✧ 28 ✧
In the middle of this vast darkness, that elevator stared at Ilya with a black void resembling an open mouth, willing to swallow him whole. Blood stained its buttons. The light was off on its display panel. The air was thicker around it.
Everything about that elevator was eerie. However, it would take more than a dark hall to scare Ilya away. After all he'd been through, nothing would stop him from using that elevator.
His smile grew wider. Eyes twinkled when the flashlight shone on the way to freedom. The chuckle he let out intertwined with hidden sobs of solace.
In a quiet breath, he spoke, "Thank God."
Happy tears flowed down his cheeks. He had doubted Beast's words about the other way out, but now he knew he was telling the truth. The way out was right before his eyes.
But would Beast let him go that easily? Ilya wasn't planning on waiting around to find out.
Letting go of the wall he used for balancing his weary body, Ilya stepped towards the exit. His legs faltered, his breathing got faster, and his limbs started to go numb, but Ilya kept going. The sickness was prominent in his once vibrant face, now pale and damp with sweat and blood.
Nonetheless, he kept going, fueled by the will to survive.
Nearly there, Ilya quickened his footsteps. However, the nearer he got, the thicker the atmosphere, the fouler the smell. A soul tormented beyond human grasp did not focus on anything but freedom.
Ilya ran the remaining steps, ignoring the unsettling change in the hall.
He reached the elevator in one piece, with no interruptions, no new terror. It seemed too good to be true. The eager boy grabbed the sides of the metal door and peeked down the shaft.
The moment the smell hit his nose, Ilya instantly hurled. He let go of the elevator doors and got on his knees, vomiting on the floor.
That weird awful stench. It was a hundred times worse than Martha's.
Ilya continued retching and throwing up until the contents of his stomach scraped his throat. When his stomach was finally empty, yellow acids burned and poured out of his mouth. Then when he was all out of it, he started dry heaving and crawling as far away from that awful awful smell.
He wiped his mouth and sat down, leaning against a wall stained with hand marks of other people before him who tried to escape.
His throat was too dry for him to even breathe.
Coughs and heaves only made things worse.
He closed his mouth and tried to breathe through his nose.
He swallowed but no saliva was being produced.
His body was dehydrated and exhausted. His tired eyes bulged behind dark circles, and the whites of them turned velvety with the lack of fluids in his system. His face turned from pale to sickly yellow. Eyes stung and burned. Chapped lips. Harsh scratchy breaths that hurt to even breathe.
Being alive at this point meant pain and nothing but pain.
Every breath he took felt like knives shredding his throat. He tried swallowing, craved the wetness to reach his airway, to ease the pain, but nothing happened. His mouth was so dry that even his tongue felt sticky against his cheeks.
Water. Ilya licked his lips, dreaming of water touching them. I need water.
He closed his eyes and focused on breathing through his nose until the heaving stopped. But then came the sweating and the shaking... and Ilya knew what it meant.
He checked his wrist device and saw that the number had gone down to 72.
It won't be long now.
He slumped his arm down and frowned before closing his eyes. The corners of his mouth drew downward. His eyes pressed shut, wrinkling his heavy eyelids with misery and despair. Both arms lay lifeless on his sides. Droplets of tears gathered on his thick lashes like dews on leaves.
And then he wept, letting the tears escape from their confinement in heavy flows. Ilya sniffled and practiced breathing, trying to stop the tears from leaving his eyes, to conserve whatever fluids were left in his crumbling body, but the more he fought them, the more they fought back.
When nothing worked, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hands and whimpered.
Then he felt hot breaths on his face.
Ilya opened his eyes and saw Beast, grinning. Yellow eyes with black pupils in an oval vertical shape were staring into his soul, and very frizzy brown hair covered most of Beast's semi-human face.
Ilya jerked his arms up to hide his face and yelped, "Jesus!"
"There you are!" Beast peeked into his face. "Looks like I win again. Now, run."
"Please, stop." Ilya dropped his hands to his lap and cried, "I'm so tired."
The boy's eyes were downcast, heavy with hopelessness and sorrow. But when he heard Beast's angry breaths coming out like growls, Ilya slowly looked up. His sad green eyes glistened with what remained of his tears.
Beast was leaning on one knee, watching the boy with gritted teeth.
With a voice so throaty and deep that vibrated through the floors, he pressed, "I. Said. Run."
Ilya was surprisingly calm. Maybe he felt that the end was near. There was no point in attempting to escape anymore. Even though Beast didn't lie about the second exit, he didn't exactly tell the whole truth either.
Whatever was in that elevator shaft reeked of death.
Ilya tried to comply with Beast's order and stand up, but the moment his lower body left the ground he fell back down. Cold droplets of sweat covered his face and exposed chest. Tired eyes closed in a miserable expression.
"I can't," he whined.
"YES YOU CAN, OR ELSE."
Beast yelled in Ilya's face, showering the poor boy with spits.
When Beast was done yelling, Ilya opened his eyes so calmly.
He looked Beast in the eye, and simply said, "No."
With wide crazy eyes, Beast came closer to the boy's face and said, "You dare to say no to me again? When I tell you to run, you run."
Beast's face didn't scare Ilya anymore. All these scare tactics were getting old. Ilya had enough of it. No more running around. Even if it meant his death, he welcomed it. Death sounded better than whatever Beast was doing to him all this time.
Ilya held his chin up high and repeated, "No. I'm done playing your game."
The beast growled. The cold stare in the boy's eyes made Beast angrier. Suddenly, he squeezed the boy's wrist and pulled him just enough to make his back leave the comfort of the wall he was leaning on. Their faces drew so close to each other that his furious breaths fanned Ilya's face.
His grip got tighter on the boy's small wrist.
He said with a threatening low voice, "You know that I can snap your arm like a twig?"
Ilya tried to calmly breathe through his fear, then said, "I know."
Beast's face contracted and turned red.
"I'm gonna break it."
Ilya winced and lowered his head from the painful grip. He whimpered softly, trying to keep his brave mask on for a little longer.
"WHAT'S THE POINT?" Ilya snapped at Beast, glaring with eyes full of hate. "I'm gonna die here anyway. You're planning to eat me once you're hungry again. So, fuck you! I'm done!"
His bravery mask fell when tears formed in his eyes. They started flowing down his cheeks, but he quickly wiped them and stared back at Beast's eyes. He wanted to show his contempt towards him, but the glare softened, eyebrows slated down, and sadness took over.
Life was so unfair; for leaving him this miserable and tired; to be tortured for being a good son, an even better stepson; to be punished for being kind and thoughtful.
From losing his mom to living with a drunk stepdad, Ilya was so unlucky, and that thought finally broke him.
What kind of curse was unleashed upon him?
The innocent boy crumbled in front of a cold-blooded monster.
Beast whispered, withholding his temper, "Either I kill you quickly if you played my game, or I snap every bone in your body—" he squeezed Ilya's arm harder, forcing a cry of pain out of him "—and then kill you. Your choice."