A/N: Y/N, the queen of 'it seemed like a good idea at the time'
TW: self harm ideation
(unedited)
Masky drove on past masses of orange leaves, dying vegetation becoming thicker the more twists and turns he took into the bordering forest. Though it was broad daylight, the outskirts grew darker the further into the woods you went. Several times, he and the mystery man behind you got into fiery altercations. Normally, men being immature and yelling may not have frightened you; but these two were fucking feral. You would've been counting the seconds until you arrived at your unknown destination, but you had a feeling that there was far worse than just verbal harassment waiting for you on the other end of this ride.
You'd given up on escaping from the car, at least not as long as you were being restrained. Two against one, and you knew either of them could chuck you across a football field without batting an eye. So, your thoughts turned to Brian. You hoped he'd know where you were being taken, hoped he'd bother to come and get you. But it was up in the air; maybe he'd decide that you weren't worth the effort after all. Maybe he thought you were a lost cause - from the way Masky and the other man had been taunting you, they seemed to be assuming that you were being driven to your death. You had an awful sinking feeling that you were going to be taken to their boss, one way or another.
By the time you arrived, things were certainly looking dire in your head. You knew Masky had the same regenerative... talent... that Brian had - you'd seen the dude get shot and pick himself up in no time. You'd be willing to bet that they all did. So far you'd encountered four of these people, and you had no idea if there were more. You didn't feel comfortable piping up to ask right about now. One thing was for certain; you weren't going to fight your way out.
Never let yourself be taken to a second location - and yet here you were. You supposed this counted as your first time being kidnapped - actually kidnapped. And as you stared forlornly at the abandoned building out the tinted window of the parked vehicle, a knife to your throat, you thought it was a wonder that you'd ever thought of Brian as being cruel.
The ramshackle warehouse was miles from the last one you'd seen on the road, you supposed it was far enough to not even need a city postcode, or be high on the priority list for demolition. It was in awful condition, the outside practically a junkyard. The warehouse itself was composed of naked industrial concrete. Walls were missing in places, and scaffold was exposed. For whatever reason, it had never even finished being built before it became a wreckage. You wondered what had happened here.
There were signs of life here and there, you observed. Cannisters of gasoline lay around the place, dangerously exposed. A power line that appeared to be in working order. The driveway wasn't horribly overgrown, though the condition of all of the trees and vegetation was horrible. Clearly, there were no avid gardeners inhabiting the place.
More disturbing still were the sounds. As Masky, now fully decked out in his familiar white mask, pulled you roughly from your seat, you heard voices coming from inside. Someone was yelling. A woman was wailing. Whoever they were, they sounded like they were being utterly tortured. You wanted to clamp your hands over your ears to block out the morbid screeching, yet Masky twisted your hands behind your back with painful force.
The thunk of a car door behind you. Before Masky could start herding you towards the warehouse entrance, someone entered your vision. Tall, with dark hair and sickly skin, hand loosely gripping the knife that was peppered with your blood. The most horrifying detail about the man's appearance, though, was his disfigured face. Burnt skin and a smile showing his full rows of yellowed teeth, carved into his skin.
"Welcome to our luxury mansion, sweetheart. Five stars!" You gulped as he spoke, watching the way his maw opened and clacked shut. His eyes were jacked up, too, serpent-like and missing both eyelids. Worse still was the look they held, the same one you'd seen in Harry's before he died - bloodlust.
You gulped as the man came way too close, grinning down at you. He hooked his knife under your chin as you fruitlessly tried to push yourself away from him, yet Masky's form behind you offered no escape. The disfigured man tilted your head up towards him, and you screwed your eyes shut. The scent of blood and sweat was overwhelming as you felt his rough lips on your cheek, a kiss with an obnoxiously croaky 'MUAH!'.
Masky interjected as you whimpered, pulling you away from the other stinky man with a commanding snarl. "Fuck off now, Jeff. Go tell the boss she's here."
You didn't open your eyes again until you heard the crunching of leaves, watched the horrifying man - Jeff - begin his retreat into the warehouse. Just before he disappeared behind the barbed wire fence, you heard him call out, tauntingly; "I'll see you inside, (y/n)!"
