The Darkness Within

43 - Torturous Dreams and Revelations

"We're going to try something different today," Bacia's voice echoed throughout the space, loud and clear, waking Ciara with a jolt.

Devastated, Ciara couldn't help but let out a loud sob. She had thought she got away, that she'd killed Bacia and all the other demons where they had been torturing her. Now, she was once more held down by her heavy cuffs and collar made of thick Nullira, only this time she could tell that they weren't chained to something. There was no real need with how destroyed her body was, how sick and exhausted she was. The freedom had been only a dream, a very real and elaborate dream that truly managed to rip away all remaining hope of hers. She would die here, surely, and at the hands of this horrible demon who took such pleasure in destroying her.

"Oh, did you like that?" Bacia said with a hollow laugh that echoed both in the room and Ciara's head. "Yes, I thought that perhaps giving you dreams of everything you want in life and then ripping it away would make you break. It seems it worked."

There was a dark pressure in the back of Ciara's mind, raging and powerful, but Ciara couldn't hear what it was saying over how deeply Bacia's words echoed in her head.

"Now though, I'm going to play with you a bit more before you answer all my questions, you're just too much fun..." Bacia trailed off, and the clinking of metal could be heard. "You tried to fight me before I brought you here, so you must know how to fight at least a little bit. I wonder, can you still fight?"

Ciara heard Bacia's heavy steps- a testament to the female's build- as she approached. The sound stopped before her, and Ciara couldn't help but start shaking involuntarily, knowing pain came with the demon's close presence.

Biting cold metal was pressed against Ciara's throat: a blade, and a deathly sharp one at that. She gasped slightly, forcing her body to stop shaking or risk her throat being cut resulting in her death. Then, for a moment, she contemplated pushing forward onto the blade, if ending it now would be better than waiting for death to come to her.

Unfortunately, before she could decide one way or the other, the blade was pulled away from her throat, deciding for her. Dozens of steps sounded throughout the space from all different directions, coming closer to her before stopping as well, likely forming a large circle around her. She flinched when she felt her ruined hands being grasped in Bacia's rough ones, and when she tried to pull them away, the demon held on harder, causing pain.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Bacia teased sadistically."If you can fight and live, then you will answer my questions and I'll set you free. Would you like to see mommy dearest again? Or maybe, I could even arrange to have daddy brought home too, it would be just like old times."

How Bacia knew the atrocities her father committed against her but didn't know the answers to her ceaseless questions about Lucienne, Ciara didn't understand. But, she didn't get the time to think about it before the sword that had previously been held against her throat was pressed into her hands. Bacia's steps sounded, carrying her further and further away, and when they stopped, the drawing of blades could be heard from the other demons in the room.

Adrenaline allowed Ciara to lift her body and shackles enough to stand on one leg- the other one too broken to support any weight. In her ruined hands, she barely managed to hold the sword, the action opening just-scabbed over wounds and burns, further making her hold on the blade tedious.

Footsteps closed in around her, heavy and firm on the ground. It was the only way she could tell where her first enemy was approaching from, her human form's hearing much worse than the excellent goddess level hearing she had experienced in those dreams. The ones that had been fake all along, that currently left her with little will to even lift the sword in her hands and fight with it.