Hellbound Heart

When the secret door silently and seamlessly closed behind them, Elle fought to not let the fear get through to her. She steeled herself and determinedly followed after him as they walked further in.

Her mind was reeling now with all the thoughts of what will happen next from here on... if she should attack him now with the shears while he seemed to be leaving his back open for her to...

Clenching her fists, Elle secretly let out a deep breath. She told herself that there was no way she would be able to bring this man down so easily. There was no way this dangerous man would foolishly give her such an obvious opening for her to attack. Perhaps, this was him testing her to reveal if she had hidden a weapon on her.

'Right... not yet...' she whispered in her mind. 'There will be a much better chance later.'

To Elle's surprise, Elijah entered the bright path instead of the dim one that would lead them to where Sebastian was held captive.

Halting, Elle looked at the other path. Her expression now flashing with her intensifying suspicion.

"Over here first, Sunshine." Elijah's voice echoed in the silence, calling for her to follow after him to the other path.

"But... that's not –" Elle objected, her whole person resisting moving further away from where she remembered Sebastian was being kept.

"I need to show you something else first before we go back that way." He cut her off. "Now be a good girl and just obey."

Though Elle was extremely reluctant, she could do nothing else but move her feet in the direction that Elijah was taking her towards. She knew that disobeying him in a situation like this would only have her ending up in a worse situation for her. And she could not imagine how much worse it would be for Sebastian. Thus, even if her feet felt like lead, she still forced them to move in the opposite direction that she wanted to go.

The other path seemed to go much deeper than the other. And as they reached further, Elle's stomach began to twist up in knots. This feeling... her gut told her that there was something bad waiting for her at the end of this path. Run... she should run... now...!!

But where? How? Not to mention that there was no way on earth that she could outrun Elijah.

Right. She should scream. Perhaps her voice would wake Sebastian up! He should still be able to hear her all the way from here, right?

A hand was suddenly clamped tightly over her mouth before she could even draw in a breath to scream. That action effectively stopped her from making any sounds at all.

"Shh... Don't. I don't recommend that you wake Sebastian up right now. Not just yet, Sunshine." Elijah whispered behind her. It seemed like he had moved first with vampiric speed and reached her before she could even execute what she had in mind. "And forgive me, but this will be a little painful. Don't worry, it will only be brief."

Elle's body began to feel strange.

As her wide eyes looked ahead, she finally realized the strange smoke lingering around them. It looked weirdly red.

And now her vision was starting to go reddish too. Lord... no... what was going on?

She then felt herself being lifted and her entire being protested. But her body was weirdly feeling so light. Her mind was also... lord... she knew this feeling...

It was almost the same feeling that she experienced during her birthday party. That floating feeling. Only this time, it was worse. She felt like she was in a paralytic nightmare.

Her body did not seem to be under her control anymore. It was as though someone else was controlling her limbs.

Soon, her vision went completely red. Oh lord... had she passed out? This cannot be happening! Please...

She could no longer even tell if Elijah was still holding her. Or if she was even awake. Her heart began to feel achingly heavy. It was beating so loud in her ears. Too loud, that it was the only thing she was hearing at the moment.

And then something sharp seemed to have struck her. Or more like pierced her soul. Breaking it apart. Her mouth naturally fell open and she screamed. But she did not know if she was even making a sound or if she was just screaming in her head.

The pain was so severe that she feared it would shatter her mind and soul itself.

However, there was nothing she could do but scream endlessly as she could not even move her limbs to clutch her hands over her chest. If she could, she might have clawed at her own skin to stop the pain.

And then everything suddenly went dark.

Now she felt like she was free falling. The pain had stopped. But the hollow feeling was indescribable. It was something that she could not even put into words no matter how she tried.

When the falling feeling stopped, Elle felt like she was stuck in the deepest part of the ocean. Where not even a speck of light could reach.

It was just dark. Too dark. Even with her eyes open, she could not see anything. As though she had gone blind.

She tried to keep herself calm and assess what was going on.

This did not seem to be a nightmare. She felt as though her body was moving but... it was not her who was controlling it anymore.

It was like... someone had gotten control of her body. In the darkness, she felt like her hands and feet were moving. She seemed to be doing something on her hair.

Elle began to fight the movement, to take back the control of her own limbs. But after struggling for a long while, nothing had worked. What... was going on?!

...

Behind the thick bars, the sound of metals echoed in the thick silence. Sebastian had finally made a movement.

His eyes slowly opened and he immediately frowned hard at the extremely jarring headache that welcomed him awake. But he gritted his teeth, ignored the ache and rose, only to realize that there were chains holding him down.

Sebastian's eyes widened as he finally realized the situation he was in.

But his shock at that moment was nothing compared to what he saw next.

A woman... his vision that was still reddish could not see her fully, but there was one thing that was so vivid in his eyes. And that was... the woman right there... approaching his cell, had long silver hair.