*Whip!*
"Ah!" Ziltris cried. Whipped for the umpteenth time, he was barely holding onto consciousness.
Squinting his remaining eye, he saw Sir Larson squirming in ecstasy holding a bloodied whip.
'Why is this happening?'
The first few days in Sir Larson company was utter bliss.
They ate food better than ever, slept blissfully for the first time in years, and were prepared for their daily tasks without hassle.
Then ten days in, Ziltris woke up without Levin.
Prompting into panic, he searched for him, but to no avail, he found not a trace.
When he informed the maids, they told him not to worry, and prompted him to get doing daily tasks.
Asking four days later, the maids told him Levin followed Sir Larson on a trip.
Two weeks passed, and Sir Larson arrived from his long trip.
Unlike his expectations, Levin was nowhere to be seen.
Apparently, Sir Larson had sold him to another.
As expected, Ziltris was devastated, but he made sure to keep his emotions under wraps.
That night he cried himself to sleep, depression had him acting like a corpse for the next few days.
He came to terms with the loss two weeks after, having abandoned any thoughts of escaping.
Holding the loss close to his heart, he busied himself with house chores, working himself to exhaustion while doing so.
With weeks having passed by, the house's initial novelty had all but faded.
With a routine as mundane as can be, Ziltris had spare time which he used to find anything to alleviate the immense dosages of boredom he was saddled with daily.
Settling into life without Levin was not easy, but Ziltris was getting there.
Now eating good food, Ziltris grew some muscles, changing from his skinny frame to look like a normal child.
Seven days later, Ziltris woke up in an unfamiliar space, gagged and blindfolded, with his arms and legs restricted.
Squirming to get himself loose, he managed to cut him.
Then, the gag was forcefully ripped off, and the sight he came to had Ziltris' eyes widening.
It was Mr. Larson, covered in blood while holding an equally bloody whip in one hand.
"Mmm!" Ziltris' mind could not comprehend the situation and he fell into immediate panic.
Sadly, efforts to get himself loose had him bleed more, he had never felt this much pain.
With his eyes open, he could now see what exactly held him captive.
He was bonded with metal on his ankles and wrists to a steel net with his hands and legs spread apart.
Designed for its sharpness, any large movement had the braces cut into the skin.
Worse still, he had been stripped of his clothes.
Each passing second had Ziltris closer to a panic attack.
Then…
"Z-Ziltris?"
A weak mutter of his name had him turn his head to the side, and then came the greatest shock of his life.
There lied Levin, his one and only friend, bruised and battered and bloodied, with cut marks stretching across his face.
Upon eye contact, Levin muttered with the little left of his strength. "No…"
Ziltris' mind reached a breaking point as he unsuccessfully tried to scream, squirming uncontrollably.
"Tsk, tsk. Look what you did"
The devil in the room stepped in, and with a hand movement Ziltris could barely follow, had the whip slap right onto the side of Levin's face, giving him a laceration to remember.
Ziltris froze.
Levin's face hit the other side and bounced back to face Ziltris, to which he muttered something under his breath.
Ziltris read his lips.
'I'm sorry…'
Ziltris watched as the life in the eye of his friend fades, leaving his head to simply dangle.
Realizing what just transpired, Ziltris' spirit broke, and at this point, he was fresh out of tears.
"Raise your head!" barked Mr. Larson. Whipping him a few more times before realizing.
"Oh? He's dead" said Larson, holding his limping head by the chin. "Disappointing" he muttered, before snapping his fingers.
A man came into view, his face obscured with black masks while his hands were covered in black gloves, all bloody.
"You called. My lord"
Larson waved his hands lackadaisically. "Get rid of it"
Promptly, the man cuts off the binding braces, slings the body across his shoulder like a sack of wheat, and takes it away.
It would be the last Ziltris would see of his childhood friend.
When the sound of footsteps faded, Larson got to Ziltris.
"Your friend didn't last long; he was too weak"
Ziltris balled fists, before releasing them with a defeated sigh.
Larson pulled Ziltris by the chin, raising his head to whisper in his ears. "Let's hope you can do better"
All he met was an unresponsive gaze.