As soon as he was gone, Masky started forcing you towards the entrance. You could already feel bruises forming where he was manhandling you. The tortured wailing grew louder, echoing off the concrete walls as you were forced over the threshold. You shuddered as you realised they were coming from a dark, dirty stairwell - a basement of some sort. You could only pray that that wasn't where you were being taken.
Thank God, Masky didn't begin to push you down the dingy stairs. Instead, he lead you further into the vast room. Stained, dirty concrete walls that could've done with a good power wash, and floors to match. Industrial light bulbs hung precariously from wires, light dim and sparing. There were no windows, you couldn't see much beyond the center of the room. There were solid metal doors here and there, signs on them that would once have told of what was behind each - though they were now unreadable. And all over the walls and floors, etched in every mouldy pillar, were circles with crosses scratched through the center.
Masky pushed you all the way to the end of the room, into a shadowy patch unreached by the pale light. The floor was wet here, the sound of dripping from a leaky roof. You were shoved through an open door before you could catch your balance or grip onto the doorway, falling clumsily to the damp ground. Your palms screamed as they caught your weight in the nick of time, saving you a broken nose.
Masky's outline loomed above you in the dimness of the doorway. He'd picked up his crowbar behind your back at some point on the way, the thing clean of blood, unlike the last time you saw it. He hooked it on the doorknob now, pulling the door half closed. You contemplated making a mad dash for the only exit before it slammed shut, but you doubted you could outrun him; not again, anyway. You'd have to be sneakier than that.
You gave the man a withering glare as he pulled the door closed with a boom, not dropping your gaze from the metal until you heard his heavy footfalls retreat. Then, you forced yourself to stand. You were now fully engulfed in darkness. You tried the doorknob as your first course of action and, surprise surprise, it didn't budge. You were stuck in here, with nothing to do but listen and think.
And think you did. You didn't exactly know why you were here; you didn't know the motives of the big bad demon thing. This warehouse appeared to be the home of Jeff and Masky, and others from the yelling and screaming that was now muffled by your tiny concrete enclosure. A home base, you supposed. You took a moment to mull over details, analyse them, as you so often did. It kept you within some semblance of sanity.
The last time you'd seen Masky, he had tried to kill you. He almost succeeded. Yet this time, he kidnapped you instead and made no moves to harm you - he made it sound instead like you were wanted here for some ulterior reason. The only reason you could think of was that now, you were infected with The Sickness - you could feel its tepid static constantly. You were wanted by it, for some reason, and so Masky couldn't hurt you to get to Brian. There was still the daunting prospect of becoming one of them. Masky seemed to think that was unlikely, though - 'we're not allowed to kill her 'til later'.
Brian. Your heart felt heavy as you thought of him, the out of character exchange between him and Jeff. Well - out of character for how you saw him. But his words were nagging at you, they really were. I'll poke your eyes out - juvenile, unclever. Not something the Brian you knew would say. It was a long shot, yet you couldn't ignore the foolishly hopeful possibility that maybe, just maybe, there was a deeper meaning in what he said. Or perhaps, you were just going nuts as you replayed the words of his voice changer in your head.
If it was a hint, he meant for you to find EJ. It was the only reasonable answer, and Brian seemed to trust the man. You got a feeling that EJ was one of Brain's only comrades that he didn't have an active dislike for, from the way he spoke.
It was nuts, a complete stab in the dark, but your mind was deteriorating so rapidly with the ebbs of the static that you couldn't think of a better solution. You were clinging to a desperate hope that Brian was looking out for you, leaving hints for you to follow, to keep you alive in here. It was a hope that would hurt you badly if you were wrong, but you were going to have faith in him. What did you have to lose, now, anyway?
Find EJ. Easier said than done, when blind and imprisoned, without a phone. You could try calling out - but even if the man with the eyeless mask was in the building, the chances of being heard were slim. Think, (y/n) think.
The only thing you really knew about EJ was that he was scary as shit, and effectively, the doctor of the murder cult. If there was any sort of infirmary around here, makeshift or otherwise, that would be the place to look. The only problem was that to end up in an infirmary, one had to be physically injured.
