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Think of the person you love more than anything in the world. I mean, really think about them. Close your eyes and imagine them standing or sitting there with you. Feel all those good, warm feelings they make you feel when they’re around. Now, how much would you do for them? How much would you endure for them? How much pain could you take from them? How many pieces of you would you let them take before you started fending for your life? Would you still let them do it if you knew they weren’t going to reciprocate your tolerance? If they had nothing to give you. If they simply didn’t want to carve pieces of themselves out to satiate you. Where do draw the line between sticking with them through hardship and taking mistreatment just to avoid conflict?I think I’d cease to exist.My sister and I always got along. Our entire lives we were near inseparable, even when our parents passed away and I had custody of her. I never saw her as a daughter, she was just my little sister. She’s always been my baby, which is why it concerned me when she all of a sudden pulled away from me about four years ago.Maybe it was just the teenage hormones, she would’ve been about sixteen then. She came home a lot with various bruises on her neck, but I didn’t question it. The bruises might’ve interfered with her job as a model, but considering she hasn’t been fired yet, I guess it’s fine. I didn’t know how to have that kind of conversation with her anyways. She also just seemed to borderline dislike me. That made me worry even more. It was just the way she threw dirty looks at me when I tried to ask her questions about her life, the way she didn’t say hi to me when she came home, the way she didn’t eat meals with me any more. I knew something was off, but I wasn’t sure what. The fact that I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my little sister, whom I’d been raising for about five years at that point, made me feel like a failure of a caretaker.The first time in years since she seemed genuinely happy for me was when I opened up my own bakery. She seemed excited to get me out of the house more. That was saddening, but I did need to get out more. I was just worried about leaving her alone for so long day-to-day, but she practically shoved me out the door every morning when she found out.On this particular morning two years ago, I once again tried to get closer with my sister. I called her out into the front room and asked her, “Miko, baby, do you want me to bring home anything?”She pressed her manicured hand to her hip, although she didn’t look at me with complete disdain this time. She seemed to genuinely want something I made her, “Bring back some cupcakes, please.” please! She said ‘please!’ I knew this was a good idea!I think she saw how much my face beamed, because she cocked her head to the side, her curly dark hair bouncing to the right with her, “What’s the look for?”I toned myself down, doing a slight twirl and grabbing the door handle to go out, “Nothing, you’re just being sweet today.” I giggled.I heard a small scoff from Fumiko, and her voice going farther away from me, presumably back to her bedroom, “You’re such a weirdo, M.”I sighed, but put my bright smile back on and walked outside, facing the day with a determination to remain positive. My sister might still be a grumpy pants, but that’s not going to deter me from making today a good day. She was nice to me for about four seconds, I’m sure I can wring out four more from her tonight.I practically skipped to my bakery. I was happy, I was excited to bake. Everything I made today would be peak, because I’d be putting extra love in it. Anything for my baby sister. As I hopped my way over to my shop, I stopped when I saw something peculiar. There were a bunch of officers outside the front door. As I got closer I caught the blood-chilling scent of something absolutely foul. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it smelled like something that made my heart stop for a moment.I got closer to the shop, trying to peek over the shoulders of the officers, and what I caught a glimpse of almost made me lose my breakfast. I saw a person, I couldn’t make out any features, but they seemed to be burned to a crisp. They had flakes of charred skin falling off of them, revealing the bright red muscles underneath, but they almost looked closer to brown than red. I saw flakes of pure black trailing from the body to the back, which made me even sicker. Where was this? I knew the body wasn’t here last night, but my mind still flashed to the possibility of all the people that’d come to the bakery having eaten food touched by a decomposing, cooked, body. Would it still even be unsanitary if the body was cooked? That wasn’t in my food safety training course.I let out a verbal shudder, which caught the attention of the officers directly in front of me. I cleared my throat and spoke, “What’s… going on here, officers?”“Maya Hayami?” One officer asked, and I nodded, clutching my bag in my hands, only to be very roughly pushed face-first against the wall and have my hands cuffed behind me, “You’re under arrest for the murder of Sako Hisoka, and under the suspicion of being the Divinator.”