Surviving the Dark ( LGBT - MxM )

Chapter 3

5 Years later ...

'With higher intelligence comes the ability to commit increasingly worse crimes; crimes so bad that the horror of these known terrors sometimes exceeds the terrors of the unknown.' 

Shadow wreathed the ruins of a civilization long past, the dimming light revealing the landscape in all its dull glory. Burnt husks of once impressive architecture, the fallen monuments once filled with arrogant loud voices and bustling activity, now choked with broken stone and straggling weeds, one of the only types of growth that still flourished in this broken world. The final remains of a people who had lived under a false illusion of greatness. Their memories of wood, metal and stone, made to survive the flowing waters of time now lay crumbled, a land of Ozymandias. The warped structures a reminder of their twisted minds; minds which led to their own fall as they warped the world around them into a horrible caricature of their inner selves. 

Tarden watched the dim light fade into darkness as he sat at the entrance of one of the ancient pildins that was still in fair shape. The rustle of small poisonous creatures that roamed the dark was now beginning to be heard, which meant that it was time to go inside. As he reluctantly heaved his protesting body up, he caught sight of a korpi nearby and hurriedly retreated to the dubious sanctuary of the pildin behind him. Korpis were extremely dangerous, with their slimy acidic black skin and the stinger tail which could kill a monster in just one fell sweep. To top it all off, they stood almost to his knees on their six spiny legs; while their bodies were longer than he was tall. Nasty creatures both dangerous and disgusting, just like the being that owned him. 

The thought of the creature seemed to have called him, for as Tarden barricaded the entrance against the night with carefully placed stones, he felt a presence behind him. Before he could turn or slip away, a hand clamped over his small head, making him as if his skull was being crushed. He was lifted struggling until he was facing an ugly large-boned face covered in dirt and hair. The scars and pustules oozing yellowish fluid which dotted the being's skin did not help Tarden in holding back his disgust and fear. 

This terrible creature was his owner Sartor, a full adult of his own race, the first that he had met. Though 'met' was not really the correct term, 'captured and tortured' was more like it. When he had been injured by his first monster kill five years ago, he had lost consciousness and fallen straight into the hands of this cruel being who had been stalking the monster, mainly to slake his bloodlust with a kill. A monster beyond the monsters who realizing that Tarden was an abandoned newborn enslaved him to wreak his violence. A target who would not be able to fight back while Sartor relieved his bloodlust. 

Tarden was kept alive with just the minimum amount of meat he required to survive, even though he was the one who hunted it. This was not done out of even an ounce of kindness, but so that Sartor would have someone to do all his work like hunting and scavenging and also because it gave him a ready object to take out wreak havoc on. Throughout the years Tarden steadily gained scars from his bad treatment, from kicking and beatings, to more creative torture such as hanging him up upside down while he bled from a hundred small cuts made with broken stone or metal, korpi acid rubbed into his skin as he screamed, his nerves raw or like the time Sartor wanted to see how far he could go without killing him. He had broken Tarden's legs then set them once his screams died, just to make him scream again, in addition he peeled some of the skin on off his arms, an extremely painful process though it did not affect him as permanently as the other things he did that day, things like stabbing him through the chest, shoulders and thighs with sharp thin metal pieces. He never knew how he managed to survive that, or how Sartor managed to avoid vital organs, but he did, and lived only to suffer even more.