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The first thing that comes to me is the sound of my own labored breathing in the humid room. Then the pain. A searing, burning pain shoots through my left arm without warning, instantly waking me up. The next thing I notice is my constraints. As I squirm on the floor, metal clanks behind me, and I soon realize handcuffs are binding me to a metal pole. Panic overtakes me, which is soon accompanied by realization.
I recognized this place; it was that German guy's basement. I try to account how exactly I got here, but the last hours I remember are a blur of agony.
My gaze drops to my burning arm, only to be met with a mangled limb covered in mixed shades of dried and wet blood. The sickening sight sends a horrible wave of nausea straight to my gut, and I have to fight back the bile climbing its way up my esophagus.
The pain only worsens the more I look at it, but I can't bring myself to look away.
I don't know how long I stay like that before I hear heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. The room lights flash on, blinding me momentarily. A tall man stomps down the steps and stops in front of me. He looks down at me for a moment before suddenly yanking my hair back, straining my neck and forcing me to look up at him.
“Oh, you actually survived, kumpel?” Strade chuckles, “I thought you’d bleed out.” His smile widens unnervingly as he stares at my mangled arm, and I shrink back under his gaze.
“Don’t act so scared, buddy, I’m not going to hurt you,” he rubs my scalp gently, a confusing juxtaposition to the situation.
Something inside me yells at me to say something, to bargain for my freedom, anything. But what was I supposed to say in this situation?
“Please let me go…! This is insane!”
Strade’s smile only grows at my pleading, “You know I can't do that, liebling.”
“But-”
“You must be hungry, huh?” Strade slaps my face lightly and walks to the counter behind him, completely ignoring the gash in my arm. I squirm a little, and my chain bindings clank against the pole behind me.
After a few moments, Strade walks back over to me and kneels down. He holds up an open protein bar to my mouth, his intense gaze never leaving me. In any other situation, the attention would have been flattering, but now, his imposing presence felt suffocating, and for good reason.
“I’m not hungry…” I protest weakly.
“Really? Trust me, you are. Eat it,” he presses the bar closer to my mouth. I press my head back against the pole and clench my mouth shut. In reality, I was really hungry. But something was telling me not to trust anything this guy gave me. When I don't take a bite of the bar, Strade's eyebrow cocks up and his smile falters a little, but not by much.
“If that's what you want,” he shrugs and takes the bar for himself. A long, tense silence falls over the room, and I search my brain for anything to convince this psycho to let me go before he does anything more to me.
“You–You can’t keep me here…!” My attempt at authority is pathetic at best.
“Really? And why not?”
“This is insane! You… People are going to look for me, and they’ll see what you did!” My argument sounded weak, even to me.
Strade scrutinizes me for a long moment and laughs.
“And who will come looking for you?” he asks, his voice thick with amusement, “You said you don't have many friends, right? And your family…” he trials off, not needing to say more. He knew he won, and I knew it, too.
“Besides,” Stade continues, his eyes still never leaving mine, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Before I can say anything in retaliation, Strade leans in, and his body brushes against mine, sending agony down my arm. A moment later, one of the cuffs opens around my sore wrists. I look at him warily, and he flashes a hunting knife at his hip.
“Not unless you make me, anyway,” his smile grows. The message was clear. But I’m still confused as to why he undid one of the cuffs. I don't get much time to think of worst case scenarios before he's doing the same with the remaining cuff.
My eyes drift to the stairs just a few feet away, then back to Strade, who is still looming in front of me. I had no doubts about what he could do with that knife, and I didn't want to chance it; I figured it was best to do what he wanted for now.
Seeing that I was making no move to escape, Strade smiles approvingly and pets me on the head. “Good choice.”
A large part of me wants to yell at this man for treating me like some sort of pet, but the pain in my arm and his threat keep me from doing so.
“What do you want?” I ask weakly. He seemed to be waiting for me to ask that.
“Oh, nothing much. I just thought you should get a reward today! Since you were so good yesterday,” his gaze lowers to my injured arm for a second and then snaps back to my face, “I think you deserve some freedom this time!” Strade unsheathes his hunting knife and flips the handle towards me.
