Excruciating pain.

The first thing I felt when I came back to my senses was pain pestering my ribs and abdomen from bruises with lingering impacts, wrists burning from the constant tugging of the rough, splintered ropes that bound me to the incommodious bed.

My thighs felt sore, the same kind you'd experience after childbirth, mild, but there. What came after it was the unbearable cold. The kind that makes your hair stand on end and sends electric shocks throughout your body. Especially if you're naked. And a victim of a dangerous serial killer.

I shivered as another swift breeze swept the abhorrent smell of blood away from the room, penetrating through the incompletely broken window above my head from where the ivory, crescent moonlight peaked fretfully.

I slowly raised my head to take a look at my surroundings, but the sharp streak of pain that travelled to the peak of my head and stung my nose forced me to rest it back on the rock-hard pillow. I heard a muffled noise from beside me and I twisted my shamefully naked self out of curiosity. A blindfolded man with a lean figure and disheveled hair, faced the wall with his hands tied behind his back and a rag in his mouth.

I returned back to my position once again, from the pressure of my bleeding body. My wrists burned as the rough ropes tugged at my wrists. Wretchedly. "Who are you?" I asked, stupidly. How could he reply with a stuffed mouth?

He made an animalistic noise and fell to his back with a thud. I lifted myself up despite the wounds struggling to haul me back. "Charles?" I gasped. A hiss fleeing from my lips as I laid back down.

"Hello..." Dragged an awfully familiar voice. A little bit raspy, but faintly recognizable. A man with a black hood and a strong, muscled figure emerged from the outside, he walked very stealthily into the room, smelling heavily of diesel and perfume. "Who are you?" I asked softly. My lips were starting to tremble as he spoke. If it was him. I wouldn't be able to control myself.

It would be impossible to.

"Been a very, very long time. Hasn't it?" He smirked, his face hidden by an onyx hood draping over his head, his brooding figure intimidating the shadows of the room. If his voice was any clearer, I wouldn't have a doubt, but the difficulty he showed in speaking was prominent too. Was he acting? Or was his voice really this terrible?

"You know? It took me a lot of effort to fix myself, " he paced around the room, enabling his intoxicating smell to waft around the room. A stray tear trickled down my face and my heart began to sink.

What were all those years for? How had he duped me? How had he duped his own people? How was he still here?

"Your friends will be arriving in about," he glanced at his watch, "Fifty minutes."

"If that's the case, why don't you show it? Wouldn't you wanna flaunt your art, my king?" I retorted, trying to sound as witty as possible. Could he perchance be him? My thoughts were procellous. My fear was lapping thunderously onto me like waves caught in a storm.

"Clever as always, huh?" He chuckled, "However, you've gotten a little sloppy," He tilted his head slightly as I felt his gaze scrutinizing my bare form. I felt disgusted. My nose scrunched unconsciously as he hummed seductively. Or maybe I thought it was. Like in the old days.

Beside me, Charles shifted awkwardly, but the man's never faltering gaze remained steady for an uncomfortable amount of time. 

"Sure, why not? After all, you were my first."

He slipped a gloved hand under his hood and threw it back revealing a inappreciably handsome face, completely unrecognizable, with traces of stitches and burns near his neck and forehead. I tried memorizing his face to my highest endeavor. From the frown line that nestled between his arched eyebrows, to the laugh lines at the beginning of his lips that remained the same, charred in my memories.

"Don't be so ignorant. You know who I am," he frowned, a hint of glee and satisfaction still prominent in his eyes, mocking my vulnerable self. His cheerfulness made me feel like an idiot. A gullible fool. "Or have you still not figured it out?"

"I know who you are, Cameron."

"Oh really?"

"I'll know you no matter what shape you're in, or what face you have." I spat in anger, the effect not coming out the way I wished it would. I sounded desperate, forlorn and betrayed. "Your voice was a dead giveaway," I laughed bitterly, but the intensity of the knot now developing in my throat made me choke.

He clicked his tongue in disappointment then chuckled, edging closer, leaning in to kiss me with the rosy lips I once thought could pull me together and fight away any pain that engrossed me. The same lips that must've been the cause of all incentive and cajoling of those victims. The ones that fascinated me before, were enough to drive me insane now. 

I faced away from him, denying any chance of even touching my face an automatically groaning at the body aches that reminded me how much of a vulnerable shape I was in.

Charles grunted beside me, muttering against the dirty cloth that upholstered his ruby smeared mouth.

Cameron sighed and thrust him up, pushing and shoving Charles to the other side of a room where he plunged a metallic dressing to reveal an opening in the wall.

He kicked Charles in the shin and forced him to kneel before booting him into the hole. Cameron disappeared inside, his face still glinting with pleasure. I heard heavy thumps from the other side of the room as I imagined a dominating fist in air, beating the shit out of his victim.

Aggressive, muffled screams reverberated as I gasped with every hit that made contact with a probably broken rib.

My face was steaming with hurt and shame but my body was paralyzed because of the exposure to the supple, wintry air.

Cameron returned from his torturous adventure as police sirens, although barely audible, made their presence from nearby. "Of course this isn't a movie... So I'm not going to go on about my motives and give a boringly dramatic speech about my next moves or why I'm doing what I'm doing. You're smart. You'll figure it out."

He removed a pack of sanitizing wipes from his black backpack that rested hidden in the shadows behind the argent dressing table. "Eleven minutes," he smiled sickeningly, wiping traces from all the surfaces he touched. Throwing them back into his bag and slung it over his shoulders, putting his bandana mask up and sagging his hoodie back down. "To be honest, I was the one who set up everything for you. You came to me because I made the trap that way. Pretty smart huh?"

He picked up an unmistakable card and teared it in half before revealing another green object, smashing it's top to place it's bottom half on the table. "Learnt from the best," another adorably toothy smile accompanied by a dimple I would've swooned for years ago.

I tried speaking up but the lack of strength in my mind and body prevented me from doing so. My body was shivering at this point, and only now did I smell a certain scent from it. "What?" I whispered, "What did you do?" I gasped as the cold became unbearable.

"Dr. Gray may enlighten you," he turned to me, plucking shards of glass stuck to his winter gloves. "Why are you doing this?" I questioned, wanting to go on and call him out despite the snot and tears that bedewed my face and probably made me appear hideous. I wanted to test his name on my tongue once more, but would he listen?

"That's for me to keep," he shrugged, "I'm giving you another chance, mama bear. Find me on your own this time, I'm not done with you yet." He whispered, "If you let anybody know, I'm gonna be very very mad!" He sang in delight, although there was a threat that altered his pleasing tone.

I tried to form more words, make use of the consciousness I had left as I felt my eyes droop lazily, my nose stung even harder as uncontrollable tears flooded down my face. What had he done? "You have a week," he said, "Time's ticking my love."

A sneeze echoed outside of this torture chamber as Cameron swung my necklace in the air to showcase it. He let it drop from his hand grumbled feebly as he crushed it with his foot. I looked at his greyish, steely eyes once more. Hoping. Hoping this was all a dream. The physical pain I was suffering was a fantasy.

But it wasn't.

This was real.

Too real.

For a moment I felt his eyes flash with guilt. However, it was only a moment, one I most probably imagined.