Song of the Chapter: All Alone - Pegboard Nerds & Grabbitz (Drumstep)

This one's kind of ... gruesome. There's one especially disturbing part, and I'm sorry. Torture is rough.

(Phantom's POV)

Someone comes into the dark cell hours later, bringing a water bottle, and I wince in the bright light. Sure enough, I can see my breath clouding in the air. The soldier hands me the water bottle, but my fingers are numb and I can't open it. She helps me and then watches blankly as I gulp greedily, and when I'm finished, she takes the bottle and leaves as suddenly as she came.

I sigh and ruffle my hair, noticing little flecks of frost. It's literally freezing in here. However, it doesn't stay that way for long. Slowly, it gets hotter and hotter until I'm sweating and have to take off my hat and jacket. And then I see it: a little flicker of light in the corner, just across from me.

A flame.

The flame slowly spreads across the room, getting closer and hotter, and I start to panic. I can see it all again, the house fire, my dead family, the heat and the smoke in the air. I can taste the fire in my mouth and it burns my skin, even from farther away. I press myself up against the wall, my breathing fast and hard. Not again. Not again. Please, not again.

The flames spread until the room is completely engulfed - except for a small half-circle around me. They slowly close in, and my terror seems to crush my chest. "Jensen!" I scream, my voice cracking. "Jensen, please help me!" My palms are slick and I can feel the sweat trickling down my back and face. My chest hurts, though I don't know if it's because of the overwhelming terror or my gashes. Maybe both. I can barely breathe in the smoke, and my heart is going to burst right out of my ribs if I don't do something.

I try to push further against the wall, as if I could sink right into it, but I'm dizzy and weak and can barely think. I might've been able to run to the door, but the chain rips into my arm every time I tug on it. I'm as good as dead.

"Jensen, please," I beg, starting to cry. I don't want to die. Fire ... why did it have to be fire? It's so hot, burning my throat and lungs when I breathe and stinging my eyes. There's shapes, white hot shapes swirling through the flames, laughing at my weakness. Shapes and visions that pierce into my soul and nearly stop my heart. "Jensen!" I cry again. "I'll do anything! Please make it stop!"

Some creature in the fire snakes toward me, laughing as I curl up in a ball with my arms over my head, helpless, burning, crying. "Leave me alone!" I scream at it. It laughs again and nibbles at my elbow, making me flinch and cry out in pain.

And then suddenly, everything goes white, whiter than I've ever seen, and the white gets hot and I can't even see my own hand, and then, like the flick of a light switch, I pass out as everything goes dark.

...

Something ice cold touches my arm and I wake up with a terrified gasp for breath. I scramble back against the wall, and Jensen just sits back on his heels and smiles. "I'm sorry, Nick. You were saying?"

My eyes dart around the room, but there's no trace of the fire. I'm still soaked with sweat, but some of it has frosted over, in my hair, on my clothes and bandages. I can see my breath again, clouding up like smoke. Smoke. I can't even smell smoke. Maybe I'm breathing too fast. I try to calm down, but my heart is racing and there's no way it's slowing down just yet.

"But - but - but there was a f-fire and - and - " I stutter, and Jensen just laughs.

"There was no fire. In fact, you're probably safer from fires in here than out there."

"N-n-no fire?"

"No fire," he confirms. "The drug you took caused you to hallucinate."

"Dr-drug?"

"We drugged you," he says, shrugging. "I was hoping it'd knock you out quickly so we could move you to another room, but apparently, your system took it differently."

The fire wasn't real. It was just a hallucination. It felt so real, so hot and deadly, but I'm not burned anywhere and the room is completely smoke free. I had a hallucination ... I've never had one before. That was one of the most terrifying moments of my entire life. I shiver and pull my knees up to my chest.

"Let me tell you, it's something interesting to watch someone have a full blown panic attack over something that doesn't exist," Jensen chuckles. "Watching them cowering and screaming in an empty, pitch black room, fighting against something from their imagination."

I drop my eyes to the floor, my heartbeat gradually returning to normal. It's begun, then. This is the start of Jensen's torture. I don't understand. He has exactly what he wants. "I hate you," I whisper.

He just laughs and unlocks the chain around my arm. He keeps me tightly in his grip as his other hand examines the raw flesh where the metal scraped against my skin. I hiss in pain as his touch stings me and sends tingles down to my hand. He smiles almost sadly and then yanks me to my feet, laughing as I let out a yelp. "Don't fall in that hole," he says, pointing directly in front of me.

