Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's a quiet night.

You're in the forest, with your parents. You're on a camping trip with them, because they thought it'd be good for everybody to go experience nature and get away from home life for once. You have to agree that it is pretty outside, and it all makes you happy, the smell of the trees, the feel of the grass. Your 4th birthday has just occurred, around a week ago. Your mom got you a new set of toy ponies to play with. It excited you, because ponies have always been your favorite animal. You hope to ride a horse one day, it's your biggest wish.

You're helping your parents set up the big tent for everybody to sleep in. It's bright orange, a color you aren't really fond of, but your dad says it's one of his favorites. You pitch it down, and then you gather around the fire to make some s'mores. You stick your marshmallow onto a stick, and hold it above the fire to get it just to the right crisp. Once you finish, you place it in between a piece of chocolate and two graham crackers. You then bite into it. The sticky marshmallow gets all over your lips, as well as some chocolate. You giggle, because you think its funny, and so does your mom, who then hands you a paper towel to clean it all up with.

After a while, all the fun has died down. It's dark and late, though you're not sure what time since you're in the woods. Mom tells you it's bedtime, so you hurry into your tent where your sleeping bag resides. She tucks you in, kisses your forehead, and wishes you a goodnight. You fall asleep almost instantly, all the activities you did during the day taking a toll on you.

-

You don't wake up where you were. You're not sure where you are, who you're with, and everything in your body hurts. The first thing you notice is the bright, bright lights, and how white the room is, resembling that of a bathroom. There's a cabinet as well as a camera in the corner, and you're lying on a bed with lacy sheets. Before you can register anything else, a tall man walks in the room. You think he looks like a twig because of how tall and thin he is. He has white hair, but not like an old person. It's long and even a little poofy.

He doesn't say anything to you at first, he just comes behind you and touches your long, blonde hair gently. He comments on it, and says how much he loves it, how he loves how golden it is, that it symbolizes your purity, and how ripe you are. He talks about how you're going to be fine, how this is all just a fun little game. He says it's going to benefit you, make you strong, make you bear many fruits. You don't really understand what he's saying because all of these words are too big for you. His tone however, is just like your mothers, so you trust him. He reaches out his hand to you, helping you off the bed. When you stand up, you notice it's stained with red from where you were lying. Maybe that's why your body hurt, red also comes out whenever you accidentally cut your finger with the scissors that mom was teaching you to use. She told you that it was just an ouchie, that a bandaid would fix it. The man doesn't say this, but it's okay, because maybe he didn't notice.

He brings you to a lightly lit bathroom, and turns the light on. You're standing in front of a mirror, and you see your reflection. Your hair is slightly tangled, and there's some tiny red splotches in it. The man cups your chin from underneath and tilts it up. He whispers to you about how pretty you are, how good your assets will be in the future, how much money you'll make him. He tells you that you're one of his most prized possessions, and that you're valuable and special. You think this means something good, even though you don't understand most of it. You only understand pretty, and you think of how you used to see mom watch on TV, the girls in the beauty contests being told they're pretty. That made the girls smile, so that must mean something good.

The man pats your back and touches your hips gently. He tells you he needs to let you rest, because he has fun planned tomorrow. You nod, eager for it, because you think it will make you feel good just like the girls on the TV. He grips your hand and brings you back to the bright white room. He tucks you into the lacy bed, still stained with the red. He kisses your forehead and touches your leg, and tells you you need to rest well. You smile, and he exits the room, turning the light off. It's a very dark room without the bright light. You wonder where this man came from, perhaps he was a friend of mom or dads. He doesn't seem harmful since he's gentle like mom, and he speaks smartly, just how dad does.

You start to nod off, fatigue suddenly hitting you like a train.

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You wake up to the sound of the old man's voice again. He shakes you awake, telling you you have to wake up now. You comply, because you’re eager to see what he has in store for you. He tells you he has to put you through a bit of training before the fun starts, because you need to know how the game works. You nod, and he says that he’s going to train you himself. He gently picks you up, and tells you to get on your knees in front of him. You do so, and he takes his pants off slowly. He explains there's a couple ways the game can go, it could happen on the bed, or on the floor. He will teach you the floor version first, since it's easier. He takes off his underwear, and he tells you to open your mouth, which you do. You close your eyes, since looking up has the light directly in your eyes, which hurts them. Something bitter hits your mouth, it has a slightly sweet tang to it too. You want to spit it out because you don't like how sticky it feels in your mouth, but the man tells you to swallow because it's polite. He’s also groaning a lot, which makes you wonder if he messed up, since he sounds like he's in pain.

