Iniquity VII
Title: Iniquity (part 7)
Pairing: None
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Rape, murder, mentions of torture and death. Mental health issues
Genre: Crime thriller/mystery
Summary: Autumn in Seoul is beautiful, the leaves on the trees take on stunning hues of russet and gold, but not everything is beautiful in this season. With 4jib promotions coming to an end Super Junior's Lee Sungmin is suffering from exhaustion and crippling nightmares, seeing death wherever he goes. On the other side of Seoul Detective Ahn Taehyun is suffering a nightmare of his own. A sadistic serial killer is preying on young men and Taehyun will do anything within his power to stop him. Even when the price might be his own reputation, career or life.
Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here
The dripping sound was back, louder and closer than before. He looked around but it was dark. Even the flickering lights were gone. Confusion rushed over him as he realised he wasn’t chained. Through the darkness he could just make out shapes, strange peaks and troughs that made no sense. He could feel sharp edges of metal beneath his bare feet, digging in almost painfully to the soft soles. He could still feel the filth on his skin, cracked and drying as he moved.
It was incredibly cold, so cold that he wrapped his arms around himself and shivered almost certain he was turning blue. He stepped forward, one hand reached out in front of him self. Two steps and his fingers brushed against a solid, hard wall. Smooth, unrelenting he ran his hands over it searching for any way to get out but the door was sealed so tightly that not even a breeze passed beneath it. As he moved the air seemed to penetrate right through him, chilling his bones to that of splintering ice, but the need to move drove him on and he fumbled around in the darkness. He felt a sharp ache all over his body, his skin tingling with pain that he couldn’t indentify.
Reaching around himself he found a shelf, just about shoulder height and on it he could barely make out some sort of long, still shape. His breath coming in icy puffs he stepped forward and slipped, loosing his footing on the metal floor and falling to his knees with a crash. The plastic cover fell with him and for a moment he was glad of the covering. He clutched his pounding knee in his hands and whimpered. When he managed to hold himself calm again a sudden wariness alerted him to strange noises. Soft hissing sounds drifted through the air, accompanied by metallic static. What was it? He moved and the noises got louder. He stopped and they quietened. His heart began pounding fast in his chest. What was that? Paranoia gripped his chest as the noises mirrored him, pausing just as he did. Sickness rose like bile in his throat, He could feel eyes upon himself… somewhere. He began to move again, desperate to leave this place now. He scrabbled to his feet and as he did so a loud click resounded in the silence and suddenly everything was illuminated.
He wished it hadn’t been.
He screamed.
Surrounding him on three sides were bodies. Frozen and pale and propped up in strange poses, a macabre theatre set. All were damaged, sliced open and slack-jawed. Their eyes stared sightlessly, boring into him and he fell back to the floor, cowering against the steel of the door, even as it leached the warmth from his body. His shivering became more intense.
“Don’t you like my friends baby?” The voice spoke, and it chilled him, echoing through the room.
“No, no. Please let me out, please.” He whimpered, eyes squeezed shut, head lolling from one side to the other in distressed denial. This wasn’t happening, he wasn’t really here.
“You beg so prettily baby.” The voice said with a sneer. “I want to see you beg. Look at me when you beg pretty baby.”
Burning tears began to well up in his eyes and he searched desperately for the camera that he knew must be focused on him. How else would the voice be able to see him beg? He spotted a tiny glint of light above the left corner of the room and turned to face it.
“Please. Please let me out.” He wept, his tear trails cold against his cheeks. His knees scuffed painfully against the floor and the arches of his feet were scrapped raw as he knelt.
“Why?” The voice asked, detached and uncaring through the microphone. “Why should I let you out?”
He couldn’t think of a good reason. He couldn’t think of anything but the over-riding fear and the cold that gnawed away at his pride. He begged nonsensically and the voice laughed as he cried and whimpered and pleaded. Suddenly there was silence again as the hiss of communication switched off and then the room was plunged once more into darkness.
He screamed
Jolting awake for a moment Sungmin wasn’t sure where he was. His eyes were heavy and he felt strangely sluggish. He went to stretch but his hands wouldn’t move.
