[color=lightgray] [h1][color=red] TRIGGER WARNING: DARK IMPLICATIONS, TORTURE, SA IMPLICATIONS[/color][/h1] [center][h1][color=#8D3B72]Kalliope's Kidnapping[/color][/h1] [img]https://i.ibb.co/G4r9DQf9/Screenshot-2026-02-04-183323.png[/img][/center] [center][h1][color=#8D3B72]Part 2[/color][/h1][/center] [color=#8D3B72]Time:[/color] 3am-10am, Ignis 3 [color=#8D3B72]Location:[/color] ???? [hr] [i] It was never just one thing.[/i] Mind Flayer. The Dagger. The Flame. Healed. Infernal Needles. Peel her nails. Break her fingers. Healed—just enough to begin again. The collar’s lesson, repeated until her muscles stopped arguing. Another spell. Another correction. Another hour that refused to end. And Marek had watched it all. Marek’s attention was worse than either of Yuka or Felix: quiet, unblinking, almost tender in its patience. He stood there as though the stone had built itself around him. He only remained for an hour or two, but it had seemed like forever to Kalliope, the strange force of a man standing before her and simply smiling, barely blinking as he observed her pain with an almost perverse enjoyment. Even Felix and Yuka left before he did. It was never clear who did the spells to her, but Felix and Yuka had taken their time in their trained methods of physical torment. Just when her mind started to reach for numbness, it would change. Not to give her mercy, but to deny her the comfort of rhythm. But morning came and it came to an end. By seven, it stopped so abruptly it made her nerves reach for it like an addiction. Men replaced the night with watchful silence, faces she didn’t recognize. Time moved in slow increments until the familiar footsteps returned. Around ten, the door opened again. Yuka stepped in first, immaculate as ever, her smile soft enough to pass for kindness. [color=#ff66cc]“Good morning, Kalliope!”[/color] And behind them—someone else followed but remained in the shadows. Kalliope stayed utterly still, frozen by something deeper than fear. Her head drooped, sweat-soaked hair plastered to her cheeks, hiding the wreckage of her face. She floated in that thin, colorless fog between blacking out and breaking apart. The missing bite of needles and fire pressed down on her, a suffocating hush that screamed in her skull. Yuka’s voice sliced through the murk, but it didn’t stir any fight—just made her fingers jerk under the bandages, haunted by the ghost-pain of torn nails. She kept her gaze down. Every muscle in her body felt like a snapped wire, still twitching with the aftershocks of all the 'corrections' that had rewired her nerves since before dawn. [color=#8D3B72]"Morning,"[/color] Kalliope rasped, the word barely a ghost of a sound, scraped raw by the screaming she’d sworn she wouldn't do and the collar that had punished her for it anyway. With a slow, grinding effort, she forced her chin up. Her eyes, once bright green, were now rimmed red and hollow, the color drowned out by exhaustion and something colder. She flicked a glance at Yuka, then let her gaze slip sideways to the shadow in the doorway, breath catching in sharp, uneven bursts. Who had they brought to her now? She was splintering, the edges of her soul curling in on themselves like scorched parchment, but at the center, something black and furious still burned. [color=#8D3B72]"You're... late,"[/color] she rasped, lips split and sticky with blood, twisting into a shadow of a smirk. [color=#8D3B72]"Thought we were having...such a good time."[/color] Yuka’s smile didn’t move an inch at the sound of Kalliope’s voice. If anything, it warmed. [color=#ff66cc]“Aww. Look at you.”[/color] She drifted closer, her gaze lingering on the collar, the wet strands stuck to Kalliope’s skin as though she were admiring a piece of art that had survived the fire. She trailed a finger along her jaw with an amused giggle. [color=#ff66cc]“Still so pretty.”[/color] Felix took a step in behind her, hands loosely at his sides. He looked Kalliope over without ceremony. [color=#dda0dd]“You’ve seen better days,”[/color] he observed mildly. Then he smiled, satisfied. [color=#dda0dd]“But then again, I’ve heard you’ve always been hard to… persuade.”[/color] Felix’s gaze slid past Kalliope toward the doorway. Toward the place the shadows were still too thick. [color=#dda0dd]“If you couldn’t tell,”[/color] Felix said softly, [color=#dda0dd]“we know quite a lot about you. We were told… well. Everything.”[/color] The silence that followed wasn’t empty. A breath moved in the dark and then the figure in the doorway finally stepped forward, as if he’d been waiting for the words to make room for him. The candlelight caught the shape of a smile first. Not friendly. Not even cruel. Hafiz emerged from the shadow, his eyes bright as if he had just won a great victory. [color=#dda0dd]“Here’s how this works,”[/color] he continued, voice still conversational. [color=#dda0dd]“You’re going to work for us. You’re going to report to us. And you’re going to do what we say.”[/color] Yuka leaned in, hands clasped behind her back, smile widening like she’d been waiting for her favorite part. [color=#dda0dd]“If you refuse,”[/color] he said, [color=#dda0dd]“then everything we know gets leaked.”[/color] His gaze flicked, briefly, to Kalliope’s mouth, as if acknowledging the last scraps of defiance there. [color=#dda0dd]“And as for your captain,”[/color] Felix added, the words almost idle, [color=#dda0dd]“we’ll make sure he’s sipping poison instead of drugged tea next time.”[/color] The breath escaped Kalliope in a silent, painful rush. Her lungs felt as though the air had turned to lead. Looking at him—the man who had spent years tearing apart her soul—she experienced a wave of nausea so intense that she nearly gagged against the strap. Her pupils were wide and fixed, and she began to shake with a frantic tremor. [color=#8D3B72]"Please,"[/color] she whimpered. The word slipped out before she could stop it, a raw echo of the broken child she once was. [color=#8D3B72]"Not you. Anyone... anyone but you."