evermore || sebastian sallow

chapter 53 - excruciation

chapter 53 - excruciation

Sebastian Sallow

Floorboards creaked under his frail body as he attempted to pull up his weight off the blood-stained floor. His body ached from the many hours he was sprawled on his side while unconscious. It smelled of musk and wet rotting wood, a cellar made from the screams of the innocent.

Sebastian Sallow was enclosed in a square room, metal bars separating him from the rest of the world and whatever else was up the stairs to his right. His mouth was so dry, it hurt to swallow.

"Y/n," he called weakly. His first words since waking up in the cellar. He didn't even know where he was.

She was all he wanted at the moment, and saying her name, even against his dry lips, tasted sweeter than any drop of water.

But she wasn't here, only looming darkness illuminated with the thinnest stream of moonlight from the narrow window on the wall above his head.

His suit jacket was gone, leaving him only in a torn white button-up shirt. Despite the late spring air that might as well be summer, the cellar was so dark and damp that it chilled him to the bones. 

Sebastian winced when he put a hand to his abdomen, finding blood on his palms.

What the hell happened? He wondered mentally.

But slowly, the events made their way back to his head.

Keeping a hand on his bleeding side, he put his head against the cold, rough wall and watched the ceiling as he recalled the events from the past hours, which he lost count of.

Sebastian didn't care about his own safety that night. He only cared that Y/n would get out of there safely before they could take her. If they even took her. But he couldn't even protect her before he was dragged out of that forest and was apparated away.

He remembered Marvolo's menacing face and how four other dark wizards outnumbered him. He never even had a chance to scream for Y/n to run before he was silenced.

It was a bit of a journey getting him into this hellish cellar, but his memory was hazy. They'd knocked him out for the whole journey. The only thing he truly remembered was when he got dragged away down dark corridors and spiral stairs, which led to where he was now. 

There had also been a voice up those stairs before he was dragged away...

"This is him?" the old man asked, to which a dark wizard nodded in answer. "A Half-Blood...?"

The old man's wand flashed a violent red, knocking Sebastian out on his feet. He lost consciousness halfway down the stairs they dragged him under.

After that, he awoke a few times in the cellar...

Sebastian had never seen that man before, but there was something about his features that were somewhat familiar.

He shook his head. He didn't have a lot of energy to think about it.

Within those hours of Sebastian teetering between reality and unconsciousness, the old man and a few other shapes he couldn't make out would torture him.

Where he now sat in a heap of dried blood in a dusty yet damp underground cellar, he remembered the searing pain running through his body as if someone had poured liquid fire down his body, only it was just a spell.