The Last Of Us: Reborn

Chapter 16

Sydney sat in the darkness of the corner of her cell, her mind racing in fear, the fear that came with knowing what was coming next although, as minutes slowly turned into hours, Sydney was beginning to think that maybe he wouldn't come, maybe, just maybe, it had all just been an intimidation method while Tommy tried to get her to tell him something that she truthfully didn't know. Sydney was suddenly pulled out of her thoughts when she saw the door to get to the room her cell has in opening, the light casting a shadow on a silhouette which instantly made her recoil in fear, stood before her was the man she had wished wouldn't come, and he'd brought some new tools with him to let him tear apart what little recovery she had made in the few days they had been mercifully separated,

"Hello pet, did you miss me?" he asked with a smirk before he pushed the door shut and walked towards the cowering girl,

"No, no get the fuck away from me!" she shouted in fear, her mind racing with thoughts on possibilities to escape the inevitable, each more absurd than the last,

"Now that's no way to greet your master now, is it pet?" Mike asked with a sadistic grin,

"No, you're not my master, you're just some sick fuck," Sydney whimpered in fear, trying to back up further into the corner,

"Hey, you're lucky Sydney, after everything you've done, every time you've acted out and yet I still haven't followed through on my promise to place one right between your eyes, or do I need to pull some strings and find you a fun new position answering to me alone? What do you think to that idea, slave? Or are you going to behave a bit and we can keep it with pet?" he asked, inspecting his range of tools and picking out a leather collar with a metal device fitted to the front,

"No, please, I'll behave, just no worse, please, I can't take it as it is," she quickly responded with a whimper of fear,

"Alright then pet, I'll give you another chance, don't give me a reason to take it away," he said with a smirk on his face as he slightly opened the door to Sydney's cage before walking through and shutting it behind him, Sydney still sat in the darkened corner in fear, "Relax pet, I won't do anything too harsh unless you give me a reason to," Mike stated bluntly as he kneeled down next to the girl who was trying, and failing, to mask her pure fear,

"W-what is that?" she stuttered in fear as Mike opened the collar,

"A replacement for your chain, now hold still or I'll have to have some fun," he instructed her as he wrapped the collar around her neck, the cold, metal device pressing against the front. Almost as soon as the new collar was fitted, Mike backed up slightly and reached into his pocket before pulling out a small remote, a fraction of a second after clicking the button, Sydney lost all control over her body as it came to rest against the corner while she screamed out in pain as 4500 volts agonizingly coursed its way through her body, "Good, it works, I hope this gives you a fair reason to stay in line, now do you want another test run with this pet?",

"No, not again, please," Sydney whimpered in fear, finally having regained control over her movement,

"Who are you talking to? You know how you're supposed to talk to me pet," Mike groaned, his finger circling the button for Sydney's collar,

"I'm sorry Master, I'm sorry for every time I've fucked up, just please, don't shock me, I won't step out of line again," the terrified girl whimpered in pain,

"There you go, you're finally learning how you're supposed to behave," her aggressor responded with a broad smirk across his face while inspecting the scarring across Sydney's neck, "Now then, that brings us onto the next thing on the agenda." He reached into the stack of tools he had brought with him and pulled out a switchblade, which he pressed against the side of her neck with the Hunter symbol carved in it, "Now this will hurt, a lot, but try not to make too much noise, I want to be able to concentrate on this," he mumbled under his breath before sinking the blade in to the side of his captives neck, resulting in a scream, "What did I just say?" He asked mockingly before he dragged the knife across the symbol scar and yanking the blade out before going to the opposite side of the symbol and forcing the blade in deep again, Sydney gasping for shallow breaths between her cries of pain, until Mike yanked his knife out of Sydney's neck again and inspected the cross he had scarred across the Hunter symbol on the helpless girls neck,

"Why? Why are you doing this to me?" she whimpered in pain as blood gushed out of her new wound and down her neck at a more than alarming rate and drenching her t-shirt,

"You're master is doing this to you to show that you may have been an enemy before but now you're his pet," Mike stated, putting extra emphasis on his self-appointed title, "Plus it will give you a reminder that there's no going back to your old home, your my property and nothing other than that matters about you anymore unless there should come a time when a select part does, like this information that Tommy wanted out of you, other than that, you're past means nothing anymore, the people you left behind, nothing, You dating Tommy's daughter, nothing, all that matters for you now is that you remember you're place, you're my pet and nothing else, and that everyone around you is above you, even Tommy's girl after running off and hooking up with you is better than you."