“What?” I said, choking on my own shocked gasp as I was forced into a police car, I couldn’t even think before I was driven away.They took me out at the police station, asked a bunch of questions that had nothing to even do with me being a serial killer. The Divinator was a recently identified serial killer. They tend to go for people who would’ve, soon after their death, been charged with assault, theft, murder, any crime really. People call them ‘the divinator’ because they kill people whose crimes only become apparent after their death. In fact, it’s deliberately only people whose crimes haven’t been made public at the time of death, there’s been several cases where criminals who were public and had arrest warrants out for them were found near the scene of one of the Divinator’s kills. They tend to leave the body unrecognizable outside of genetic information, making sure they always have something that links them back to their own crimes.I don’t know how they do it, but I sure as hell know there’s no way I could pull any of that off! There’s no way they looked at me and thought I could pull it off. I’m the equivalent of a single mom raising a teenage girl, where would I find the time for that?? And why weren’t they asking me any questions to do with the actual murder that took place in my bakery?? Were they THAT sure I’m the Divinator? They have to ask me actual questions, don’t they? The officer asking me questions got a call, and exited the room, leaving me alone, cuffed to the table, panicking. I didn’t know what to think. I burst into tears out of pure fear, and they very quickly formed a puddle on the table. I couldn’t wipe my face, so I was forced to just let globs of tears, mascara, and snot run down my face as I desperately tried to contort my body to wipe my face on my short sleeves, but it only stained them black and made them mucus-ey.“Please, I didn’t do anything!” I pleaded, refusing to look at the camera in the corner of the room, but I knew they were watching me through it. This was humiliating, “L-let me out, please, I’m begging you!”I continued to plead for what felt like hours, I could feel my voice giving out as I screamed at no one, but I didn’t care. I needed to get home. I needed to see my sister. I hated being here, in this white room, with no people, away from my sister that hated me. I never felt so suffocated in such a wide space. Eventually, a different person came in. He didn’t look like an officer, he kind of just looked like a… oh what’s the phrase Miko uses, a basement dweller? I don’t like to make snap judgments of people, but he did kind of look like a caricature of a malnourished man who lived in his mothers basement. He looked kind of grubby, he had this long, scruffy black hair, it almost looked matted, that’s how messy it was. I couldn’t really make out much else other than some faint, patchy stubble on his face, mostly because my eyes were still buffy and blurry due to me still blubbering all over the investigation table. I sure hope this is stainless steel.The man barely showed me any sympathy, instead diving straight into questioning. On the bright side, he actually asked questions about the murder, and the bad side, he asked the questions under the assumption that I did indeed kill whoever was in my bakery.He asked a lot of questions along the lines of “What was your relationship with the victim,” and “describe the night of the murder.” but I didn’t do anything.I watched the clock as he continued to ask me questions in an accusatory tone, the little hand pointing to six, seven, eight, Miko would be home from school about now. I wonder if she misses me. I had stopped crying a while ago but the man was getting frustrated with my lack of answers.Eventually, at about midnight, the man stood up, and left me with a “We’ll try again tomorrow.” And he left the room.I waited for someone else to come in and get me and put me in a cell or something, but no one came. I watched the clock turn to 1 AM, no one came. The clock turned to 2 AM, no one came. I felt my stomach grumble. 3 AM, my mascara and leftover snot was starting to dry on my face. At 4 AM, I felt myself getting tired, but I kept myself awake.However, at 5 AM, I realized all my crying and the stress of being suddenly arrested had really tuckered me out. I couldn’t help but rest my head against my cuffed hands for just a moment, just a fleeting second, and it was like I flipped a switch. The second my forehead brushed against my hands, I heard a high-pitched whining start to sound in the room. It didn’t stop. The noise was quiet enough that it didn’t hurt my ears, but loud enough that it caused a relatively intense pressure. I could feel the sound in my ears, like it was trying to dig its way into my brain in the gentlest way possible. It was like a rat being torched from behind, but its teeth were soft enough to not actually hurt. The feeling shot directly into my spine and caused it to straighten right up.I listened to the obnoxious sound and stared at the clock as it continued to tick on. By the time the man from before came back in, I had a full bladder, an empty stomach, and a brain hollowed out.“Oh, you’re back!” I said, almost a little too cheerily. Maybe if I proved I was nice, they would believe I had nothing to do with this.He didn’t acknowledge my greeting, instead just sitting down and making direct eye contact with me. I could make out more features now that I wasn’t crying, he had the prettiest brown eyes. Like even in the cold lighting of the room, he had this auburn tint to them. I almost didn’t hear him when he started asking questions.