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Light filteredthrough the bars of the cell, tentative warmth enveloping him for the first time in weeks. Rafaelo struggled between a state of awareness and one of dull peace that always beckoned him, lulling him with the promise of no more pain.
His lashes fluttered open just as cold water poured over his body, extinguishing any such hope.
He startled awake, his eyes wildly roaming around as he tried to assess his surroundings.
He was… in a new place?
A place he didn’t recognize, nor did he have any idea how he’d gotten there.
“Despierta,” a voice echoed in his still foggy brain.
His body became covered in goosebumps as he shivered from being suddenly deprived of that warmth. He was stark naked, he suddenly realized.
“W-what?” he croaked, barely able to form the words.
His mouth was dry, his throat aching from the effort of uttering that one word.
How long had it been since he’d last spoken?
He couldn’t remember.
He found that he could remember little of the past… except…
He froze as images flashed in his brain.
It was like an outer-body experience as he watched himself as he would a stranger. And what he saw…
His heart thundered in his chest, panic slowly replacing his previous languid state.
Everything suddenly came back to him.
Michele.
He remembered meeting with Michele before finding himself put on the auction block and sold to an individual called Armand; a man who’d enjoyed doing the most vile things to him.
That had been… how long ago?
Aside from those clear memories, everything else was fuzzy.
He realized he’d been drugged out of his mind for more days than he could count—all so he could be Armand’s pliant toy.
To a degree, he was thankful he could only remember snippets of what that man had done to him—things no one should ever have to bear.
The rapes.
The beatings.
The mental abuse. It was all a pulsating echo in his mind, but one that he tried to push away. He didn’twantto know.
I’m fine,he told himself in an attempt to calm the wild beats of his heart.
I’m alive. If I’m alive, then that’s all that matters.
It wasn’t only the gory images that invaded his mind, reminding him of the depraved acts Armand had committed against him, though. It was also the fact that he’d found himself on the brink of death too many times to count.
The drugs had worked to a degree, but every time he gained consciousness, he tried to fight back. That, in return, earned him beating after beating, all of which had put him one step closer to death.