[/color] Her gaze darted desperately between Felix and Yuka, pleading silently for the needles or the fire to return. Anything to drown out the suffocating reality of his presence. The threat toward Sjan-dehk hit her like a blow to the stomach. Her head snapped forward as she grasped the reality of their reach. They had already drugged them once; they weren't just bragging—they were counting down. [color=#8D3B72]"Leave him out of this,"[/color] she rasped. Her voice shook with a mix of fierce hatred and pure fear. [color=#8D3B72]"He has nothing... he's nothing to do with this."[/color] She turned back to Hafiz, her skin appearing ghostly gray in the candlelight. [color=#8D3B72]"What are you doing here? Why... why are you here?"[/color] Hafiz did not answer her question the way a sane man would. He didn’t look confused by it, or even offended. He looked… rewarded. As if the sound of her pleading had reached some deep place inside him, and he was grateful all over again that it still existed in her throat somewhere. After all, that old reflex that tasted like surrender no matter how she tried to dress it up as anything else. He stepped out of the doorway’s shadow with lazy certainty. [color=gold]“What am I doing here?”[/color] Hafiz echoed softly, almost amused at the idea that the question mattered. His gaze lingered on the collar, on the bandages, on her tremor. [color=gold] “I am here because you finally understand something you have spent years lying to yourself about.”[/color] The smile that touched his mouth wasn’t warmth. It wasn’t even joy. It was [i]appetite.[/i] [color=gold]“You were never difficult to persuade. You were merely stubborn about admitting when you had already been cornered.”[/color] He moved a step closer. [color=gold]“I made a bargain with Marek, Kalliope.”[/color] His voice was almost gentle. [color=gold]“I gave him more than what I knew. I gave him what I [i]remembered[/i]. Not summaries. Not rumors. The memories themselves—whole, intact, and vivid. Every scene you have tried to bury.”[/color] His eyes traveled up her face. [color=gold] “And I gave him yours as well, because the first thing I did when I got my hands on you was ensure I would never be surprised by you again. I studied you until you stopped being a person and became a map.”[/color] The smile widened with something quietly triumphant, as if he’d been waiting years to say it aloud. [color=gold]“So understand this now—Marek does not have to guess what frightens you. He does not have to waste time discovering where you bleed. He can reach into you and take what he wants when it suits him, because I handed him the keys.”[/color] Hafiz’s steps continued, predatory in their patience. [color=gold]“And because I gave him [i]everything[/i], he gave me something in return.”[/color] His gaze flicked to Felix and Yuka as if they were merely furniture in the room. Then it returned to Kalliope, and stayed. [color=gold]“Not only can summon you to do his bidding, but I can summon you for mine as well.”[/color] Hafiz stopped close enough that she could smell him. His expression softened into a parody of tenderness. [color=gold]“You asked why I am here,”[/color] he murmured, voice low. [color=gold]“I am here to watch you realize what your pride has been protecting you from: that you were always mine, and… [i]you will always be mine[/i].”[/color] His eyes shone as if this was a love story to him. Kalliope stared at Hafiz, her breathing shallow and jagged. The fear felt like a heavy weight, a cold sludge filling her veins as he talked about her memories—the only things truly hers. The idea of Marek’s dark, empty eyes reaching into her mind to take away the few moments of peace or warmth she had ever known made her stomach churn. [color=#8D3B72]"You... you sold them?"[/color] she whispered, her voice cracking with the weight of the violation. [color=#8D3B72]"Everything... you already took everything... and you sold the rest?"[/color] A sudden flash of anger surged through her exhaustion, a desperate spark of the fire that usually kept her going. [color=#8D3B72]"They weren't yours!"[/color] she snarled, her voice turning ragged and hysterical as hot tears spilled over, carving paths through the grime on her face. [color=#8D3B72]"You took my life, you took my body, but those... those were [I]mine.[/I] You had no right to give them away! You're a coward, Hafiz! A pathetic, parasitic coward who can't even haunt me without help!"[/color] She thrashed once, a violent burst of anger that made her joints pop, but her bravado vanished the moment she saw Yuka and Felix creeping toward the shadows of the doorway. [color=gold]“Yuka… Felix… You are dismissed.”[/color] Her rage was instantly replaced by a heavy, paralyzing dread. The reality of the situation crashed over her like a freezing wave. The physical pain from the night was nothing compared to the thought of being left alone with the man who had owned her skin for so long. [color=#8D3B72]"Wait,"[/color] she choked out, her eyes darting frantically to Felix, her composure shattering. [color=#8D3B72]"Wait! Don't... don't go. Don't leave me alone with him. Please. I’ll work for you. I’ll report to Marek. I'll do whatever you ask, just stay in the room!"[/color] A sob broke free, raw and ugly, as she thrashed against the restraints, the iron biting into her wrists. [color=#8D3B72]"Yuka, please!"[/color] she wailed, her face twisting in a mask of pure desperation. [color=#8D3B72]"Don't leave me with him! Beat me, break my fingers again—I don't care! Just don't let him touch me! Please, gods above, don’t let him touch me!"[/color] When the door began to close, the sound triggered a primal scream that echoed off the damp stone; a sound of a woman watching her last shred of safety disappear into the dark. Yuka’s smile stayed soft, almost sweet, as if she waved her fingers toward Kalliope upon the departure. She even hummed, pleased, and let her fingertips drift away. Meanwhile Felix had also lingered. His gaze had snagged and a flicker of sympathy formed in his eyes. But ultimately, he tore himself away and left with Yuka. And then Kalliope was left with Hafiz until the night time, when she’d finally be relocated. [/color]