“We’ve found that the mr. Hisoka has been dead for several days,” The man said, his voice was kinda pretty too. He sounded ever so slightly shaky, and he had a kind of rough tone, “You been feeding people baked goods that were cooked in the same oven as a body?”I gasped, and moved suddenly enough that I felt my wrists, caked in dried sweat and tears, chafe against the cuffs keeping my wrists bound to the table, “Oh, no, I would never!”He gave me no expressional response to that, instead continuing with his queries, “So cooking a body is fine to you, but feeding food that’s touched it to people is where you draw the line?”“No, that’s not what I meant, I didn’t cook the body, I don’t know how it got there!” I said, shaking my head with a vigor that almost shot my nose gunk across the interrogation room. Maybe it would add some color to the pure white walls. The mention of food, however, caused my stomach to grumble, and I shakily asked, “c-could I get something to eat? And maybe some water, please?”The man didn’t answer my question, instead continuing to ask more of his own. Eventually he looped around to all the same questions he asked yesterday, and when I kept insisting I didn’t know anything, he got back up to leave, and I panicked.“Wait, you’re not just gonna leave me in here again?” I said, my stomach feeling even more bottomless and my bladder feeling as though it would burst any second, “I-I need a bathroom, please!”He stopped at the door, and turned back to me, with an energy that almost seemed as if he’d struck gold, “Do you have anything of value to say?“A-aren’t there still people being killed out there? Shouldn’t that prove I didn’t do anything?”“How would you know that, do you have an accomplice out there?”I felt tears prick back up at my eyes, “N-no! I just didn’t do anything, so the real Divinator has to still be out there.”The man gave me a look that was a mix between frustrated and disappointed, and he left the room again. It was about Noon, now, I hoped to god or whatever higher power that he wouldn’t leave me here for another eight hours. Maybe it would’ve been better to come up with something rather than to sit here and collect filth. I wasn’t sure what I could come up with, though.I stared at the clock. At about two hours, I began sobbing again, more of my leftover mascara falling off my pale cheeks. My bladder was about to burst, and with how long I had been waiting, I would definitely cause some kind of infection. Three hours, i felt myself caked in sweat from how stressed I was. By the eight hour mark, I was filthy. Genuinely, the lower half of my body was soiled with my own waste. The simple idea that they would leave me in here like this made me sick, and I almost added vomit to the slew of Disgusting things I was forced to sit in.At this point, I stared at the door. Nauseous, cold, wet, exhausted, and disgusting. I was painfully aware of how badly I smelled. I couldn’t think of anything else, I had nothing to distract me from how uncomfortably gross I was. I must have stared at that door for another hour, No one came. God, I was so hungry, and I needed a shower, badly. Another hour, nothing. My breathing got heavier as I began to shout at the walls again, begging for someone to come get me. I waited two more, three more. I was so exhausted, I laid my head back down, but I noticed the obnoxious, irritating, eardrum-scraping whining was still going. That, mixed with the discomfort of sitting in my own sweat, feces, and soiled dress, kept me awake. I hadn’t slept in a full 24 hours, and right when I thought I would snap, the man came back in again.“Sir, this– this is inhumane!” I said to him, before he even could say anything.“What you’ve been doing the last couple months is inhumane, Hayami.” He responded.The cycle continued. He asked me questions, I begged him to let me go, I even lied and came up with a story of what I did, but he didn’t buy it when I didn’t have answers for certain questions. When he realized he wasn't getting anywhere with me, he left me in the room, cuffed to the table for double the time as he did last time. No food, no bathroom, no shower, no sleep. I was losing my mind. At some point I’d started seeing figures, dull, colorful figures, dancing around the room, and I sighed in relief at a distraction from my misery. I started separating myself from my body, and after a few days, it was like I finally got out of the interrogation room and deeply receded into my mind.I’m not sure how long it had been, but the man walked in again, and I smiled, excited to talk to him, but he looked awfully ashamed.“Miss Hayami, you’re free to go. We’ve concluded that you have nothing to do with this case.”My eyes lit up, Finally! I could stand, I could clean myself, I could sleep! More tears welled up at my eyes, and I gave the man a grateful look, “Really? Thank you so much, sir!”“Now, as an apology for all your trouble, we will be paying you ¥150 million yen, under the condition that you do not cause any legal trouble for us when you’re sent home,” The man said, and god, I never realized how dreamy his face was, “We do hope you understand the overwhelming evidence we had, and why we had to take the measures we did.”I nodded my head, tears dripping onto my dress as his slim body walked over to me, unlocking the cuffs on the table and freeing my hands. I slowly brought my hands towards my body, and they were raw. Like so much so that there were some yellowed out layers of skin bunching up at the sides after the frequency in which I tried to wriggle my way out of the cuffs.