Obsession (Aris Duology #2)

Prologue

Aris used to think of it as a menagerie. Look at the birds squawk and sing; this one has rainbow feathers and a different cry. Here is a tiger, a monkey, a horse; how will they react to this versus that? Take a fish out of water, force a zebra to the bottom of the sea.

Now, though it could still be called a zoo, Aris dubs it his theater. This classification feels more proper, because coming here is something like watching a play. Like humans, Aris goes to the theater to get his entertainment. Unlike humans, he is able to create his own, narrowly tailored amusement.

Aris walks down a hall with a thousand doors, each connected to a different room. They aren’t rooms in the human sense of the word, more like… ecosystems. Each has its own construct of time and torture. No two are alike.

He opens a door and stares into the scene he constructed. In front of him are trees and foliage, a detailed rendition of a deciduous forest that no lay person would recognize as an illusion. Aris doesn’t walk forward, just closes his eyes as he goes searching for the mind of the girl he placed here.

How long has it been? He started his zoo during the duller moments at the Institute, but Aris can’t place the exact moment this particular woman’s nightmare began. He can’t remember her name either, but, then again, it doesn’t matter. He probably never knew it.

Ah, there.

Aris slips inside her head neatly, with a smile.

She doesn’t remember her name either. She also doesn’t know how long she’s been here.

She’s given up on ever leaving. There is no escape: no running, no hiding. Even death, which used to scare her so greatly, has been taken from her.

She crouches now at a shallow creek, shrouded by large Evergreens with needles that paint the forest green. Shakily, desperately, she cups water in her mouth and gulps it down. Stopping is a risk, but her throat has been burning for days now. So dry, so parched, she doubts she could form words even if she wanted to.

Suddenly, something rustles in the brush behind her, and she jerks upright.

It’s back.

Sometimes, during the endless hikes, the scorching days and frozen nights, she wonders what it is. Who it is… Was . Someone like her, forced to play this game—a once-human turned mad, made beast? Did it have a family and motivations and dreams, or was it something created from the dark itself? Was it never anything but bloodlust and hatred?

Now, she doesn’t have time to wonder.

She runs.

She runs until she chokes on air, the sweat dripping down her neck and mingling with the dried blood on her chest. She runs until her lungs burn and her feet catch. The ground runs up to meet her, the skin on her knees and palms opening against the jagged earth.

A glance over her shoulder tells her what she already knew: she hasn’t made it more than two feet from the creek.

As she sobs, the beast emerges from the trees with a roar. On its hind legs, it’s about nine feet tall and twice as wide as a door. Its upper body is a bulbous mass of bone, gut, and sinew, held together by shadows that human hands jut out of. Its arms, half darkness, half bone, are connected to fleshy knobs with long, sharp knives that function like claws.

It has a head but lacks a face, blind and guided by two violently sniffing nostrils. There is another slit below these holes that conceals rows of jagged teeth—crooked and mismatched as if from different species.

The creature smells like rotting flesh, mildew, and blood. Before this, whatever this place is, she was not around enough blood to actually smell it, but it permeates from this creature, pouring off like a running faucet. It never dries or runs out. Maybe blood is like its sweat.

Even after all of this time, after all of their encounters and her many deaths, she isn’t used to the sight of it. So pungently repulsive and grotesque, it takes effort not to scream at the sight—not to gag at the smell.

And it hasn’t even killed her yet.

As if it hears her thoughts, the actor acts: he plays his part, swiping a massive claw at her back. And she plays her own: she screams, choking on blood and spit and panic.

The pain is blinding; it always is, no matter how many times it catches her. Kills her.

With another swipe, her throat opens, and she begins to die with dirt in her mouth.

After, the world around her changes. Night bleeds to day. From her fallen position, she now stands—breathing, mended and alive, in the middle of a clearing. She hasn’t been in this area of the forest before, but she knows it’s the same place from the eerie stillness of the Evergreens and the sticky, hot air.

She is alone here, the creature nowhere in sight, but it has already begun to track. Raising a hand to her unblemished throat, still feeling the way the skin had been sliced open, she shuts her eyes for a single moment.

The hunt is on. Again. She must be moving.

With a shaky breath, her hand drops to her side. She walks out of the clearing, and Aris cocks his head from the hallway, exiting the girl’s mind.

This room is boring. Repetitive. He makes a note to change it somehow. Maybe he will make the girl the hunter next, keeping her humanity intact as she is helpless to fight the urge to kill. What to do with the old creature, then? Perhaps he could make them fight each other. Two beasts vying for dominance.

Hm…

He shuts the door and continues his stroll down the hall, slowly making his way to his favorite room. This time, instead of lingering in the doorway, he takes a seat in one of the empty chairs in the audience.