I leap backward, my heart jumping into my throat and back to the racing beat. I swear I can see the floor crumble and fall into a cavernous void underneath us, but I try to tell myself that it's just my imagination. I'm hallucinating again, I think. Maybe? I don't like this feeling; the feeling of being completely out of control. I don't even know what's real or what's imaginary.

Jensen laughs, loud and ominous. He leads me to the back of the room where there's a hidden door. I know about this only because Nitro Fun showed me on a blueprint. He said that this is where they keep their most important prisoners, because it's the hardest to get into and even harder to break out of.

We go into the room and a sick feeling enters into my chest. There's darkness in this room, not the 'absence of light' darkness, but the kind that buries itself in your heart and makes you sick and you feel completely helpless and even guilty for something you have no control over. I want to curl up and cry. The feeling haunts me, like hundreds of souls screaming out at me, begging for mercy, pleading for relief. The emotion alone almost crushes me down.

"You feel that?" Jensen whispers, his voice amused. "You'll never get used to it." He walks me slowly through the room and I notice lengths of chain and rope, dangling from the ceiling, coiled on the floor, hanging off the walls.

"Please help me," I breathe, my voice not even coming out, a silent prayer.

"There's so many possibilities!" Jensen says excitedly. "So many ways to hurt. Which one should we try first?"

I swallow nervously, my knees wobbling and my hands shaking. My gashes throb, too, but nothing comes close to pushing the terror away.

He goes on and on, describing one torture method after the next, each one more gruesome than the last. The more he speaks, the worse that sick feeling gets. I'm going to die here.

I stop listening after a while. I can't take this anymore. And then he says something that catches my ear.

"Strap you down to a table with a tube forced in your mouth, drinking something horrible ... chemicals that burn, probably. That's what we did to your friend. Now he can't speak."

My friend? My heart lurches in my chest. Which one? Who did they hurt?

"You are a monster," I hiss.

"I know," he says, taking a sharp, thin piece of rope and tying it around my head, in my mouth, and the sharp parts cut my mouth and the side of my face. He pulls a black bag over my head and then knocks me over so he can rip off my shoes, socks, and pants, leaving me in just my underwear again. He pushes me toward one of the devices, and I can't tell what it is with my eyes covered, even as he lays me down and straps my ankles and wrists to the table.

I start to shake and I can barely breathe. I'm only seventeen. I'm too young to die. I promised Noisestorm I'd always stay with him. Jensen pulls the bag off of my head and puts a cloth over my nose and mouth. I try to turn my head, but he snaps a tight collar around my throat and holds my head down against the table. I don't know what's going on. I'd rather be back in that cell, having hallucinations.

Suddenly, Jensen fills the cloth with water and I can't breathe. I start to panic and yank at the restraints, my eyes going wide, but I'm helpless. I'm going to drown. The water keeps coming and coming and my heart beats faster and faster, making my lungs scream for more oxygen. I hold my breath, but my head's tipped back and the water runs up into my nose and slips into my mouth. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I'm going to drown.

I take a breath and get a breath of water. I try to cough it back up, but I just get more water. I'm going to drown in a cloth. Jensen keeps pouring the water, even though I know he can see I'm drowning. My eyes are wide and terrified, and I lurch as I try to breathe something other than water. It burns my throat and fills my lungs, and I wonder when it'll be over, until finally, I black out.

I'm not out for very long. I come to in a different place, my forearms tied together behind my back. My ankles and thighs are tied tightly, too, making me lose my balance whenever I move. The rope gag is still in my mouth, but I try to yell for help anyway.

"No one can hear you," Jensen says. His voice is as cold as I've ever heard it. Usually, he's tauntingly sweet. "Struggling is pointless. No one's coming to save you, Nick. You're alone. Even your best friend hates you."

He's playing with my emotions, but ... he's right. I'm a traitor. I try to jerk forward, but I just lose my balance and end up crying out into the rope as my elbows yank me back up.

He has a knife in his hand, and he presses it against my heart as he speaks. "You are nothing, Nick. Not anymore. You were a hero. First for your school, when you were young and innocent, and then for the producers, stirring up a rebellion. Now, you are nothing. Worthless. Every hero falls eventually. Some are killed. Some aren't so lucky."

My breath hitches in my throat as he presses the tip harder against my skin. What's he doing? What's going to happen to me? "Please, no - " I try to say, but he ignores my muffled plea.