Your first thought, fueled by panic and desperation, was to hurt yourself. Bang your head against the wall, gauge an eye out, anything to warrant being taken to a medic. You stopped yourself short, though; to be moved from this room to another in that state, someone would have to come get you. And you were in here all alone. Injuring yourself would do you no good unless someone was around to carry you out of this godforsaken room.
That was, if they didn't just leave you to suffer. You didn't know if it wanted you in good condition, since you didn't know what you were wanted for. A broken leg, a concussion, those things might not do the trick. That left you with a very morbid thought; whatever injury you incurred, it would need to be something that made you lose a lot of blood. Put the metaphorical pressure on, force them to move you against the clock. And from there, you'd just have to hope you got saved in time.
You needed to provoke one of them.
You didn't want to do it, not in the least. But you wanted to be anywhere but here, in this damp suffocating shithole, claustrophobia making your heart beat sickeningly in your throat. And so, you began to pound on the door with all your force, hoping to annoy someone on the outside enough to make them open it.
Minutes passed, nobody came. You were beginning to give up, until you heard the muffled sound of an annoyed groan. It was working.
You pounded your fists on the door harder, adding a kick here and there. You were fueled by fear and fucking deranged, you could go at this all day. You had a dodgy-ass, dangerous-as-fuck plan, and nobody could take that from you. They'd have to kill you first. Which was a possibility.
Finally, the door swung open on you. So suddenly, that it thunked you in the side of the head. You went staggering back, hand flying to your hair as you felt sticky blood begin to trickle from your scalp. Collateral damage.
Jeff stormed into the room, knife in hand. His pupils dilated, sneer on his carved up lips. "Shut the fuck up!" Angry as all hell - exactly what you were hoping for.
In a feral frenzy, you charged at him. Deranged, clumsy, and full of desperation. Hoping to run right-the-fuck into his knife, delusional and not caring, in the moment, if you lived or died.
You missed the knife, to your own rage. Yet the man, who clearly got off on the fear of others, wasn't expecting to take your force. He went flailing to the ground with a startled yell, before quickly recovering and pinning you under him.
As the stinky man-child loomed over you with unblinking eyes, his expression changed from one of rage to one of delight. He began to cackle, fingernails digging painfully into your wrists, drawing blood. No! This wasn't what you wanted!
"You've changed your tune!" Jeff grinned down at you, flecks of his spit splattering on your already dirtied skin. "What happened to the whimpering and crying little bitch, huh?"
You growled, thrashing against him. Just stab me already, fucker.
"Ooh-hoo-hoo." He tilted his head at you, tongue darting out to lick his scraggly lips. "I like it, I like it." His eyes darted all over your face, taking you in as you continued to thrash and snarl. As his eyes moved slimily up from your lips to meet your gaze, he began to laugh hysterically. "Oh, I get it! You're losing your marbles!"
You were, but you didn't like him saying so. Especially not while he had the gall to eye you up like you were his next meal. You had to hit him where it hurt, take a random guess at anything that would make him angry enough to turn the knife in his hand on you. He was certainly unstable enough for it, you just needed to say something rude enough. Or, failing that, you'd steal the weapon and do the fucking job yourself.
You hacked a gob of spit onto his pasty fucking face, you were going to take a cheap shot at his appearance. It was awful of you, but you didn't fucking care. "How'd you get those scars, huh, virgin bitch? Suck too hard on a dick?"
Definitely not the world's most finely crafted insult; it made no sense. You were just bargaining off the combo of insulting a man's appearance and insinuating that he was a virgin in the same breath. You were half expecting him to laugh - for some fucking reason, though, it worked.
Jeff growled at you, and all of a sudden, a blade was being held to your cheek. "You want some of your fucking own, huh, whore?"
This wasn't working out for you. You were hoping he'd stab you in the arm or something, but your poor planning now had you about to have your face carved open, much like you'd done to Elijah; an injury that wouldn't do the damage you were craving, yet would still leave you screaming and scarred.
Just as Jeff's knife began to drag agonisingly along the flesh of your cheek, footsteps sounded. Growing closer, echoing soggily off the walls.
"Hey!"