“We will also be paying for any medical necessities you will need from this.”I calmly agreed with everything he said, letting the officers guide me to a bathroom, with a shower included! I never felt so great to get in a shower. I didn’t care that the water was freezing and the soap was cheap, every drop that fell down my shit-caked body felt like I was washing away the trauma I had just endured in the name of justice. It was all going to mean something after this, I was sure of this. Watching the muddy water go down the drain seemed to reassure me that, soon, the world would be as pure as I was becoming because of what I had just gone through.One of the officers actually had to remind me to get out of the shower, because of how cold the water was, I could’ve gone hypothermic. Even though I still felt as though I had layers of filth to peel off my body, I stepped out of the shower, looking clean, and not smelling like I just spent a week without a bathroom. They payed for me to have a nice dinner, and then they dropped me off at my house. I was exhausted, but I promised someone a treat. So instead of going inside, I made my way back to my bakery.When I got there, the body had been cleaned out, but the door was wide open, I could see a trail of ants going into the back, and when I followed the trail, I noticed countless health and safety violations. I was certain that I was missing a few bags of flower, some chocolate chips, but I didn’t care. That just meant I had to go to the store. I just had to go to the store, and then I could go home.I came home again, my weakened arms full of everything I needed to make Miko’s favorite cupcake recipe. Unloading everything onto the counter, I got to work, not caring for the mess I was making. Flour, sugar, cocoa powder, strawberry chunks were scattered all across the kitchen counters, but I pushed through, I had to finish this. I put the cupcakes in the oven, and made my way upstairs to greet my sister.I weakly knocked on her door, “Miko, sweetheart, I’m home.” No answer. That was fine, she was probably sleeping. I didn’t want to bother her, but I felt a little ashamed that she wouldn’t be able to eat fresh cupcakes.I could barely keep myself awake for the duration of the cupcakes baking, but I did it. I unfortunately couldn’t frost them, the moment I put the tray down on the counter, I took two steps over to our sofa, and fell over onto the back of it. I was out.I must’ve slept for at least a full day, because when I woke up, it was sunny, but my cupcakes were hard as rocks. I guess Fumiko never came home. I didn’t go to work that day. Or the next. I wanted to wait for Miko to come home, but she never did. I checked to see if she had answered my messages, but nothing. Silence. Days went by, my cupcakes grew white, fuzzy spores all over them, but I couldn’t bring myself to clean it up, Miko had to see what I did for her. She had to see the fruit of my suffering. I read that she had been released from police custody, and I got sick at the idea that she just went through what I went through. But I also felt a sick sort of relief, knowing that she’d need me now. She had to see that I still loved her even though I was gone for so long, I wasn’t going anywhere. I needed her to see this, I needed her to still need me.She never came home. By the time I had realized that, my cupcakes were mossy green, and I knew they had to be thrown away eventually.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
I’ve spent the last two years alone. From what I’ve concluded, Miko is still one of the main suspects of being the divinator. Her and her fiancé, Akari. There’s an overwhelming amount of clues pointing to them, but no hard evidence. And I don’t want to think about that, because if I do for more than two seconds, my entire world will fall apart. Trust me, I’ve tried.Every day that I’ve spent out of that interrogation room, I’ve missed him. I don’t know his name, but I will never forget his face. The light stubble that would be a lovely sensory experience to touch, his shiny, damp skin, the pretty purple bags under his eyes, the color of them, his hair. I even vaguely remember how he smelled. I’ve made up a name to call him by, because on the news, he’s just an infamous anonymous detective with no provided name. But the name I gave him was Haze. What he put me through was admirable, the strength it takes to put another human being through the foul things I had to sit in, that was an admirable strength. I have permanent scars on my wrists from him, that’s quite possessive, really. I find it kind of cute.For the first six months, I returned to the police station, begging for everyone that breathed in there to point me in the direction of the man that interrogated me. I brought offerings of cupcakes, donuts, muffins, sweetbread, cookies, everything. I improved my recipes to their absolute max potential in attempts to lure him out. I didn’t care how crazy or annoying these officers found me, I was going to find Haze whether they liked it or not. At about six months, however, I did it! I finally saw him again. I’m so happy that he made time to come see me! There’s no way he didn’t show up just for me, I've shown up here every single day for the last six months! He had to know I’d be here waiting for him.The moment I saw him, I bolted to him, practically knocking him over when I did. I scrambled to place my basket into his arms, brushing my hair behind my ear and smiling brightly at him, “It’s been a while, ha- um…” I said. I trailed off upon realizing that his name wasn’t actually Haze, I was just talking so fast. I