After you swallow, you ask him if he's okay. He responds and says he's never felt better, that this was a great experience. You reply and inquire if you did a good job, in which he says you did, and rubs your hair and calls you a good girl. He tells you to get up on the bed next, because this part will be a bit harder. You nod, and once you get on, he takes your pants and underwear off. He stops a minute and smiles wide. He tells you once again how valuable you are, and how much better you’ll be in the future. You’re not sure why he's so enthralled by your legs, because everybody has them. Before you can think any further, something goes in between your legs that makes you squeal in pain. You know that's not supposed to happen because games aren't supposed to hurt, but the man tells you the noises are good and that they should happen, because it makes people happy, and you will get better rewards if you do them. You assume he's right, though deep down you know he's not because pain isn't supposed to be a good thing. You wonder if the man isn't what he seems to be, but mom told you to always listen to the adults. The man starts to groan again, and then he pulls whatever was in you out, and brings it to your mouth, and fills you up with that weird liquid again. He tells you that if the people who play the game with you don't go to your mouth when you're on the bed and just stay in between your legs, you will get a punishment. You don’t want that to happen, so you make sure to take note of this.

After it all, he says that you did good for your first time, that you'll start actually playing the game tomorrow. You nod again, and he tells you that some of the people you play the game with won't be as fair as he was, but that he’ll try to stop them if they aren't fair. By now, you’ve gotten hit with a random wave of fatigue, and he smiles noticing that. He tucks you back into the bed, not bothering to dress you again, and his smile is almost crooked and off putting, but you don’t register much more after that. You drift away into sleep once again.

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It’s been a few days since you’ve started playing the game, and your body aches. You don't trust the man much anymore, because everything hurts, even your brain. You started bleeding in between your legs a lot, there are scratch marks all over your arms and your back, and the man doesn't care. He doesn't do anything but feed you weird concoctions he makes, and call you a good girl. He's also started calling you something else, his dirty little slut. He says the men will say this a lot, which you have heard from them, along with other names like cute little whore and princess. You wonder if you’ll escape this, because you don't like it now and you don't think you ever will. You ask the man if you'll see your mom and dad again, and he says that he's been talking to them and they're okay with all of this. You think he's lying because you know your parents wouldn't let you get hurt like this.

A few days pass by, when another man walks in. the same routine as always, you’re either told to get on your knees, or head to your bed. This time, it's on the bed. You get in position as always. It goes the same, but this man doesn't pull out when the liquid comes out. You tell him he needs to, though you're not very articulate since it hurts so bad, so it comes out as little whimpers. He just groans more, and you look over at your teacher, the man who took you in, for help. He doesn't care, and he just keeps the camera rolling. You scream after the guy yanks out of you. Your face is flushed and you’re in the worst pain you’ve ever felt. The man hands your mentor some money and then leaves.

After your mentor stops recording, he comes over to you, but he isn't proud. He looks upset. He grabs your arm and throws you onto the floor and steps on you. He yells at you about how you should've made the man pull out, how it's going to have big consequences. You scream and kick under him, trying to explain how you did. The man, still fed up, picks you up and grabs a knife from his pocket. He cuts off a chunk of your hair, and you scream. Then, he cuts an ugly chunk of flesh out of your leg, and your screams pierce the room. He tells you how you're being a little bitchy whore, how you're a dumb slut and should shut your mouth. You can't, because you continue to whimper because of the pain you're in. He sighs, and leaves the room for a minute, leaving you and your strange red liquid there. You've recognized it as blood, since you've heard some of the men that pay your mentor call it that before.

The room smells rancid, and you wince because of the pain again. The man comes back with rope, duct tape, and bandages. He hurriedly ties bandages around your bleeding leg. They're tight, and they sting. He then forcefully yanks your chin up, and slaps duct tape across your mouth. You try to scream, but it just comes out muffled. He then drags you to stand up, and takes you to the other side of the room. He shoves you against the wall, and ties your hands and legs up. He tells you this is your punishment, that you have to stay like this until tomorrow. He tells you you need to cooperate with this, because if you're fussy again during the punishment, he says he will get someone to play the game with you in this state. You definitely don't want that, so you finally shut your mouth. He leaves again, telling you to rest up with a solid face.

