The Demon Within

Chapter 1 (Prompto)

Imagine this. You have no idea where you are, your mind and voice are at a loss for words. Everything is cold and dreary. Oh, and there's pain too, lots and lots of pain. This is exactly how I felt as I began to slip back into consciousness.

The floor was cold and metal, the spaces in the metal provided me a blurry view of darkness below me. I gasped in horror and sat up way to fast, my head spins and I nearly black out.

"Welcome back subject," the slimy, creepy voice of an older man says. I could feel his vile and vicious sneer make my body go cold, and I shivered. I tried crawling away but I finally became aware of shackles that bound me to the floor. More cold metal I realized and I scooted as far away from the man as the shackles would let me. Unfortunately, it wasn't far enough as the man seemingly slithered towards me.

"No need to be frightened my son, I have only just returned you where you belong," he paused and his sneer got wider.

"Home." My eyes widened as his hand crept towards me, grabbing me by my shirtfront and pulling me to my feet with a strength that should not belong to a man his age. His breath washed over my face with an agonizing scent of decay and rot, nearly bringing tears to my eyes. "Yes, yes, you'll do quite nicely."

"N-nicely for what...?" I dared to ask him. A million thoughts and questions spin around my head like a merry go round. His sneer turned to a look of disgust as he dropped me to the ground harshly. He began pacing back a forth a ways away from me, mumbling too quietly to himself for me to try to understand. I gathered up all my courage to ask him again, " Nicely for what... Verstael?" His name sent another wave of shivers down my spine as he stopped in his tracks and stared at me, perplexed.

"You remember my name," he laughed softly, ignoring my question completely before returning to his pacing and mumbling. I sat there staring at the holes in the metallic flooring. Saying nothing, wanting nothing more than my friends and Promptis, and wondering if they were coming for me. I kept thinking, Noct... he pushed me from the train, he basically gave me to them. NO! There must be another explanation, something, anything at all. I was so distracted by my own thoughts that I didn't hear Verstael stop pacing again. He was staring at me as I was lost in my own head, staring wide eyed at the floor.

"Ardyn, the syringe," I panicked, snapping out of my daze, as Ardyn walked into view out of the darkness.
"Your syringe, oh great dark one," Ardyn replies with his creepy grin, and a bow to match. I fought the restraints, tearing open my own flesh under the cuffs that bound my wrists. Ardyn handed over the syringe to Verstael and he started towards me. The syringe had a nasty looking black substance in it. I was violently shaking my head back and forth, not paying enough attention to how close to me Verstael actually was. The syringe found it's mark in my shoulder. I cried out in pain as whatever was in the syringe infected my body. I cried, but the tears burned. I looked down once again as I cried, and watched as black drops fell from my face and stained the metal beneath me. Whatever was falling from my eyes and infecting me was starting to seem as dark as my future.

And somehow, I yet again welcomed the darkness to overtake me.