haven’t seen my beloved in months! I wasn’t about to fumble this one chance.Haze stared at me, as if he didn’t understand I was asking for his name. He stared at the basket of assorted sweet treats in his arms, before his gorgeous dark eyes looked back up to meet my cloudy ones. My heart was racing as I got another good look at his face, my cheeks were heating up at a speed that I could practically feel the blood in my veins trying to burst out of my skin. I still kept a wide, friendly smile in his direction, waiting for him to speak. Haze studied my face for a moment, which was not subtle in the slightest. I was wearing a somewhat tight, form-fitting dress, so it made sense he was checking me out too. I could tell he was struggling to find his words, considering he hadn’t said anything in a full minute. Gosh, he’s so cute.“Do I know you..?”My heart plummeted. Straight out my backside and drilling to the core of the earth, “I-I, what do you mean?” I garbled, I didn’t even think before I asked, It just pushed its way out through my gaping mouth into the free air before I had a chance to stop myself.I covered my lips. Of course. He wouldn’t– He shouldn’t remember me. I mean, sure, it was the most drawn out, traumatic experience of my life. It will impact me forever, it changed any and everyone’s perspective of me. I will never not be perceived as “Mikoko’s older sister, suspected of being a serial killer.” To anyone. But to him, it was probably just another week. Why would he remember that? There’s nothing about me that is memorable. Not even how forgettable I am is memorable. I’m just me. I felt my blood rush out of my cheeks like my six months of effort down the drain.A sigh left me, the disappointment practically tangible in the air as it exited my body. I looked down at the ground, I willed the tears threatening to make themselves known to hide for just a moment longer. I felt like an hour had passed in a moment, with how quickly my mood dropped, but I glanced up at the clock and it had barely been a minute, “Oh, I’m sorry.. I think I confused you with someone else.”And with that, I left the building. I didn’t even give him a chance to try and hand me my basket back. I think I would crumble into dust if I let him hand every feeling I’ve had towards him back to me when I was already full of anguish.I ran out of the police station and into the nearest secluded area, which happened to be an alleyway. The minute the police station was out of my line of sight, I began bawling. I couldn’t stop myself. It was just streams on streams of wet, gucky tears gushing out of my eyes. I was probably wailing pretty loudly, but I didn’t have the space in my heart to care. I was clearing that space by pouring my tears onto the stinky concrete.I’m not sure how long I stood there sobbing, but out of nowhere, I felt the presence of someone else with me. Someone lurking in the shadows of this dark alleyway. I looked up from my soaked hands, and saw a man quickly avert his gaze from me. Or maybe he wasn’t looking at me at all. I’m not sure anymore.I quickly wiped my tears from my eyes, blubbering out a shaky, “sorry.” and pushed myself up off the wall and began making my way out of the alley. I heard the click of a lighter opening, as I walked away, and just as my foot was about to enter the daylight outside the alley, I registered a smooth voice with a slight slavic accent, I couldn’t make out which one in my emotional mess.“Rough day?” The man said, and as I turned, he took a deep inhale of the lit cigarette in his left hand.I turned the rest of my body, not moving towards or away from the man, but I waved my hands in a dismissing manner in front of me, “O-oh! No, I just-”“It’s alright,” he said, stepping closer to me, “You look like you’ve been through a lot,” I didn’t answer, but I did take a small step towards him, moving to cup my arms in my hands, so they’d be crossed around my chest defensively, “You wanna talk about it? I’ll get you a drink.”I still didn’t say anything, instead mulling it over in my head for a minute. I glanced back up at the man’s face, he was kind of pretty. He had a similar energy to Haze, in that kind of edgy, probably has a bad relationship with his mother kind of way. I’m not sure how I know he doesn’t have the best feelings about his mother, it was just a vibe I got. Maybe it was my own maternal instincts that could sniff that out like a dog. As I looked at him more, I realized I definitely have a type. With a length similar to haze, he had this pretty, strawberry-blonde hair that reached his shoulders, except this guy gets bonus points because he had it up in a ponytail. That edgy vibe I was talking about? That’s from his outfit, which looked like something that came straight out of a high-end thrift store and was picked out by an alternative teenager.I didn’t have to think much more, and I nodded my head, accepting his offer. I stayed quiet as we walked to a nearby bar. It was a bit early to be drinking, but oh well. A nice, handsome man wants to pay for me to drink and cry, I’ll take it.Once we were inside, he guided me to a stool, and I eagerly plopped myself down, resting my upper body weight on the counter, and he sat down next to me.“What do you want?” he asked me, to which I shrugged and slumped over, resting my chin on my arms. The man turned back to the bartender, ordered a Red Russian, and turned his attention back to me, “Do you have a name, Doll?”