once the spike interrupted her run. She tumbled forward, right into the path of a second whip of her long metal webs.

Within seconds the prey was splayed out and prone before the Goddess. As she pulled her steel leg back from the wrought steel floor, the Steel Goddess sprang up over Jennifer’s head and landed in among the overlapping wires that suspended her prey in the air.

“Well well well, if it isn’t the Spider Leopard… Master will be pleased.” The Goddess cooed into Jennifer’s ear, letting her long forked tongue crawl down the helpless woman’s neck and caressing its way back up to her temple. “Mmmmm… Delicious!”

Feeling a shudder run through her body at the unique taste of strong-willed fear laced with unfamiliar helplessness. As far as prey went, this Spider Leopard was really top notch, she was far much more willful and mighty than the average waif who stumbled this deep into Laurence’s subconscious.

The long forked tongue slithered back down the side of Jennifer’s face, each individual prong of her long tongue slithering its way over Jennifer’s lovely features, over her eyelids, around her bottom lip and then down to her jaw line. Human hands slid over the small of Jennifer’s back, covered only by tightly bound, black laces that held her corset shut. The roaming palms slid around the Agent’s ribcage, slowly flattening out above her stomach and slowly bending and forming to wrap themselves around her luscious breasts that were lifted and squeezed together, both by her confining leopard print garb and wide spread position.

Long black fingers tipped with spiked red nails closed around the generous mounds of soft yet firm flesh, pressing into them and squeezing, gently at first but eventually with more purpose as index and middle fingers closed around the hardening outline’s of Jennifer’s nipples.

As the Goddess’ tongue became longer still, dipping into Jennifer’s cleavage and slowly writhing between her breasts that were already heaving from panic and exertion… Perhaps even with some arousal mixed in with the other feelings.

Just as the forked tip of the Goddess’ tongue wrapped itself around Jennifer’s left nipple, completely surrounding and gently squeezing it as the thin tips flicked playfully at the very tip where her mammary glands breached the surface. As the tongue writhed and emitted a fresh coat of warm saliva, a soft gasp escaped the helpless FBI Agent.

“That’s enough!” Laurence commanded, slipping in through a steel door on rusted hinges. “Let her go. I command you!”

The Goddess hissed in reply, her fingers and tongue squeezing down in unison at the unwelcome appearance of the Host. While his word held much power, he was not the ruler of this place, at least not anymore. The Master’s word surpassed The Host, but at the moment the Master was away.

“Keep away from me Host!” The Goddess commanded, curling her long steel legs in front of Jennifer to shield them both from Laurence. “I found this prey myself and I’ll only share her with Master!”

This was indeed unfamiliar territory for Fox. She had never been tied up ... well, not in this sense, nor has she ever felt so vulnerable. The fact that she was at the mercy of a monster created by the twisted mind of a serial killer made it infinitely worse.

Fox could feel the slow ebb of disgust spiral down her spine as the spider’s tongue slid across her skin. Her head lulled to the side, her hair falling across her cheek as she focussed on her right hand. The metal chords were snaking up her arm, fastening tighter and tighter around her. Slowly twisting her arms she tried to work her way out of the coiling restraints.

Fox could feel the icy touch of hands smooth around her back ... across her hips to languidly trail up across her stomach ... coming to rest on her breasts. Hissing in response Fox tugged wildly at the spider web. “Get your hands off me,” she ordered through gritted teeth as she levelled a murderous gaze on her tormentor.

The spider girl smiled at her prey’s pitiful attempt, exposing jagged black teeth as she continued to fondle Fox’s soft mounds. Fox’s nipples tightened into hard buds that strained against the form hugging corset. Fury ignited in her eyes at her body’s traitorous reaction.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm the racing blood in her veins in an attempt to force her mind to surface and think of a way out of this godforsaken trap. In that moment the spider’s tongue joined the exploration of Fox’s body, wildly worming itself into her pronounced cleavage before slithering to the tip of her breast ... wrapping around her nipple and coating it in a warm layer of goo. Another rush of adrenalin seared through Fox’s veins as she shuddered involuntarily. Her eyes were spewing ice blue shards of hatred at the spider whose facial expression could only be described as euphoric. If she had full use of her hands, Fox would quite cheerfully rip the spider’s fucking head off.

