「 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 」
The dim bulb overhead swayed with casual grace, its flickering dance lingering at the edges of your vision as your addled mind struggled to make sense of your surroundings. Shadows stretched and curled around the surgical trays flanking you on either side, their steel instruments arranged with the precision of a lover’s place setting.
Your body moved—bereft of conscious intent—yet you found your freedom deprived, your autonomy usurped by thick leather cuffs binding your wrists and anchoring your ankles.
You didn’t struggle. Not yet. You needed to conserve your strength for what was to come. This you knew—not consciously, but instinctively—the thought manifesting as a weight in the pit of your stomach, a needling tingle in your extremities.
As if rewarding your patience, a subtle sound made itself known: the soft rustle of fabric, the creak of leather, the hardened tread of a boot thudding against the chamber’s stone floor and reverberating off the walls. The sound of a body being carried into the light.
And there she was—her silhouette sharp as a scalpel, a living shadow wrapped in a cloak of darkness. She tugged at the cuffs of her leather gloves, adjusting a fit you knew she had meticulously perfected just minutes earlier—a façade of laxity, of carelessness.
The ghost of a smile danced at the corners of her lips as she caught you eyeing her from the edge of your vision—one she quickly forced into a grotesque exaggeration of itself, her grin splitting her face like a compound fracture: too wide, too bright. All teeth. No emotion.
Her gloved fingers curled beneath your chin, tilting your head back until the light stung your eyes. The scent of antiseptic clung to her sleeves—sharp and chemical—beneath the earthy aroma of worn leather.
"Shhh," she hushed, pressing her thumb against your philtrum, though you hadn’t made a sound.
She forced your head back just a little farther, exposing the delicate column of your throat—savoring the frantic flutter of your pulse.
Leaning in, her breath warmed your ear—thick and cloying—as she whispered,
"