“Maya,” I said, grasping the drink as soon as it came to me and taking a swift chug. I didn’t even register the pet name he called me by, I just downed half the drink in one go before turning my attention back to him, “And yours?”“Miheal, didn’t know you were so thirsty,” He commented, and I responded by chugging my drink again. I could’ve sworn that I took as much as before, but my glass still seemed to still be half full. Oh well.Miheal leaned in closer to me, almost like he was analyzing my face, I felt my heart beat harder, an intense rhythm building. The faint scent of smoke coming off of him, which honestly just made my heart thump more brutally in my chest. I watched as his gloved hand came and brushed up against my heated cheek. He lifted his fingers to gently move one of the middle pieces of my bangs to rest on my brow bone, leaving the rest of my face more visible to him. I’ve heard that Europeans tend to be more affectionate with people they’re less than acquainted with, but this still had my insides dancing underneath my flesh.“What could possibly make a pretty thing like you hurt so much?”“I’m not drunk enough for-“ I took another chug of my drink, , only to once again, find it completely full, “I uh- don’t want to put you out too much.”“Oh, don’t worry about it, anything for a pretty lady like you,” Miheal responded, gently grasping my hand carrying the glass and pushing it toward me, “Go on, drink,”Who was I to deny him?Several drinks later, I had poured my entire heart out to this man. And also possibly groped him a few times. He told me I could, I think. I couldn't help it, the more I drank the more I noticed how chiseled his body was. Each sip seemed to leak directly between my thighs and tarnish my brain with absolutely foul thoughts. Miheal had taken me back to a plush seat tucked away in the corner, and seemed to just get me endless drinks. “Listen,” I garbled out, barely able to hold myself upright and practically falling into him. I thought I was floating. My legs didn’t even feel attached to my body, but I saw my knee out of the corner of my eye over his thigh. Everything was all fuzzy, he was fuzzy. He was warm. I couldn't help but keep talking just to keep him near me, “I don’ understan’ how what dey did t’me was legal,” I babbled, “An’ it had t’be like a kink sor summin, cuz thas not normal,”Miheal hummed in an agreeing way, and tried to hand me another glass, but I finally started declining, “No… ‘m too drunk… I shoul’go home…” I mumbled, practically falling asleep on him.“Come on, one more, little doll,” He said, bringing the glass to my lips for me, but I still wouldn’t drink, so he instead carefully tilted my head back by my chin, and coaxed the drink into my mouth, his other hand rubbing circles on my back as if soothing the alcohol down my throat.And then everything went black. The next time I opened my eyes, I was in a dingy room, everything was on it’s side. My legs felt like jelly. My arms felt like jelly. I felt made of gelatin. I had a searing headache, and an aching pain on the inside of my elbow. My arms were behind me, and I felt restrained. I couldn’t move. Glancing down at my body, I noticed my ankles were tied together, and the top of my dress that I was in was covered in something gross. Something pink, but it was like a dried liquid, I felt my top being kind of crunchy on my chest as the stench of strawberries, alcohol, and bile fumed off of it.I looked around the room more, there were barely any lights except for one in the corner closest to my head, and there was one in the other corner, but the lightbulb was out. Under the lit lightbulb stood a man I didn’t recognize, he was a bigger guy, kind of chunky but kind of built, and he had this white beard and greasy skin. His eyebrows kind of covered his eyes, and he stared at the wall behind me. He kind of looked like a cartoon biker gang leader. He also had a massive firearm and he held it to his chest ready to shoot anything that moved. I didn’t dare turn my body or make a sound, I wasn’t sure what would happen if I did.After minutes of me just sitting there in silence, heart racing and fighting the urge not to lurch at the gross smell, the man eventually looked in my direction and I let out a loud gasp in fear. He didn’t say a word to me, instead pointing the end of his firearm in my direction and pulling up a black, box-shaped device to his mouth and saying something in a language I didn’t understand.“What did you-“ I stumbled out, before a door behind slammed open and effectively shook the room. I don’t know how many people entered the room, but three entered my field of vision, two of them I didn’t know, but one of them was the man I met in the alley. Miheal? I think?I made eye contact with him, and he actually seemed to want to talk with me. Like I was just the person he was looking for, he spoke to the men in the room, before pulling out his phone and kneeling down to my level.“Listen up, pretty doll,” Micheal said, his big hand coming to grip the back of my scalp, tugging on a handful of my hair and pulling me up to sit on my heals. I winced at him pulling my entire body weight by my hair, but honestly it didn’t hurt that much.“We’re gonna call your baby sister, and you’re gonna tell her how much you wanna come home,” he said, taking a huff from a previously lit cigarette, “Maybe she’ll be more willing to negotiate with us.”