Haunting 4

[It’s @whumptober2019 again, and another alt prompt, bound. Read in order.]

When Ellis woke, he was alone. Silence. Pitch black. A body that wouldn’t move. All he knew was that he was somewhere warm, and he was upright, and the air tasted like cigarettes.

Something must have shown on his face, because an alien thought spoke. Good morning, pet.

Ellis heard a whimper, and realised it had been him. He hadn’t heard it in his own ears, but through the connection to the – voice, the man who – who was definitely, absolutely real, now.

The man who had to be sitting right next to him, for Ellis to be able to hear his own laboured breathing.

There was a touch on his face, and Ellis felt it being lifted. You’ll be weak for a little while, the man said. I hope you’ll forgive me. You’re very cute like this.

His head was still too thick for him to parse that. How could he be cute? He couldn’t even move.

Do you want to see?

Ellis didn’t, couldn’t reply, but suddenly he saw. Images in his head, clearer than any thought he’d ever had. Ellis recognised that he was looking down on himself, slumped limply in a chair, still wearing the jumper and jeans from earlier, familiar, but – but blindfolded, gagged, ankles tied to the chair legs with thick twine, wrists bound to the chair’s arms, and the faint glimpse of earplugs too as the hand on his chin tilted his head to the side. He was too numb to have figured this out himself, and that scared him. The fact that he couldn’t feel his heart thumping or his breathing speeding up in fear scared him too. It was as if he only existed in this projection in his own mind, in the eyes of his captor.

So cute, the man repeated fondly. Too dazed to move, too weak to fight. Don’t worry, I won’t keep you tied up like this for long. Just until I know you can be good for me.

What was good? What did he want, so that he’d let Ellis go? The vision moved, the man gently releasing his chin and letting it fall back down again. Then, a hand raked through his hair, smoothing it back. He felt that. He felt the hand, the light fingers. Distantly, Ellis knew he was being petted, and it sickened him. He wasn’t an animal to be tamed, he was a person. He wanted to be out of here. He wanted Nic.

I have some errands to attend to. I’ll be back later to check on you. Don’t hurt anyone while I’m gone.

As suddenly as it had appeared, the image in Ellis’s head vanished. There was one more stroke of his scalp, and then that vanished too. There was no noise, either. He was alone.

He was alone for what felt like days.

Maybe the man came, looked him over, went again. Maybe he didn’t. Ellis had no way of knowing. The lack of movement made his body ache and the bindings wore at his skin with every twitch he made to try and relieve the feeling. With no water and no food, the horrible weakness in his body didn’t abate either, and his head never fully settled. He tried to speak, but had no way of knowing if he did, because he couldn’t hear. Even the smell of cigarettes had faded when the man had left.

Don’t hurt anyone? How could he? He was alone. So alone, and so tired. He tried to keep the image of home in his head, of Nic, of safety, but it paled in comparison to the image he’d seen of himself at this man’s mercy. Nic’s voice was hazy and far away, when the man’s was so clear even now in his memory, or real, in the dark. Adorable. Too weak to fight. Be good for me.

Nothing else. His body faded out of existence. His senses were useless. Ellis floated, semi-conscious, through the hours, as if sinking through a black, bottomless sea.