'How weird' he thought. Usually their eyes would be boiling with fiery rage.
He mind-shrugged, smiling. 'Let us see how long you maintain that façade'
He dealt with too many of such kids to not have seen such antiques before, he could not wait to make the boy squeal.
'Ah!'
Just thinking about it had him shaking in ecstasy.
So began the worst days of Ziltris' life, which consisted of whipping, sleeping, and sometimes, eating.
But unlike most others, Larson grew to hate the boy.
*Whip*Whip*Whip*Whip*Whip*
Consecutive whipping, each one harder than the last.
"Why won't you cry?!"
At the start, Larson looked forward to the challenge, eagerly whipping the boy for three hours on end.
He denied his henchmen from helping him, Larson wanted to do this all on his own.
At the time he could almost taste victory.
Yet as time went by, reality proved otherwise.
The best reaction he got out of Ziltris were muffled groans, the boy refused him his pleasure even while bathing in his blood.
Unwilling to concede, Larson developed an obsession with Ziltris.
The boy's eyes fueled with defiance and Larson was not having it.
He would crush the boy's spirit and make him submit, no matter how long it took.
Day after day, Ziltris was whipped to the edge of death, but Larson cared too much for his pleasure to have die so easily and so, Ziltris was fed healing potions after been whipped to the extremes while also preventing him from committing suicide.
If his body continuously healed and destroyed, at some point, his mind would break, Larson theorised, and put in even more effort.
Larson could not wait to claim his prize, he could see himself bathing in unimaginable ecstasy.
His henchmen would testify that Larson's whipping skills had risen twice with the amount of effort he put in.
The problem was, Ziltris was already broken.
The loss of his always optimistic friend right before his eyes did more damage than any sort of physical pain ever could.
And in memory of his friend, he was not going to let Larson have his way.
So, each time the pain came to unbearable levels, that memory kept him straight.
Too bad his body was reaching its limits.
He was bloody, hungry and exhausted. It was only a matter of time before his body gave in.
Fortunately, Larson was not around for what Ziltris predicted to be the early parts of the day. He could not actually tell while locked in a place of perpetual darkness.
His bucket of tears had dried up, and the few hours of rest gave him all the time to ruminate in silence and come to terms with how fast his whole life had turned upside down.
Days later, as he predicted, Ziltris' body reached its limits, Larson ecstatic chuckles rang deep as Ziltris screamed in pain.
From there on out, was an experience best left unsaid.
After a certain point, Ziltris stopped counting days and became accustomed to the pain, but still put up pretences because he knew if Larson got bored, he would be killed on a whim, and Ziltris didn't want that.
No, after suffering to such an extent, his only fervent wish was to repay Larson's 'kindness', and while he had no master plan or any of the sort, he had hoped that eventually, an opportunity would arrive.
Funny considering the circumstance, but he held on.
And it did, twice in fact. But Ziltris fell short both of those times, and was thoroughly disciplined for the next few days.
In all this, the one enraged the most was the unwilling host in Ziltris, Ezra.
His prediction had been on point, but that did not matter.
He got to feel inhumane levels of pain day after day after day, without being able to do a thing about it.
After an unknown amount of time, something happened.
Like any other day, he was getting whipped, when a commotion was heard from above.
He had long discovered that he was held underground, but he hadn't identified the route leading out.
The ground shook, tripping Larson.
Fuming, he points to his henchmen. "Go and find out what the commotion is about"
Minutes pass and the henchman fails to return, so he sends the second henchmen, who also did not return.
Changing clothes, Larson walks out of view. Ziltris guessed that he went up.
Right behind it…
*Crash! *
The loud sound of falling metal reverberated.
Then, a man came into view, looking as ordinary as can be, if his clothes weren't soaked in blood that is.
His left hand was choke holding Larson, holding with his feet above ground while permeating a presence that threatened to suffocate Ziltris.
One Ezra recognized immediately.
'Demon worshipper!'
The man stopped right in front of Ziltris, looking him in the right before caressing his jawline.
"My, how unfortunate"
