(Trigger warning: Chapter contains strong language and disturbing scenes)

***

He blended quite well amidst vast greenery. His soldier uniform still drenched with blood clung to his body in a phyton grip. He had been inactive for four years but he needed a new addition to his collection. He hadn't been back and had pondered if he should return. But he had to return, he had to come back, he couldn't resist the pull. The forest was as dark as ink, but he knew the way like clockwork, dormant but surprisingly coming alive at the back of his head. Using his flashlight he maneuvered his way across low-hanging branches and a labyrinth of high-rising shrubs.

His journey ended upon reaching the middle of the forest. Slowly, the man brought his luggage down and then clicked his tongue. He bent down, hands slowly creeping over the earth, seemingly massaging the moss and wet leaves upon it. Soon, he felt the latch, he tugged on it, and instantly, the creaking of the mechanism that controlled the entrance to his sweet paradise echoed. It sent birds flying in every direction and even forced an unsuspecting rabbit to careen.

He was called many things, but what clung to him was misplaced. He is misplaced. That was what his mother and father called him. Even his wife whom he loved dearly often called him that, misplaced.

After a few turns of his head from left to right, assuring that no one was there, he made his way down the hole. The metal stairs that took him years to weld together screeched as he descended. His sloth-like movement caused him ten full minutes to reach the bottom and once his feet landed on the cemented floor, the sound of distant pleading instantly echoed around the enclosure. Smiling to himself he made his way toward the hallway on the left. If anyone happened to have found themselves inside his little paradise they would find themselves dead before finding their way out. He has designed it to be a maze, impenetrable and inescapable.

He walked with heavy footfalls, strides more like a drunk man, swaying from side to side. Slowly closing the distance to his coveted room, he moved close to the wall on his side. Overgrown vines had worked their way up on the soil that served as his walls but he didn't mind. Matter of fact, he was glad. It was amusing to him that something alive would even want to co-exist with something he touched. The earth felt cold and it eased the burning sensation inside him, especially his lower part. So he laid his cheek on the cold earth wishing it was enough to soothe him, even for a little while, but when he heard a whimper, his blood turned cold, then searing hot. A smile appeared on his lips, his loins twitched and his foot shook. Excitement spiked within him. It had been three months since he last came to them, his bones, his sweet things, their holes and he missed the thrill. He cackled, and soon, he was back to walking.

He was almost at the door when his flashlight started to flicker and then completely lost its light. But that's alright. He liked it when he saw nothing. The darkness of his little paradise was something his captive never understood and loathed. His playthings often complained and said they miss the sun. One even dared to question if anyone inside had ever told him that they would bathe under the sunlight once they made it out. It was comical but pondered on the question. But he knew they can never compare the joy of darkness and invisibility against the sun. Once they've tasted it, they would never be the same-not that anyone had been there and left with their feet still standing on the ground.

He took a drag of breath and relished the musty scent in the air.

Whimper.

Whimper.

Once he reached the end of the hallway he pulled out what had been rattling inside his pocket. The key felt heavy in his hands, the heaviness, not so much caused by its weight but by what it kept hidden. When he stuck it inside the keyhole, the whimpers and screams began again. That was the heavy drag that constantly called him. The temptation that plagued him beyond reprieve. The door let out a scratch when he pushed it open, rusty hinges making themselves known. With a smile, his eyes raked over the staircase revealed before him. It went deeper down his little paradise. Down, down where no one would hear of their cries and woes.

He reached for the light switch beside him, and all at once, the staircase was bathed with illumination, and with that came the ear-splitting wail of his remaining captive. She was the prettiest and tried grooming her to be obedient. Unfortunately, she hadn't succumbed. But he managed to own her, had been inside her, and would continue to bask in what little relief he could still gather from her.

"Please, help!"

He smiled. She hadn't stopped begging for help, had she? She never learned, not even when her remaining companion died from asphyxiation in a process that had her eyes rolling at the back of her head. Shoving his precious body part inside that teen's mouth was something that gave him relief for months. To watch her die unable to do anything but clamp her teeth-less mouth on his stick was a sight he had never forgotten. Misplaced, his head was misplaced even further.

"H-Hello!"

He pondered if he should answer and pretend that he was someone else, someone who might help her escape.

"P-Please, please help!"

He slowly made his descent, smiling as her pleas continued. When he reached the end of the staircase, his eyes instantly met the teenage girl chained to the wall. She looked skinnier since he last saw her. Her head was bent, eyes fixed on her feet but her mouth was still murmuring words of pleas, of begging, of freedom.

