Hellfire

Night one

It is hot, very hot. Connor opens his eyes. He is met by the sweltering heat and light of hellfire. The light burns his eyes and the heat makes his skin burn and itch. He wants to scream, but the heavy air is stuck in his throat, almost suffocating him. He gasps for breath as he tries to move, but soon realises his wrists and ankles are bound to something behind him. Whatever is keeping him bound rubs and burns at his skin. Demons, lots of them, everywhere. They all take turns in adding slashes and burns to Connor's arms, legs and chest. This is much more vivid than any hell dream Connor has had in a long time.

And it's all his fault.

When he thinks it can't get any worse, it does. He screws up his eyes and tries to blink away the tears that have formed. They just fall from his face into his wounds and make them sting and throb. Through the darkness he hears a familiar voice cry.

"Connor!?!"

No, no that's not possible.

He opens his eyes and sees Elder Price bound to some kind of rock face, like him. Connor holds back a choked sob upon seeing him.

"K..Kevin?" he stammers. His eyes fall to Kevin's torso; bare, yet unscathed. That is, until the demons come back.

This time, they turn their attention to Kevin, smirking and making sure Connor can see everything.

Connor can no longer screw his eyes shut; something is stopping him. The demons leave slash after slash, burns and cuts all over Kevin's previously perfect, lightly tanned skin. Each time he tried to take the pain with a grimace, but once the demons have finished toying with him, his occasional yelps had turn to screams of agony and died down to terrified whimpers.

Connor watches wide eyed and screams out at the demons to stop. They barely even pay attention to him let alone listen to his broken pleas.

"Connor," A clean-cut voice says in the darkness. Connor hates that damn voice. "We've talked about this." A hand from the shadows gestures to Kevin, who weakly tries to move out of the way. Lucifer emerges from the shadows and dismissed the demons with a slightly too bony hand.

"I thought," he smirks. "We agreed to leave men out of your dreams." He paused. "So. Why. Is. There. Another. One?!" The fallen angel's voice rises to a shout. Connor winces and tried to shy away from the approaching figure. Lucifer pulls out a dagger. "If you don't," he says, his voice returning to normal, edged with scorn. "I will do this." He stabs the dagger straight down into Kevin's chest right where his heart is. Kevin doesn't even get a change to react before the life leaves his eyes. Connor screams.

Connor's scream carried across the room as he jolted awake, breathing harshly. He bit his lip and tried to stop the tears, but they came too fast. He buried his face in his pillow as sobs shook his chest. He hadn't had a hell dream that vivid for a long time. He wanted to scream again, but he knew he'd already woken up everyone. They knew by now to leave him.

This happened every time new missionaries he came. He couldn't help it, he tried, he really did. But this time was so much worse than any time before in Uganda. And that was Elder Price's fault.

He still felt the cuts and bruises bet his arms and legs and he frantically checked over them, finding no unbroken skin. Of course not, psychological wounds hurt just as badly, if not, worse.

'Just go back to sleep. You have to sleep.' His sleep deprived brain laughs at him. He hasn't slept solidly for over 8 years. He has to put up with this, there's a fine line between fatigue and insanity, but it's starting to blur for Connor, and that dream is pushing him closer to the distorted boundary.

'Just go back to sleep. You have to sleep.'

Sleep drags Connor back down to the hell he hates as he passes out, will overcome by fatigue.

He doesn't know how much more of this he can take.