Stockholm Syndrome

Thoughts

I was taken a long time ago now. I don't think in years. I think in pain. Pain has become my world. It's what I breathe. It's what I inflict. I try to love Ian but I want to give him pain. That hurts me. You see, more pain? An endless cycle of torture. That's my life. Well...it wasn't always like that. I remember eyes.
Lavender eyes. Rose eyes.
I had a sister called Rose. Her eyes were a faint pink because she was partially blind. My mother wore make-up that made her eyes lavender. I don't remember my father's eyes. I had a brother. He had brown eyes. Chocolate eyes. We were taken together. Master told me through my screams that our father did a bad thing. They killed Rose. I saw her rose eyes become rosy blood.
And that was only the beginning. The beginning of the pain.
***
I fought the urge not to throw up, gagging and covering my mouth with the sleeve of my lab coat. The stench of rotting corpses was all around me. Bodies hung from chains and ropes, some just left on the floor. Different people of all kinds of size and statures. They looked as though someone had just chucked them in and slammed the door shut. I tried to ignore my convulsing stomach and hunkered down beside a body. It had been there some time. The skin on the face was peeling away, revealing the chipped bone beneath. I trailed my gaze down the corpse. It looked like it had been hacked to pieces. Flesh hung off it in chunks; its wide staring eyes were glazed and had faded with the look of terror in them. I took a deep breath and tore the clothing off its top half, looking for more evidence to describe its death. My gaze went to its shoulder. My stomach iced over. A word and 3 numbers were carved into the rotting flesh, dyed a bloody crimson. I'd seen a tattoo like them before. But this one didn't read 304. This one read, SUBJECT 290.
***
The feeling wraps around my brain, cutting off all logical thoughts or feelings. This feeling. This want. I felt it when I look at Derp. Is this how he feels? Is this the animalistic lust he feels whenever he looks at me? I sit up and hold my head with my hand, head spinning. "Ian?" "I-I- H-hold on." I get off the bed and stagger to the wall, my stomach feeling sick. What is this? Derp is staring at me. I shut my eyes, heart pounding in my throat. Am I going insane? I suddenly feel hot breath on my neck. "I see it in your sky eyes...the feeling I feel." I shiver as his hand runs up my back, his lips moving to my neck. "Feels good doesn't it? I knew it would only be a matter of time before the darkness took you too." "N-no-" I back away, my body shaking. He tilts his head to one side. His eyes are still blue, but they're burning with an icy intensity I haven't seen before. "Why do you still resist?" I blink.

He's right...why do I still cling to who I think I am? Is there some hidden way to reassure myself in pretending I'm still the same guy who walked into this godforsaken place all that time ago? What if I never do get out of here? What's the point of me trying to remember who I was if-...no. Who I am. I let him step closer to me and feel him take my hands in his. "I gave up a long time ago Ian. It means you feel less pain." He rests his forehead against mine. "I don't want you to feel pain anymore." He cups my face in his hands. "Do you?" I look up at him. "The pain is the only way I know I can still feel." I close my eyes as his lips meet mine, his hands slipping from my face to my waist. He pulls away a little, murmuring against my mouth. "Can I give you something else to feel? To feel love instead of pain...because I know what love is now because of you." I open my eyes a little, meeting his icy ones. "Oh?..." He kisses my nose. "I want to show you~-"
***
I run back along the dark corridors, panting hard. Need to find Rose need to find Rose. I skid into view of a brazier. Finally. Light. I turn left and head to where I think her room is. "Going somewhere Maximus?" A hand grabs the back of my lab coat collar and I'm pulled back, gasping for my stolen breath. My palpitating heart thumps in my ears as Randel grabs my arm with his iron grip. "N-no sir-" "Oh I think you were." His voice is cold and sneering. I struggle. Rose has to know the truth! I manage to tear his grip off me and start running again. Then he's back on me, arm round my neck, cutting off my oxygen. "So, did a little snooping around did you? What did you find, hmm?" He hisses in my ear. I flinch away from him. "I see from the blood on your lab coat that it wasn't what you thought it would be. Scared you, didn't it? To know that he wasn't the first." My stomach clenches as my lungs fight for air. "Where were you going, hmm? To tell Rose? What good would that do? It would certainly score you higher points on her love list though wouldn't it?" I struggle, vision flickering.

"Or to tell Ian maybe? Rose has been through my drawers in my office you know. She was always too soft on my subjects. Looking for the blueprints I'll bet. But Ian will never escape here. None of you will. This is my prison, I am warden here. And a warden never lets his guard down. I know that Ian hasn't been in his cell for weeks now. That Subject broke into the kitchen for him. That idiot has developed what some may call love for that pathetic experimental failure. There's nothing appealing in him. He is a broken being. Because that's what I made him. I don't regret it. He was a learning curb, that's all. Now I know what I must do. Why try to clone the real thing when I have the actual article right in my grasp? If only I hadn't wasted my time with all those other variations of him, I might be further ahead in my quest for revenge." I frown, my oxygen-deprived brain taking in what he had just said. "R-revenge-?" I'm shoved down onto the ground, Randel standing above me, black eyes narrowed behind his grimy glasses. "Yes Max. Revenge. Revenge upon my rival." He leans closer to my face, close enough to allow me to see the madness in the slivers of stained white in his merciless eyes. "The father of Subject 304. And on my brother." He's so close now. I can smell the metal on his breath. "In this case, all I have left is his nephew." My heart pounds in my head as he grins, baring his browning teeth, stained by the countless coffees he'd drunk, fighting to keep his demons awake whilst trailing his bloody equipment over Derp's beaten body. I watch his mouth form the last syllables to his sentence. My nephew. Ian Stapleton."
***
I looked to the corner of my room. It was pitch black. Deathly silent. I was fearful. Fearful of the things in my mind. What my mind was capable of conjuring up in my moments of doubt and insecurity. The voices in that mind of mine. That though I am alone I feel as though I am not. That there is another presence in there with me. I close my eyes. Suddenly something grabs me from behind. I hear a screeching laugh. The clank of chains. The stench of metal and blood. I scream.
***
"I want to show you~-" Derp got cut off as a sudden scream spiralled through the labyrinth. Our now equally wide eyes met. Rose.

(A/N: *claps and rubs hands together* IT'S TIME TO KICKSTART THE DRUMMER! *laughs*)