I don't reach for it, unsure if he's being serious or not.
“Take it.”
I do as he says and take the blade with a hesitant hand. Why was he giving me this? He looked so calm, almost sympathetic, it's hard to guess what he was planning.
“Why–”
“Cut yourself,” he says simply.
“What?!”
“You get to choose where. It's better than me doing it, isn't it?” He chuckles lightly, as if we were having small talk. When he sees my mortified expression, he goes to pet me again, “Come on, kumpel. You can do it. You should be glad I'm giving you this freedom!” He sounded like he honestly thought he was doing me a favor, which he probably did; the guy obviously wasn't all together.
I don't move. There's not fucking way this guy was going to make me cut myself. Strade stares at me with somehow even more intensity, “Oh, are you scared? Hm, I guess it's okay; some people don't deserve the privilege of freedom. I'll help you instead.”
He reaches for the knife, and I quickly jerk my hand away. I couldn't give that back! This was probably my only opportunity to have the upper hand, I needed this!
“No, no! I'll… I'll do it!”
He looks a little annoyed, but he stops reaching for the knife and looks at me expectantly. I do a quick scan of his figure. From what I can see, he doesn't have another weapon on him, which puts me at a severe advantage. Or maybe he figured I'm too weak already, so he didn't need to worry about me having a knife. Either way, I needed to at least try to get away from this maniac.
When Strade starts getting impatient, I quickly lower the hunting knife to my thigh. I haven't even pressed the knife down, but I could already feel how sharp it was. I look back up at him.
“Go on…”
I hesitate for only a moment. But this was my only shot, I had to do this. I quickly raise the knife and slash Strade in the shoulder as hard as I can and make a break for the stairs.
I only manage to get up the first two steps before Strade is storming after me. He catches my wrist before I can get far, and I desperately slash the knife in his direction. Through the blur of motion, I see gash rip across Strade's forearm, and blood squirts on both me and my pursuer. Strade flinches momentarily, I use the second of hesitation to scramble up the stairs. I can hear Strade yelling something, but the blood pounding in my ears is too loud to tell what he's saying. I climb and climb up the stairs, and the door gets closer and closer.
But the moment I think I might have a chance of escaping, I feel a sharp pain stab through my entire left half as Strade grabs my wrist and yanks me all the way down the stairs. I hit the ground on my back with a hard thud, but I push through the pain and push my feet back under me. I grab the knife I had dropped and rush backwards as Starde stalks towards me.
All the earlier calmness in his eyes is completely gone, fully replaced with almost manic excitement. His smile only grows. He suddenly looked more focused, like a veil had been lifted from over him.
Blood seeps out from his wound and stains his shirt, but he doesn't even seem to notice.
“Du verdammter Idiot!” he laughs, “Oh, I'm going to have fun with you.”
I stare at him, mortified, still gripping the knife. He was blocking the stairs, my only way of escape. The only chance I had of getting out of here was by killing him, but the cuts I already landed on him didn't seem to affect him at all.
He suddenly lunges at me, trying to wrestle the knife out of my hand. I hold on to it for dear life, but Strade is so much stronger than me, it’s already getting hard to keep it in my grip. Along with that, with his body pushing against mine, it's becoming a struggle not to fall and give him an advantage.
I slash the knife wildly, and through teary eyes, I can see a look of shock cross Strade's face, but only for a second. He wrestles with me and backs me against one of the counters, fully cutting off any path of escape. He grabs my flailing wrist and wretches his knife out of my hands, his eyes manic and smile wide.
“Du hast ja Nerven!” Strade holds the knife out of my reach and laughs. He’s huffing quite hard now. His free hand wraps around my throat and slams me down on the counter. I scratch and claw at his arms, but all my struggles prove futile.
“I was just trying to be nice. But… I guess you don't deserve that,” he laughs again, and drops of his blood fall onto my cheek.
I don't even get the chance to beg before Strade plunges his knife into my shoulder. I scream and thrash under him, each panicked movement creating another agonizing bolt through my entire body. He twists the knife inside my flesh.