You sit there and think for a while. You wonder if it'll ever be over. You wonder what day it is. You wonder where your parents are. You wonder if your parents miss you. You wonder if one day you’ll just stop wondering about it all completely. You yawn because you’re fatigued again, because you're tired of it all, because you just want it to stop.

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It's been a few years now. You've gotten taller, smarter, and as your mentor says, more valuable. You’re not sure exactly how old, but if you had to guess, you'd say around 13. Nothing has let up, in fact, it's only gotten worse. Now that you’re more developed, you get more clients. You get around 20 a day. They always do similar things, call you names, grope you, tell you how perfect you are, how they love your eyes and hair. You’re used to it by now, and it doesn't physically hurt anymore. You haven’t been punished since that day a few years ago, and you're happy about that because you know the punishments get worse as you get older. You’ve grown to envy the clients you have. They lead more important lives than you, bigger and better ones. They aren’t being used as a sexual pleasure creature. They’re normal. They’re not like you. You wonder what they have that you don’t. Maybe it's what you have that they don't. You don't find any of your clients attractive, they all look similar in some ways if anything. They're all much older than you. You wonder how these people feel and if they've felt things you haven't. Since you're older, you want nothing more than to be free and learn about the world. You feel like it's your fault, for landing yourself here, and you wish you were ugly. You wish you weren't a dirty slut, a stupid whore. It's truly nobody else's fault but yours, isn't it?

You’ve grown to be a tall, thin person just like your mentor. He tells you you look malnourished, and that word doesn't sound good, but he likes it, and so do the clients. They compliment you on how tiny and frail you are, and some of them even say how they wish to break you. You wonder if they mean your bones or something else. You don’t get fed a lot. You’ve been hungry lately, often reflecting on that smore you had the day before it all went to shit.

You want nothing more than to be free. It's your only wish. Day after day, client after client, its all you think about. You think of ways you could gain freedom, if there's a chance of escaping this place, or if you'll find freedom in death. You think about acting up so you could get killed, but you doubt your mentor would be that merciful. Escape, escape, escape, your brain repeats itself.

A few days go by, and you've started to gain a little freedom. When your mentor is sleeping, you sneak out of your room to go explore the rest of the place, since all you've ever known of it was just the bathroom and your room. You stumble into a cozy looking room with a big couch, and a big black screen in front of it. You sit down, looking at the coffee table. There’s another screen on there, a laptop, if you remember correctly. You remember your dad having one when you were young. You open it up. On the screen, you're greeted with what you assume your mentor was last doing. Book shopping. Interesting. You look at some of the books on the screen. You can't read very well since you didn't learn much before you went here, but some of the words make sense. You sound out words you know, and look up books on them. You look up some phrases: murder, real murder, sexual pain. None really brought you to anything that would help you. You sighed, knowing you'd have to figure this out on your own. You think of the materials your mentor has, rope, a knife, duct tape. Could you use any of these to your advantage? You know if you kill him, then you’ll be free. You just don't know how to do that. Maybe you could stab him in the face, you think that would work.

You wait a few days to execute your plan. During those days, you’ve used that laptop more when he was sleeping. You’ve learned about various things, like poetry, which you’ve grown fond of. You’ve come up with poems about your own life in your head, which keeps your thoughts busy and occupied, and yourself grounded. You had also looked up various things about murder, which lead you to sites with real murder videos on them. You’d grown fond of those because you liked the various unique ways the murders happened. You ached for the sight of blood, it held you over just thinking about it, even when you were at your limit. You’d go on those sites every night, finding more and more. It was also useful because it taught you other ways to harm your mentor.

After you exit a video of a beheading, you know that tonight's the night. You have the knife with you, having hunted for it prior to getting on the laptop. You creep up to your mentor's room. You’ve never been near it, but you can hear his snoring. His door is creaked open, and you're thin enough to squeeze through the gap. You crawl right behind him, opening your knife and dragging it gently across his neck. You then put more pressure on it, practically thrusting it into his jugular. You smile as you see the blood spill out everywhere, how he barely had time to react before going out cold. You know its all over now, and that you can finally experience things.