"He's really not letting up on you is he," Sydney heard a voice identical to her own say, yet she didn't say a word. She looked to where the voice had come from and found a figure who she had come to terms with not being real with the help of Lex, the illusion of the other her,

"Pet, Sydney, look at me when I'm talking to you," Mike growled in anger having noticed Sydney space out although, after receiving no response from the girl who was fixed upon what wasn't real, he reached for his remote and pushed the button on his new favourite toy, violently tearing the helpless girl clean out of her thoughts as she fell to the floor, having lost all control over her body from the shock that comes with 4500 volts again.

5 long hours passed of Mike torturing Sydney with her new collar as well as other tools that he had brought with him until, in the small hours of the new day, he had finally had enough and warned her how, if she were to attempt to remove the collar, it would only continuously shock her until he disarmed it as opposed to one short but effective surge of electricity. Sydney looked towards the only door that led in to the room her cell was in with fear in her eyes as she noticed it slowly start to open, thinking that Mike had come back for more, but was met with a more than welcome sight,

"Lex, thank you, thank you for coming to see me," Sydney struggled to say with her voice course from having taken multiple more shocks right on top of her throat,

"Jesus Christ, what the fuck happened to you?" Lexi asked in shock from seeing the state Sydney was in, she had listened to Tommy saying how Mike would do nothing to major to her, promising her that Sydney would be fine and it would be nothing major done to her, and yet here she was, her neck covered in blood, her body weak, her voice unusable. Tommy had lied to her, and she promised herself that she would be sure to not let that go the next time she even comes to trusting him again,

"It's okay, it's not your fault, just had 'master' trying to put me in check," Sydney responded as best she could, although her voice clearly showing the fear built up in her when she called Mike 'master',

"Master? Mike, I'll kill that son of a bitch before he knows what's happening to him," Lexi quickly responded, her voice clearly displaying the rage of a thousand suns,

"Lex, listen to me, don't touch him, he's the only person who can disarm this fucker," Sydney whimpered as she pointed to the shocker on her new collar, "Just, can we please just forget about this, treat it like it doesn't even matter since there's no way either of us can stop it, and just stay together instead of darting of to make things worse without realising." Hearing those faint words from her lover hurt Lex, but deep down she knew it was true, she had no power to get him to stop over than through force, and if she were to unleash her built up hatred for Mike upon him then what was to say he wouldn't only treat Sydney worse as compensation? Nothing,

"Alright, I'm sorry, it's because of me we're here," she sighed, blaming herself for Sydney's suffering, knowing that if she had of died during the raid then Sydney wouldn't be locked up here being treated worse than an animal,

"Don't act like this is you're fault Lex, If I had listened to you when you didn't want to leave the village then we would have never bone on the mountain pass in the first place, it's my fault not yours so don't blame yourself for my fuck up," Sydney struggled to mumble in an attempt to comfort Lex,

"Look, how about you just get some rest you've clearly taken quiet the beating," Lex reasoned as she pulled on the door to her lover's cell but could tell she as to weak to move, forcing them to deny this opportunity to escape for Lex to simply lay by Sydney's side instead. The two lay next to each other, talking about nothing in particular until Sydney eventually reached the point where she couldn't stay awake any longer and she fell asleep, falling onto Lex's lap, with Lexi not lasting much longer until she went too, being held in position by the sleeping form on top of her.