“She won’t.” I said mindlessly, to which he scoffed. I think he thought I was trying to get him to let me go by telling him he was wasting his time. This floor was cold, but sitting in a room surrounded by men I don’t know who made such an effort to get me here, made me hot. It struck some nostalgic feeling in me. I wouldn’t mind prolonging this.Miheal took another hit of his joint, and I glanced around the room, I counted five men, plus the man still in the corner. Six total. Way to make a girl feel special, guys. The blonde man in front of me dialed in some numbers on the cell in his hand, put it on speaker and held it between us. It rang, and rang, and rang, before I heard my sister’s voice on the other end.“You’ve reached Miss Mikoko’s phone! Leave a message after the sparkle and if you’re good, she’ll get back to you!”A sparkly sounding noise went off, and Miheal motioned to me, and I very calmly spoke into the phone, “Miko, baby, I don’t know where I am, but I’m okay. Please come get me if it’s not too much trouble.”He hung up the phone, and looked kind of shocked. I simply gave him the most blank stare ever, wondering what he was expecting.“You are not nearly scared enough for this, Doll.” Miheal said, forcefully grabbing me by my jaw and tossing my back onto my side. I didn’t make a sound, instead I intently watched as he leaned back against the wall and spoke to the other men around me in that language again.I have no idea what he said, probably something like ‘beat her’ because next thing I knew I felt a swift and hard kick to my stomach. I coughed, but took it. Someone behind me landed their shoe right in the joint between my shoulder and my neck, and I heard a squelching pop, and an intense pain of my arm being popped out of its socket. Blood was rushing from my stomach to my shoulder, each hit I took was like a new route being opened up for blood to flow through.They went on, kicking and punching me quite literally from head to toe. I’m not even sure if I realized when they stopped, my head was blaring by the time I’d realized no one was touching me anymore. Weirdly enough, this didn’t make me feel anything emotionally, I was kind of separated from my body. I think more than just my arms were restrained, I think I was stuck in my own brain, each beating I took only really served to prove that I was indeed, still alive. Again, the physical suffering took me to a place I hadn't found myself in the last six months. It took me to a place where I was aware of how much you can put another person through, that kind of passionate desire to cause me suffering made me feel even more important.Miheal scowled down at me, holding his now half-used cigarette in one hand and a phone in his other. I watched him snap a picture of me, and then ask, “Wanna try that again, pretty thing?”I looked up at him, almost longingly. Not almost, I wanted him. Being beaten on the floor by his goons wasn't doing it for me, I wanted him to beat me on the floor.Without thinking any further, I blubbered out, “Do you wanna put that out on me?” I saw blood splashing out onto the ground from between my teeth, hopefully that wasn’t a turn-off.“What?”“Your cigarette, I make a great ashtray.”He stared at me, stunned. In return, I looked at him with a deadpan serious expression. He kneeled back down, once again picking me up by my now bloody and bruised scalp, and adjusted his grip to hold me by my jaw. The way he handled my head like a sports ball made me want to throw myself at him.“What do you think this is?” He asked, squishing my cheeks together and releasing the pressure.“Ransom?” I guessed. He sighed, pressing my face down into the hard cement. My nose scraped against the floor, probably adding another scratch to my now battered face.And then I felt it, I heard my own scream beforehand, but he did indeed press his cigarette into the back of my neck. Although he didn’t just press it in one spot, no, he dragged it across my dislocated shoulder with a pressure that would surely burn a good layer of skin. The scent of the smoke mixed with my own flesh had to have had some kind of aphrodisiac-esque property. I had lost my shame and rubbed my thighs together at the feeling of having patterns burned into my skin, until he lifted the cigarette and tossed it to the side. Using his heavy, muddy, and potentially bloody boot to roll me back onto my side by my hip.“Satisfied?” I nodded, although my chest practically bounced in a way that was akin to a busty girl in a fighting game that wore almost nothing. The way he had me held up made it really hard not to notice the movement of my thighs, I was wriggling like a worm.“I think… I’d be really scared if you guys wanted to spend some extra time… um… roughing me up.”I heard audible laughter, not from Miheal, but from the men all around me. The redhead before me simply continued to stare at me baffled. I got another good look at him, and I think he was actually the youngest one here. He might actually be younger than me. He seemed to be the ringleader though. The guys laughing around him seemed to do so in almost a cheering manner, in a way I’d imagine a misogynistic father to applaud his son for sleeping with any girl, except repeated like six times simultaneously.The man pushed me back down onto my stomach, and before I knew it, I felt a pair of leather-clad hands pulling my hips up, shifting most of my weight onto my chest, head, and shoulders, one of which was still dislocated. I felt such an intense pain in that shoulder. I didn’t even have time to register my thighs being pulled apart and the hem of my skirt being lifted up over my rear.Everything moved incredibly fast, my top half was lifted