Rogues

Episode 23 | Break with pain

⚠TW: Violence and torture. Mentions of rape. If you are not comfortable with any of this, please skip to the next chapter⚠

Prince came to again knelt on the cold stone floor of the warehouse. It took him a moment to become fully aware of his surroundings and he shuddered when he felt the tug of the shackles he wore against his wrists, a thick metal chain connecting them to the wall behind him.

He shivered at the frigid breeze against his bare skin, suddenly noticing that he'd been stripped of his clothes. The thought instantly terrified him, memories of Sprite explaining what Santos and his witches had done to them invading his mind.

"Good morning, ghoul. Maybe you'll be a little more cooperative now that we've let you rest for a while."

Prince growled, recognizing the silky voice instantly. He glared up at the self-proclaimed Papa as he approached, his scarlet robes dragging slightly along the floor. Prince shook away the dreariness he could still feel from the anesthetic, grinning up at the smug man. "I'm hurt, Santos. I would have hoped you had more faith in my endurance than that." He joked.

The two black witches snickered from the back of the room and Prince saw Santos glare at them slightly before swiftly turning his attention back to the restrained ghoul. "You clearly haven't noticed yet but there's a thin collar around your neck. Not a slave collar, unfortunately, but a collar none the less."

Prince snarled, suddenly registering the warm restrictiveness of the sliver of plastic around his throat. It was tight against his skin and he wasn't sure how he'd managed not to notice it until then, since it slightly interferered with his ability to breath.

Prince growled, trying to ghost away or slip into the shadow realm but wincing when an intense throbbing in his head stopped him. He breathed slowly, forced out of his half-ghosted state.

Santos chuckled, earning him a low growl from the panting shadow ghoul. "We realized the first time you came here to get your seer friend that our wards couldn't hold you. But the shadow ghouls' frequency seems to be keeping your ghosting ability at bay just fine."

"Kill your self." Prince panted out, still trying to regain the strength he'd lost while trying to escape.

Elise, the blonde witch, pasted a large machine to Santos. It was an off-white colour with a few switches and buttons on the front. A long scale of numbers ran along the top. They seemed to be a measurement of how much power would be supplied to the machine, depending on which number it was set to.

Santos placed it on the ground a few paces away from Prince, far enough out of the ghoul's reach, and turned back to face him. "Where's the seer you stole from us?"

Prince growled. "You're the ones who took them from us."

Santos nodded, setting the machine to a certain number and flipping the switch to turn it on.

A rush of electrical energy flowed out of the collar on Prince neck and he screached in pain as it worked through him. Every nerve in his body was set alight and he shook violently, continuing to scream as more and more of the horrid shocks were sent from the thin ring of plastic. The pain was unbearable and he felt tears pricking at his eyes already.

After a few seconds more of the horrific pain, Santos switched the machine off and Prince practically collapsed from the strain, hanging slightly up from the floor because of the shackles. He whimpered quietly, still feeling the aftershocks of the electrical pulsing over his skin. His hair stuck to his forehead from the sweat and shivers racked his aching body.