You are free.

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Your first few days of freedom were a bit confusing. Trying to learn how to fend for yourself was difficult. For food, you cannibalized your mentor's corpse. You don’t think you're supposed to do that, but the taste isn't bad, and it keeps you energized. For sleep, you go to your old bed. For entertainment, sometimes you leave the house. Outside, it's a vast scenery of nothing but woods. Sometimes you even see people there, camping or hiking just like you used to. When you don't want to go outside, you go on your laptop to read some poetry, go on shock sites, or learn about the world itself. You try to let the internet teach you, since you were never properly taught much as a child. Luckily, you've learnt more words, and have expanded your vocabulary. This helps you understand the poetry you read more, and read descriptions and comments on shock sites more fluently.

One night, you go to lurk in the woods again. This time, you see a small family of three camping there. There's a mom, a dad, and a boy that looks to be of your age. He is the first thing you notice, because he sticks out. He has long black hair, like a girl, but a tall lanky build like you do. You can’t see much of his face from this distance, but you’re immediately drawn to him. You like how he looks. You see him sit and talk with his family around a fire. After a while, he goes into his sleeping tent. You want to get closer to him without his parents noticing, so after they go in their tents, you approach his. You don’t want to get too close to startle him, but close enough so you can see his face. Once you get close enough, you can see the dim outline of his face. He wears a peaceful expression, one that you admire, and you think it's cute.

You feel like a creep for thinking like this. You feel like how your old clients felt. Your instincts tell you to take the boy, to make him yours right then and there, and take him back to the house. You would never, though, because you don’t want to turn into who you hated the most. You just lurk there for a few minutes, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. He doesn't look too different from you. You wonder if you have similarities with him, and if you have differences from him.

You start to get drowsy, and you want to lay down. You want to crawl into his tent and sleep right next to him, but you don’t want his parents to be distressed, so you retreat back to your house. When you get back, you grab your laptop and take it to your room. You’re almost ready to sleep, but you hear your stomach grumble. You sigh and grab a knife, walking with annoyance in your steps to your mentors room. It smells rancid, so you spray the bottle of febreeze you had found in the living room a while back. You’ve been cutting chunks of flesh out of his arms for food, so you decide to switch it up. You cut a little cube out of his thigh and eat it, enough to hold you up until the morning. You set the knife down, then retreat back to your room. You get in the sheets and tuck yourself in, placing your laptop on top of your stomach and opening it up. You decide to test your poetry skills for the first time, you want to write a poem about this boy that won’t be leaving your thoughts anytime soon.

Does he know
How important he is
To somebody
Nobody knows?

You think the poem is stupid. It probably is. You shut your laptop, and you let your head hit the pillow.

Chapter Text

It's been a few days. You’ve been continuously stalking this boy, and you’ve also made friends with some people on the shock sites you frequent. There’s a boy named Zach, a boy named Elijah, and a girl named Izzy. You talk to them on the daily, but you’re closest with Zach because you guys share similar interests, like poetry and the videos you like to watch. He also has a weird fascination with blood. You talk to him almost all the time, whenever you’re not writing or stalking, you talk to him. You wonder if he’s as beautiful as the boy you’ve been stalking. He acts the part. Sometimes he sends you songs he recommends that you listen to, and they’re always good. He says that he wants to be a musician one day, and you think he could be. He’s very creative. You want to tell him about the boy you’ve been stalking, but you don’t want to be judged. You don’t know how, but you can sense what you’re doing is wrong. That doesn’t make you want to stop it, though. It gives you all the more reason to continue.

Tonight, you’re stalking the boy again. You see him in his room, it looks like he’s dancing to something. He’s really into it, prancing all about his room. You smile because it seems like he’s happy, and that makes you happy. He’s wearing shorts and a black t-shirt right now. You brought your laptop with you this time, but you keep the light dim so you go unnoticed. You’re sitting in a tree. You check the time. 3:33 AM. You do feel tired, so that explains it. You message Zach again, asking him if he’s still up. He replies and says how he was just dancing.

Strange.

You ask him if he’s tired at all. He says he is a little. You can’t think about anything else other than how he could potentially be the boy you’ve been stalking, but you can’t just ask him “hey, look outside” or “hey, this is crazy but I’ve been stalking you” because what if you’re wrong? Generally, those phrases are weird to say anyways. Instead, you ask a simpler question.