slightly as one of the men, notably not Miheal, resting the junction between my chest and my neck, right between my collarbones, on his knee, my head about level with his groin. This made it somewhat challenging to breathe properly. Another set of hands pulled the elastic straps of my dress down over my bra, leaving my main article of clothing bunched up around my stomach, squeezing my waist in and making my hips feel huge. They unclasped my bra and grasped my breasts, right at the same time that one of the men behind me hooked a finger in the midsection of my panties and sharply tugged upwards. This caused my underwear to thin out and press hard against my achy clit, giving me a sudden and overwhelming intense level of friction against my nub.As I gasped at the sudden sensation, the man in front of me slapped the thin head of his penis down onto my tongue and shoved it fully into my mouth. I would’ve loved to make an automatic effort to try and work my tongue on him, but I was distracted by the hands pulling my panties up further, a second set holding my hips down. I registered the tearing of fabric in my ears and blood rushing to my pussy, making me hotter and wetter as my panties snapped in two, relieving the tension on my clit.It was short lived though, I suddenly felt two fingers force their way into my sopping hole. The man said some kind of jeer in that language they’ve been speaking, which I'm just going to call Russian, because that’s what it sounded like to me. He pulled his fingers out of my and slapped my lower lips with my own wetness. The man who was groping me and tweaking my nipples suddenly let me go and moved away somewhere. Out of sight out of mind for me because suddenly another cock plunged into my cunt. This one was thicker than the one in my mouth, and they moved in a way where they were in and out of me at almost the exact same time. If I was empty, I was painfully aware of it, only to be swiftly filled back up.At some point, the man in front of me’s movements got more sporadic, more rushed, needy, even, and I was finally able to focus on one thing as I pressed my tongue on the underside of his shaft. His hand scrambled around my face, before suddenly gripping onto my nose, cutting off my airway and using it as leverage to pull my head onto him. I helplessly took his dick hammering into the back of my throat as my ears started to ring from the lack of air, until he finally released right into the back of my throat. His hot seed went all the way down my innards, and he held me there for a second before releasing my head and backing away from me entirely.My top half fell onto the ground, and I began sputtering and coughing. In almost that exact moment, I felt more streams of burning liquid find their way onto my back, and it stung a little. My injuries from earlier definitely left some open gashes, and the man’s semen was definitely sinking into those gashes. Yeowch.Shameless moans fell from my lips as the man behind me drilled into my pussy. They all treated me like a ragdoll, and I kind of forgot what my main objective was with this as my mind was flooded with countless sensations to take in and comprehend. Another load was shot into my pussy, and the thought of pregnancy immediately crossed my mind and I panicked, only to have the panic be quickly overtaken by the experience of my clit once again being handled so roughly. Another set of digits came down and pinched me down there.Shocks of pain and pleasure, mostly pain shot through my hips and up my spine as they pinched, pulled at, and slapped my clit. The craziest part is, I eventually came too. I was given maybe two seconds of reprieve before everyone rearranged themselves. Someone new in front of me and hands back on my bosoms, turning my upper body into my side and resting all of my weight on my injured shoulder. All of my oversensitive spots were being tormented further.Once everyone was settled, three fingers were forced into me, and they moved in a way that was akin to trying to scrape something out. It made me cringe as I felt blunt nails scrape deep inside me against my walls, and my body naturally clenched, as if I was trying to push him out. However, he did pull his fingers out, and I felt the cum that was previously injected into me gush out of my hole.My pussy was soon filled with another cock, and I felt three wet and sticky fingers press against my anus, and two of them roughly forced themselves in, only to soon be accompanied by a third finger. He stretched my ass far too wide far too quick and it caused me to gasp as I was fucked in both of ny entrances.I was fine with all of this, until I caught sight of the door. Miheal was making his way out of the room. He was also fully clothed, he didn't seem to be affected at all by this. And my heart sank, quickly blurted out a whiny, “Where are you going??” and flashed a pitiful expression. This was the first time I’d felt any negative emotion since I’d been here, and I panicked.The strawberry blonde man glanced back at me with disdain. A disdain that I recognized. A disdain I saw in Miko. In Haze. In Akari. In everyone. All this, and he doesn’t want me. Miheal gutted me just to let these men rearrange my insides. How cruel. I suppose I had to earn it. I watched him walk out of the room, leaving me to be ravaged by these beastly men, and I took it. Because I said I would. I said I would take it, maybe if I do I’ll earn him. If I take all of this I’ll earn a reciprocated desire. I’ll earn something. Someone.