“You wanna fight back so badly, huh? Go ahead!” I hear him taunt above me. My legs kick wildly at him, and I can't hold back my tears.
“I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Stop, please!” The strained, guttural sound that rips out of my throat shocks me, but I can't bring myself to care.
“Are you giving up already? I hoped you would've been stronger than that.” Strade drags the knife down through my flesh down to my abdomen. My cries grow louder, and every gasp sends even more agony through me, but I can't stop.
Strade looks at me with almost adoration and jams the knife in deeper. My struggles grow weaker and weaker, and it takes me a moment to realize what Strade is doing. I can feel his hips grinding against my bloodstained ones, his excitement horribly apparent.
“No…! NO!” I cry out uselessly.
Strade doesn’t respond and pulls the knife out of my stomach. When I dare to think he’s finally done, he plunges the blade into my already shredded arm. I cry out again and again as the steel cuts and stabs my abused flesh. He then drags it down the underside of my arm, the only part of the limb that wasn’t already mangled. I kick my legs weakly, but I don’t even know why I bother. I wish he would end the agony already. But Strade clearly has other plans; he presses his lips to mine, muffling my screams. His empty hand runs down my bloodied body, and I can feel him start tearing away my pants. Before I know it, I’m fully naked for his eyes, and he briefly pulls away to undo his own pants.
“Don’t cry, schatz, I’ll be gentle with you,” I hear him say. Though, his voice sounded somewhat far away now. I feebly kick him wherever my feet can reach, but his hands roughly grab my thighs and force them open.
He wastes no time penetrating me, and I squirm uselessly on the counter. I gasp and pant desperately, but it feels like no air is going into my lungs. All I can feel is the blinding pain in my arm and my tattered skin stretching and straining with every breath I take. Strade thrusts in and out of me, indifferent to my distress. His panting is deafening in my ears, and I can hear him laugh and say something in German again.
As he goes on, he somehow starts getting rougher, bottoming out inside me with zero regard. With every thrust, it feels like a knife is being stabbed deep into me.
“Are you going out already, haustier?” Strade’s voice rings out. My mouth hangs open, but nothing but incoherent sounds fall out despite my attempts to stay silent. He hits a spot inside me, and something like a pained moan comes out of me involuntarily. My legs twitch and stiffen on either side of Strade, and it’s met with an amused laugh from him.
Eventually the pain and agony all blurs together as the minutes drag on, but every time I start drifting, Strade digs his knife deeper into me or digs his fingers into my wounds to get a reaction out of me.
Finally, I feel him bottom out inside me for one final time, and I mildly feel him come inside me. He starts to slow down but doesn’t fully stop, dragging out his pleasure and my agony. His pants fill the silence of the basement, and after some time, I hear him chuckle. He pulls out of me, and I see him look down at me with something like satisfaction. A part of me prayed he would just finish me off.
“Das habe ich gebraucht.”
He slaps my face lightly, “Don’t pass out on me, liebling.” His tone is suddenly warm, like he was comforting me for something someone else did. I make a sound, but it sounds muffled to my own ears. Everything felt so far away, and the smell of sweat and blood barely registers.
I hardly notice when Strade pets my head and starts stitching my wounds; aside from a quick pain every few seconds, I hardly felt anything. It was nice.
Through sweet nothing I can’t recall, I vaguely feel Strade clean and pet me, and I can’t muster the strength to resist.
At some point, I’m back on the floor, but I‘m not bleeding anymore. I can see Strade by the counter at the edges of my vision, and I pray to God he’s not preparing for another round. Try as I might, my eyes close momentarily, and my head falls forward.
I feel something touch my head, and I weakly open my eyes to see what it is. Strade is kneeling in front of me now. I didn’t hear him walk over to me, but I’m too exhausted to question it. His mouth moves, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. He looks at me like he expected me to say something, but when none comes, he says something else and holds up a large collar-looking device for me to see. This time, he doesn’t wait for a response and clicks the collar around me, and a large smile spreads across his face. He drops my head, and I don’t even attempt to stay awake this time.