In this room, is a talk show set placed on a stage, shrouded by red, theater curtains. There is a long couch for the guest, a chair where the host sits, and a greenscreen behind them both, which blaring lights are fixed on. The rest of the room is in complete darkness. Today’s guest is Olivia Dessen. She is wearing her finest pearls and a checkered, sleeveless dress .

The interviewer is something picked from the woman’s worst nightmares. A glance in Olivia’s head will tell any half-rate psychic that she is religious. Her greatest fear is, quite uncreatively, demons, so Aris made a grotesque, horned creature with fangs like tusks. Red-skinned, with glowing, scarlet eyes and an unruly smirk scaling half of its face, it is a mockery of humans.

Already, the thought of the girl is forgotten, as he faces something much more interesting. Aris smiles, leaning forward in his seat.

Olivia kicks against the floor violently enough that her heels fly halfway across the stage. “Don’t you hurt me!” she screams. “Don’t get any closer!”

“What’s the matter?” says the demon, voice like gravel. “I thought that you wanted to tell your story.”

On the walls of the set, red signs flash, requesting applause from the audience. For a moment, Olivia’s heavy breathing and Aris’ slow claps are the only sounds in the theater.

Olivia looks into the black space beyond the stage’s edge, going pale. She can’t see him, but she knows what it means to have an audience. Only one person ever watches her.

“ No !” she yells, voice doubling in volume.

She wretches herself from the chair—tries to, at least. The moment her arms raise from the rests and her back arches from the fabric, hundreds of small hooks shoot out of the chair to embed themselves in her skin. They tug, and she screams in frustration and agony as she is forced back.

Even still, she fights. Blood flows down her arms, at first in rivulets and then so quickly that the color looks almost black. Part of Aris has to admire the imbecile. No matter how many times they do this, no matter how often she bleeds, she still fights.

A lot like her daughter, that way.

More hooks, these thicker and jagged, go for her ligaments, impaling the inside of her knees and arms. Two shoot into the cartilage of her ears, holding Olivia’s head in one spot.

Aris watches for a moment before snapping his fingers, and the red curtains suddenly close. When they open again, Olivia is in her original position, uninjured, without any hooks in her. Her shoes are back on, her makeup perfect, composed once more .

This time, Aris sits in the director’s chair with a grin, across from Olivia. The seat is just behind the camera, right in her line of sight, and, with a snap, a spotlight beams on him.

“Let’s take it from the top,” he says. “I missed the beginning.”

Olivia looks at Aris miserably. “Not again. Please .”

“That’s not your line,” he says. Aris motions to his creature to begin.

The smile taking half of its face grows larger. He did good work fashioning this one. “Today, we have a special interview with Mrs. Olivia Dessen!” it says. “Isn’t that exciting?”

The applause sign flashes again; this time, Aris doesn’t bother to clap.

“I don’t want to—I don’t want to!” Olivia screams, but, controlled by a force she cannot comprehend, the woman stands.

Her limbs twitch. At first, it’s just her arms bending awkwardly, unnaturally, but then she lets out a vicious howl as her shins move above her knees, cracking backward. Her ankles, twitching and breaking, come to rest by her collarbone. Unable to stand now, a preternatural force keeps her afloat, hovering inches above the ground where she continues to contort.

“ Why ?” she screams, miserable and terrified, in so much pain that she is sweating and choking on spittle. “Why are you doing this?”

Quite suddenly, his good humor vanishes. Aris scowls. “You know why.”

She shakes her head again and again, moaning the word no in every possible way it can be said. “I’m sorry!” she yells finally, like the words have been forced out of her. “I’m sorry!”

He sighs, crossing one leg over the other. “And now you are lying.”

By now, she is bent into a badly shaped pretzel, and Aris commissions the breaking of her bones somewhat idly. The position she is in is impossible, a contortionist’s dream. She should have passed out, perhaps died of shock by now, but Aris won’t let her.

“You’re a demon! A devil!” she screams, still writhing in the air. She has gotten to the point in the show where she’s recognized that pleading will get her nowhere .

“More name calling.” His eyes slit while watching her head spin in a full circle.

“That girl, that girl…” she mutters, eyes glazed. Delirium is beginning to set in; her words are slow and stupid. “I’ve always known… I always knew she was… evil.”

Aris abruptly stands, silencing Olivia. The woman looks at her torturer with open fear, flinching as he comes closer. The horror grows in her eyes, and Aris is absently aware that he is losing his patience. But what is he to do? No one talks about Mary like that. No one but him.

He considers tearing her to shreds. Removing her eyes and letting the demon eat them. But, in the end, Aris’ temper abates. He leans back on his heels, smiles, and tells her cheerily, “You have not seen evil.”

He snaps his fingers, and the red curtains close again. They open an instant later, revealing Olivia Dessen on the couch, composed again, though tears dribble down her cheeks.

Aris goes back to the director’s chair. “Take two!”