You Can't Hide Forever

His Butler, Escaping (part 1)

~~Third Person POV~~

Lau sat on a ship and smoked from a pipe with Ran-Mao cuddled up to him as he had an arm around her. The moon was high and it was dark out as they sat in a candle lit room.

"'One night, Zhuang Zhou dreamt he was a butterfly", he said to no one in particular. "He was a happily fluttering butterfly. It was so much fun. He could fly wherever he wanted. And he had no thought of being Zhou. But suddenly he woke up, and was startled to find that he was now Zhou. He couldn't decide: Was he Zhou who'd just dreamt he was a butterfly... or a butterfly now dreaming he was Zhou? Between being Zhou and a butterfly, surely there must be some distinction... This is what we call the transformation of things.'"

Ran-Mao looked up at him as he laughed almost self mockingly.

"I know, I'm simply too-too", he said and placed a hand on her head as she resumed her cuddling.

~~Sebastian's POV~~

My shirt was ripped to reveal my chest by a cheeky looking man.

"He's lovely!", he exclaimed. Arthur was watching a little ways off.

"If you're going to confess, you'd best do it soon, Sebastian", he said. I only smiled while I kept my head down.

"Very well, then, I confess: I was responsible for the outbreak of the Black Death in Europe", I said.

"What?", Arthur asked.

"As I recall, it was during the reign of Edward III", I continued. My arms where chained up by my wrists.

"Don't try to make fools of us!", Arthur said. "That was a full five hundred years ago!" He directed his attention towards the other man. "Give him as much pain as you like! I have to go check on the girl."

"Yessir", he replied as Arthur left. He placed an ax on a table of tools. "Oh, good. If you'd confessed, I would've missed out on my fun!" He walked towards me and reached towards my face, but never touched it. "Oh, those eyes! Should I pierce them, or cut them out? Or I could burn them!" He wiped drool from his chin as I just blankly stared at him. "No, no, I'll save the best part for last." He lifted a tool. "First, let's hear a nice scream from you, you pretty thing." He came closer.

~~Claire's POV~~

I was chained to a wall by my wrists. The skirt of my dress had been cut so it just barely covered what it should and the sleeves had been cut to my shoulders. I was already trembling slightly, being chained and all, when Sir Arthur walked in followed by another man. He was shorter than Arthur, but taller than me and bald. He seemed to be missing a few teeth as well.

"Would you like to confess?", Arthur asked me. I shook my head in a negative response. I hadn't done anything wrong. None of us had. At least, we hadn't done what they were accusing us of. "Tch. Very well, then." He turned his attention towards the man. "See to it she screams her confession due to pain." The man nodded a little more enthusiastically than he probably should've, giving me a bad feeling as Arthur left.

"Of course!", he said. Once Arthur was gone, he turned towards his table of tools and gripped the handles of different tools until he grabbed the handle of a whip. I unintentionally tensed, causing the chains to move and scrape against the wall. The man looked up and smirked before laughing maniacally. "I see miss princess has a fear of whips! Let's give that a try first, then, shall we?!"

He stood a few feet in front of me as I trembled and began to hit me repeatedly with the whip. I clenched my jaw and tightened my hands into fists as gash after gash was opened. The fact that I was silent seemed to anger the man. His hits from the whip became more frequent and more powerful, sometimes hitting already existing gashes and making them deeper, until I eventually couldn't take it anymore and screamed out in pain.