Lionhearts ||Skephalo||

42

A/N: Take a moment before reading this chapter please! It contains some very graphic descriptions and you should make sure you're mentally prepared for body horror writing before diving in <3 take care. If you cannot read, ask me and I will summarize for you!

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Bad can't hear anything but his own pounding heartbeat and the rushing of blood as his weight forces the cuffs further into his abused wrists.

He's afraid, so afraid that it feels like all he's ever felt was fear, and by now he's drowning, suffocating in it. Suffocating in the anticipation of pain, in the anticipation of the horrors that he could be forced to endure any second now.

* * *

It follows him into his dreams, where he jerks upright, once more in the garden with the man. Bad's wrists and ankles are shackled, the chains holding him to the ground firmly affixed to the points of a statue that looks serpentine, in a monstrous way. He's forced to sit on the ground, legs splayed awkwardly, unable to stand. He can feel a weight around his neck as well, and squirms a little.

"Your helplessness follows you into the dream plane, Darryl. It's almost funny how saddening this sight is."

The stranger's amusement is like a slap in the face, but Bad finally can't take it any more.

"Can you help me?" His voice is weak even in the dream world, and comes out as fragile whispers, "Can you make it stop?"

The man leans to his level sympathetically. Bad tugs against the chains, whimpering as the cold metal burns his skin.

"You feel it too, don't you?" It's masked as a question, but it's deceptive. "It burns, doesn't it? You're where I was, now. But you can free us both. I will free you if you let me help."

"How can I let you help?" Bad pleads, and the man trails his finger to the thick metal collar that's fastened around Bad's neck; just another mental reminder of the young man's helpless state.

"Swear you won't go back on your word." His words take on the burning, smoke-like quality they had once before, and Bad nods, desperately,

"I swear! I won't go back, I promise, please—"

"Then say it," he murmurs, his words charged with a strange tension as the air grows taut around them, small arcs of electricity beginning to spark. "Request my help."

"Please, help me," Bad rasps, and there's one final grin before the man's form warps into the demonic entity that Bad had begun to see in the shadows; a serpentine creature with horns, tattered wings protruding from its back.

"My name is Halo."

Bad feels his heart skip a beat, and it's as though the forbidden door has been opened, the one he had stood at the brink of so many times.

And now he plunges through the archway with reckless desperation.

Feeling him giving in, the demon purrs, its coils encircling Bad's body and brushing away the chains, "Ask for my help, Darryl. Let me in."

And he did, he had.

He let him in, opened the gateway.

"Help me, Halo," Bad's words become orders, "Get me out of that place."

"You only ever needed to ask," the serpent hisses, and its coils press in, press down, crushing him—

* * *

Bad's eyes open, but he's certain, in some part of his mind, that he didn't do that.

He's breathing, but not of his own volition. Paralyzed, his mind running wild with fear, he watches as a ripple passes through his form, and despite not having control, he can feel it.