Entangled in Blood and Fear (R)
Characters – Eric
Prompt – Deathfic #25 Blood
Word Count – 634
Warning – Character Death, and allusions to all sorts of unpleasant things too!!
Summary – Eventually, it was all too much for Eric to take.
A/N – A moment from “Closure”, the sequel to the sequel of “Inversion”.
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Entangled in Blood and Fear
Eric had thought he’d grown immune to the screams, and the laughter of the Orcs. He’d learned to stare blankly at the walls, and he’d learned not to react, not even when they struck him. He’d thought that there was nothing worse they could do to him than what they’d already done.
Behind him, someone spoke, a single word: Kneel.
He did as the voice told him. He didn’t have the strength to disobey, nor did he want to. That voice was all he had to keep the Orcs from their cruel games. If he disobeyed, he was lost. No one would ever find him. No one would ever find him anyway.
His knee touched the cold floor and sent a jolt of reality through his body. Though his eyes were open, he didn’t see, really see and understand, until that moment.
Before him was a body. He looked at it, watching as the line of ruby blood snaked across the stone floor to the gutter and grate by the wall.
He felt he should have recognised the body, but it was difficult to tell now. And there should have been remorse, or regret, or something. Yes, he should be feeling… something.
The staring blue, bloodshot eyes looked straight through him as if he wasn’t there. That seemed to be happening to him all the time. He wasn’t there, no one was coming to help him. And there was no expression on the face, no smile. He’d never seen a completely expressionless face before.
Then there was an unnatural silence.
The dungeons of the Tower were never this quiet.
Eric looked at the face again. It was difficult to recognise, but this boy had once been one of his friends, he was sure. He even knew his name. Lorne.
Eric still stared. Lorne was dead.
The fact didn’t have the impact it should have. He just stared at the body and the face. There was no doubt that this was Lorne. Even through the blood, he still smelled the same, though he didn’t look the same. The Orcs had seen to that.
‘Touch it,’ said the voice.
Again Eric was compelled to obey. That voice was his only link with the world outside these walls, and the world he’d known before he’d been brought to this Tower.
What the voice brought was a small pool of calm and sanity in this mire of fear-saturated blood.
He put his hand out.
The body was still warm. That surprised him. Dead bodies weren’t supposed to be warm. The blood was sticky and seemed to creep over his hands, between his fingers and under his nails.
Lorne was dead.
That could only mean one thing. There would be no last minute rescue for the Cavalier. No one was coming to set him free. His other friends had given up.
Eric stayed there, frozen in helplessness, until an ice-cold hand came to rest upon his shoulder. He was led away, up through the gates of the dungeons, up through the halls and corridors, up through the stairways to the private room at the very top of the Tower.
Then there was nothing but the smell of Venger’s hair as it brushed against his cheek, the taste of his own blood, and a crushing weight on his body. And pain.
But he was familiar with physical pain.
It was almost like an old friend to him by this time. Everything else, and everyone else had gone. He was a new creature, with only pain as a companion. And he knew that there were many other sorts of pain.
So that night, when Venger had finished with him, his dreams were a collage of flowers and hair and death and blood. And power.
And revenge.