You type out, “Weird question, but how do you feel about stalking?” and praying he doesn’t get weirded out. He responds quickly, saying he honestly thinks it’s cute. What a strange boy. Then, another message. “R u stalkin me or smth?” You turn red. You respond with “Well, maybe.” You look at his window again. He looks out it. You climb down the tree, and approach his window. At first, he jolts, definitely not expecting you, but then he lightens up. He opens up his window to crawl out of it. The wind blows past you two, making it cold.

“God, it’s cold. Is it really you? Lila,” he asks, and you nod. He grins. “This is insane. You’re really pretty - is that too much to say?” He asks, and you shake your head no.

“Don’t worry, dont worry,” you start. “You’re absolutely stunning, actually. The stalking was just me crushing on you if anything,” you mumble. He grins again.

“I mean, I’m flattered, can’t say I think any different of you,” He says. You get red, does he really feel that way?

“Do you wanna come to my place?” You ask. He asks if your parents will mind, and you say they’re on a trip, because you don’t need to dump your whole backstory on him. He nods then, and you take him along. But, you wonder, wouldn’t his parents mind? You push the thought back for now, since you feel like you’re on cloud nine.

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When you arrive at your place, Zach seems confused. For one, he’s already noticed how pale and skinny you are, two, he notices the rancid smell, and three, he notices the emptiness of the whole house. You think to yourself how you should’ve thought before bringing him over, or at least told him some of your past.

“So…this place is…weird,” he says, a bit uneasy now. That strikes something in your chest, because for the first time since your rape, you feel tears stinging your eyes. You thought you had this boy as yours, but now you realize he's probably going to run away in an instant if you don't start spilling out your past. Through shaky breaths and tears threatening to spill, you start rapidly explaining all that’s happened to you.

“Hey, hey, slow down,” he says, growing compassionate. He grabs your hand, leading you to the couch and sitting down with you. He listens as you spill your past out to him, he seems almost pitiful. “God, that’s just…horrible,” he begins, after you finish, “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” he asks, and you ponder on that question. You tell him that you really don’t know.

“Well, thank you for telling me,” he says, and he pulls out a wallet from his pocket. “I wanna get you fixed up. In the morning, we should go shopping.” Shopping…a bit foreign of a word, but you’ve heard it before. You want to experience the world, so you nod profusely. You go to your room and lie down in your bed again, trying to get some rest. Zach comes in and asks you where you want him to sleep, so you just tell him to sleep on the couch. You lie awake at night, thinking about Zach. He’s cool and all, and you like him, but you wonder about his past, why he seemingly has no parents, or at least not ones that care about him, either.

You wake up to Zach shaking you awake, standing on the side of your bed. You’re not exactly sure when and how you fell asleep last night, but you decide to not ponder about that right now. Zach tells you he's ready to take you shopping, but he wants to get you ‘dolled up’ first. You’re not exactly sure what that means, but you trust him, so you let him go ahead. He takes you to the bathroom and starts doing a bunch of random stuff with your hair, and whatever he does ends up making it look good. After, he tells you anything you take interest in or pick up at the mall he’ll buy.

He grabs your hand and the both of you are off. He walks you in the direction of this big building you can almost see in the distance. Once you both get closer, you guys head inside. There are many sections of the building, all for different stores. Zach points to one, which is a clothing store, and says it’d probably be a good idea to start there first. You head in, and you see many pretty clothes on the racks. Before you know it, you have like 5 different outfit sets piled up in your hand. Zach smiles and takes the clothes from you, saying they’ll look marvelous.

Time passes, and he takes you into a few other stores, places with skin & self care products, a few stores to buy some food, and your personal favorite, a fragrance store with many perfumes. You had bought like 6 perfumes. You really hoped you didn’t overwhelm Zach with all the stuff you wanted to buy, but he seemed to have the money and didn’t mind. You wondered if he was rich, to be honest, he did live in a pretty big house. All of the bags were too much for just you to carry, luckily Zach pitched in and helped with them. Once you got back home, you unpacked all of your new clothes, perfumes, and other things. Zach helped you put them away in the bathroom, and you put your clothes away in the closet. You smiled, feeling happy you finally had many new additions to your life after years. Zach was something good for you.