He slices the bandages off, revealing the gashes covering my chest. Some of them are yellowing and infected. No wonder they hurt so bad. He finds a clean spot by my shoulder and rests the knife point there before gently hitting it, like he's chiselling at a stone. I let out an ear-splitting scream that could have woken the dead and arch my back, yanking myself around to try to escape the searing agony in my shoulder.

"You are weak," Jensen whispers, casually finishing carving an "M" into my skin. I can't escape. I'm helpless. There's something on that knife - it makes me burn more than it should. Maybe he's poisoning me. He finishes a "J" and I realize that he's carved his initials. He's claiming me like an object. He notices my horrified expression and laughs, giving me the chills, and then reopens the gashes on my chest. I scream again, but I can't move. I can barely breathe. He slides his finger under my ripped skin, watching in amusement as I writhe in agony, tears streaming down my face. He wipes the tears away, smearing blood across my face, and then yanks the rope out of my mouth. "I'm sorry, am I hurting you? Just say the word, and I'll leave you alone."

He wants to hear me beg. "You can break ... every bone in my ... body, but ... you'll never break ... my spirit," I hiss out, gasping for breath. My voice is shaking.

His expression hardens even more. "If that's what you want, I suppose I'm flexible." He shoves the gag back in my mouth and grabs my arms, twisting them up until he gets what he wants. I beg and plead and scream until he releases my arms, dropping them back down to where they were originally bound without breaking them.

I start coughing, trying to catch my breath, but each cough brings a stab of pain to my chest and takes my breath away again. Jensen chuckles darkly, dragging his hand along my gash again and collecting the blood on his finger.

"Someday, Nick," he says, smearing the blood across my forehead, "you'll join me without protest. You'll join me willingly. Because after all ... "

We're all just liars and backstabbers, aren't we?

"We're practically the same person."

...

Five days pass. Jensen moved me to a new position a couple days ago, half crouching with my head ducked and my arms wrapped tightly behind my back. I can't move, except to bend over further. My shoulders ache, my back hurts, and my legs are absolutely killing me. I want to die. If anyone asked me what I most wanted, right now, I wouldn't say food or water or sleep or my friends back, I'd say death. Yesterday, I tried to get the tight gag out of my mouth and around my neck to see if I could choke myself. It didn't work, of course. I just wish it did. My chest is bleeding again, I think. Maybe I'll bleed out and die that way. Before Jensen moved me, he played a little game. How hard can I hit Nick without breaking any bones? I can barely see from the blood that dripped into my eyes. Some parts of my bruised and beaten body are still numb. Some places are still bleeding.

The door opens suddenly, and a tiny bit of light spills into the torture room. I try to look up, but the rope cuts into my neck and I hang my head back down. Maybe Jensen will finally put me out of my misery.

"Nick?" Ben calls softly. "Are you in here?"

I almost cry in relief. He's alive.

"Nick?"

I make a little noise, but that's as loud as I can go.

He shines a flashlight through the room, and I squeeze my eyes shut when the beam lands on me. "Nick!" he cries out, coming toward me. He cuts the rope holding me to the ground and pulls the gag out of my mouth before working on the ropes around my arms. "I'm gonna get you out of here."

"I c-can't move," I breathe, barely able to speak. My arms feel like lead blocks or limp noodles or something, and as soon as the ropes are gone, I crumple to the floor. "Just kill m-me now. P-please, just kill me now."

"I'm getting you out of here," he repeats. "Here's some water and a bit of food from lunch."

He hands me the water bottle and I almost spill it all over the floor. He helps me hold it up to my mouth as I gulp and gulp until I feel like I'm going to pass out, and then he patiently feeds me a little bit of bread. As soon as I swallow the food, my stomach lurches and I throw it back up on the floor. I'm shaking violently, my head is pounding, and my slashes throb and itch. I just want to die.

"You need to eat something," Ben says gently.

"Can't," I groan, lurching again. Nothing comes up. I hurt so bad ...

"Then we'll have to move fast. Come on, Nick. There's nothing else I can do."

"Just k-kill me. P-please."

"You're going to make it. For Noisestorm. We're breaking him out, too."

Noisestorm? Just for a second, my hopes rise. "O-okay. For N-Noise."

"'Kay. Come here." He helps me into his arms and I start to cry. "We'll get you out of this nightmare. I promise. I'm not going to kill you, but you're going to have to play dead. I'm going to carry you out."

I don't even have to play. As soon as I stand up, the world tips and I pass out.