The sight instantly turned his eyes wide and saliva dripped from his lips to his chin. Yes, he always salivated whenever presented with something like her or him. He cared not about their gender. As long as he found a hole, then that's fine.

When he approached, her head slowly tilted up. Immediately, her eyes turned wide as saucers, and the chains around her wrist rattled slightly as she tried to tug on them.

"No. No. Please no!"

Her cities were music to his ears. And when he noticed how she shivered, his strides turned faster. He needed to be near her. He needed to touch, to draw blood; he needed relief.

Finally standing in from of her, he reached for her chin. She attempted to jerk her face away, but she was too weak.

Scanning her face, he was met with a petrified gaze, lips cracked and pale. The long grey shirt he draped on her months ago hung on her body as if it was draped over a stick. Skin and bones, that's what she was.

"P-Please let me go. I... Please... I..."

He placed a chase kiss over his lips and then slowly produced a set of keys from his pocket. He knew she was too weak to try and run, so he dismissed his usual process of trying her ankles together before freeing her wrist from their bounds.

Once free, she fell forward, an admission of how weak she had become. She was quite young when he acquired her along with her friends. The others had passed, but her? He couldn't let her. She was precious to him. Not in a romantic way but because she was so damn pretty, she made every night of his craving and starved existence meaningful.

Carrying her bridal style, he slowly made his way to a room connected to that chamber. It went deeper into the earth. It was perfect to hide his victim's cries and pain.

She must have noticed where he had taken her because she started to squirm within his grasp, desperate to escape what was inevitable. Her curling and wriggling did not aid her one bit. It only heightened the excitement he felt inside. She was weak and he should first feed her, he knew that. He left her minimal food months ago and if his assessment was correct, she had run out days prior.

"P-Please, do...don't."

Oh, how sweet her weakened voice sounded to his ear. If the floor beneath his foot wasn't covered with mud he would have dropped her right then and taken what he needed.

When they were finally inside what he called the sweet room, he laid her on the bed. Though their surroundings smelled like death, his olfactory only smelt her sweet scent. Call him crazy, but even her fear, he smelt. It was intoxicating.

"No... No please, I beg you. I can't. I'm hurt. I..."

He muffled her words by clamping a hand over her mouth. Soon, the entire room was filled with cries of terror, pain, and pleading.

Once done, he carried her to the bathroom. There, he washed her clean. Her rib cage was visible by how thin she was. But it mattered not. Nothing mattered, but the hole.

As he lathered his prize with soap his mind drifted to the girl he had longed to take possession of. She reacted in ways he thought possible and she was not one to back out from a fight. She accepted his challenge with a bang, and oh what an explosion it was. He couldn't wait for her to fall. Allowing her to believe she had the upper hand was amusing. They had been playing hide and seek for four long years now. However, she need not truly need to hide nor was there the need for him to seek. Well, that was until she made her move and rocked the boat. She had grown to be the woman he imagined her to be. He had wondered how her voice would sound like once he started choking and riding her at the same time. Magnificent, that's how it would be.

In recent years it wasn't only her body he learned to covert but her mind as well. Unique, she was unique and undoubtedly guarded, but despite her elusiveness, she made an irreversible mistake. A mistake that would lead her to exactly where he wanted her to be. He need not play the game anymore, she had taken the lead. But where she was headed was somewhere she would never bounce back from. She would only descend.

Descend to his little paradise where a bed and chain had long waited for her wrist.

***

Detective Howe lit a cigarette. He was in the middle of the woods trying to gain his composure. Earlier, when he asked Jhon why he wanted to bust his sister out of jail, he got no reply. The man managed to flee. Alyssa on the other hand just stared at him unapologetically, more like bored, and then turned to her heel and returned to her cell. Howe was left alone, dumbfounded at how easy everyone took their situation. What the fuck. That's what he could call his situation. What the actual fuck was going on?

After drawing a few puffs from his smoke, he dropped the cigarette on the ground, crushed it with his boot, and then motioned to step out of the forest. However, when he took a step forward, he heard a whimper. Craning his neck from left to right, he tried to discern where it came from. But when he managed to fully submerge himself into listening, the whimper vanished, leaving behind the chirp of birds, the whisper of the wind, and the chaotic burble of the stream near him.

Shaking his head, deciding he had imagined the sound, Howe moved forward, unaware of the shadow that had always been in his wake.