A voice shattered the eerie silence with a loud, “That’s enough!” Fox’s head craned to the side to get a better look at the intruder, only to find Laurence standing in front of a steel door. “Let her go. I command you!” He ordered. A confused frown flitted across Fox’s features. How bizarre! Surely if this was Laurence’s mental creation he should have full control over it?

A squealing deafening hiss came from the spider and screamed in Fox’s ears. The spider’s fingers and tongue painfully dug into Fox’s flesh, wrenching a sharp gasp from her lips.

“Keep away from me Host!” The spider warned before she almost climbed on top of Fox and wrapped her legs around her prey. “I found this prey myself and I’ll only share her with Master!” Fox was writhing wildly, twisting her wrists to try and free them from the chokehold the spider had on her. “Master?” The breathless question siphoned from her lips as Fox desperately tried to make sense of it. Is this what Aaron meant by Laurence’s mind switching hosts? Was there someone else in Laurence’s mind that they didn’t know about?

In a final lucky twist, Fox managed to free her right hand. She instantly threw her hand forward and smashed as many fingers as she could into the spider’s eight eyes. The spider squealed and uncoiled from around Fox to take a step back, just in time for Fox to land a hard punch to the spider’s throat. Some of the staples holding Melanie Westwood’s neck in tact popped out and her features contorted in pain. The metal wires wrapped around Fox went slack for a split second.

All she needed was a moment...

Quickly twisting out of the metal confines, Fox landed a solid kick on the spider’s head. Melanie took an unsteady step back before the eight legs supporting her weight wobbled, letting her fall to the ground in a screeching clash of metal. Not wasting a second, Fox clambered down the web and ran to where Laurence was standing. She collided full speed into him and pushed him through the metal door, slamming it shut behind her. The dead bolt slid in place a split second before something big and hard slammed into the door, “She is MY prey!” The spider squealed from the other side of the door.

Fox took a few steps back staring at the indented door in disbelief. She slowly bent over with her hands on her knees trying to catch her breath, closing her eyes for a moment ...

A disjointed circus song started wafting through the air. Weary eyes fluttered open to find herself in the middle of a big top arena with a crowd of spectators cheering wildly, spotlights flicking through the air and illuminating the sea of faces. Fox slowly straightened and whirled around looking at the kaleidoscopes of colours that seemed to spin faster and faster around them. She finally levelled a calculating gaze on Laurence.

“What is going on here, Laurence? Where is Nadiya?”

Three words. Three simple words that condemned her... and she snapped. Her defenses crumbled as the shadows, the Sickness became a part of her... Her control shattered as he - it seeped in to take over the wheel, her pleasure, her pain, her limbs, her voice.... her fear.

Too shocked for words... too terrified to fight... and too broken to protect herself as they returned to the circus tent and away from the broken pieces of what was once Nadiya...

and she crashed.

It was a split second as the image of Nadiya flickered once and faded from his side. Disappearing into nothingness as the crowd watched in surprise.

--
"C-code blue... fuck! " Aaron sputtered while his hands gripped the monitor. The screen flashed red as the system identified a user going into cardiac arrest.

Chaos ensued as Aaron barked orders through his shaking voice. Few had the medical background Aaron came from as he rushed to Nadiya's side with a crash cart and unceremoniously stripped her blouse away.

His breath came heavy with his arousal as he pulled her bra up, unable to contain the pure excitement of touching her skin... albeit under an emergency. His prick lurched against his pants again as he took in the bare flesh before him, the blouse hanging loosely open as the cups of her lingerie no longer obscuring his view... she was everything he'd envisioned her to be. He had to drag himself back to reality to place the pads on her chest...

-CLEAR!-

Her body convulsed as the shock ripped through her. The jolt was barely perceptible...

-CLEAR!-
--

Her body fell once more as her eyes opened to darkness. It hurt. The relentless ravaging that had assaulted her still rang strongly within her being. The inexplicable ache in her chest felt like she'd been kicked... but pain right now was a distant problem.

As her own mind booted back into consciousness, the Sickness came with her.... a virus seated within her mind as it sought to fill in the spaces she had relinquished and began to fester. However, her walls of defense had restored themselves. A small part of her mind, in the struggle to preserve that which was Nadiya, closed away into a corner... watching and crying as the Sickness bled through all other things.

Her fall slowed, the circus tent opening just enough to let her body be slowly lowered back down to the center stage, placing her, a marionette to his whims, beside the ring master of this domain....

"What do you command of me... Master."