Sudden fear shot through him and he looked around, eyes scanning his surroundings. It was light, airy, and pale in the room. Curtains were lifted by a gentle breeze and he was covered with a peach coloured blanket. It wasn’t the vile dankness from his memory, but that didn’t stop it being disturbing. Something about the quiet was ominous and he shifted against the sheets tapping his fingers against the mattress.
The door creaked and he shot it a nervous glance, half afraid to see who or what was going to enter.
“Hey Minnie!” Eunhyuk greeted with obviously false cheer as he walked inside with a box wrapped in pink paper and tied up with pink ribbons, a large blue balloon on a string tied to his wrist. “Get well soon!” it declared in loud, silver writing. He placed the pile of cards on the table at the foot of the bed where a large collection had already gathered.
“Hey.” Sungmin whispered back, his voice hoarse. He wondered if he had been screaming again, he couldn’t remember. He coughed slightly and wondered if there was anything for him to drink.
“How’re you feeling today?” Eunhyuk asked, pulling up a chair. It screeched across the floor and Sungmin saw, just for the briefest of moments, a metal door slamming closed in front of him with a creak. He gasped softly, heart hammering in his chest.
“I… I don’t know.” He croaked and Eunhyuk gave him a sympathetic smile.
“Here, I brought you some apple juice.” He poked a straw through the carton and held it out for Sungmin. Gratefully he took the proffered straw and sucked. The juice was soothing against his aching throat and he sipped contentedly for a few minutes before releasing the straw.
“Can I sit up?” He asked softly and Eunhyuk looked uncomfortable. He wished he hadn’t asked.
“Ah, yeah. I… I don’t know how to… to work this though.”
“Just press the up button.” Sungmin said softly and Eunhyuk laughed, pushing gently on the button by his head. The bed started to rise with the metallic groan of shifting hydraulics and Sungmin saw the back of a van, doors open, dripping with rain water as a wheelchair ramp lifted a large, black bag upwards. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, clenching his fists.
“That better?” Eunhyuk asked. Sungmin nodded.
He watched as Eunhyuk’s eyes drifted down to the white, fluffy cuffs around his wrists. The other’s Adam’s apple seemed to disappear as he swallowed and Sungmin wondered what he was thinking.
“Hyuk, why… why did they…” He gently tugged at the restraints and looked up at his friend, he trusted him to tell the truth.
“In your sleep hyung, you were trying to hurt yourself.” He whispered, sounding pained. Sungmin nodded and tried to hide the tears that seemed to be as determined to fall as he was to stop them. “They’re going to do some tests today hyung.” Eunhyuk continued. “Remember they did the blood and urine tests when you came in?”
Sungmin wasn’t sure he did remember. He remembered someone stabbing him repeatedly in the arm with a kitchen knife, so deep that he felt it clash against bone and he winced at the memory. Eunhyuk obviously took that as an affirmative and carried on.
“They came back clear of drugs or anything, so the doctor’s going to do an EEG, whatever that is, to check that your brain’s OK.”
“What’s that?” Sungmin asked, a creeping unease settling in his stomach and he wondered if he was just being paranoid. The balloon was glinting in the sunlight and each sparkle of light sent shivers down his back. He squirmed uncomfortably on the bed, finding his ankles held still. He gasped and pulled at the ankle restraints. They didn’t shift and started to cut into his flesh. Looking down he saw blood spreading outwards across the sheets and he cried out.
“No, no, no. Hyukkie, please, please help me. Please.” He cried, desperately struggling to get out of the holds. “Please, he’ll come back. You have to let me go, please!” He begged. Eunhyuk was backing away and he cried desperately. “Please, please he’ll kill me. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me…” His words broke apart, falling into sobs and wails, “No, no, no…please. Please let me go.” He begged over and over. Warm blood was sticky against his legs and he could feel a burning, agonising pain shooting up his spine, tearing his eyes from Eunhyuk’s frightened ones he looked up and saw him. He was there, eyes shining with mirth through the fetid fabric of his face. A bloodied knife clutched in his gloved hand, raised above Sungmin’s nose, held out for him to see. It was long, serrated and ominous.
The man said nothing this time, pulling back the stained peach blanket and revealing Sungmin’s body, spread and naked and marked in ways he never remembered. He cried out, desperately fighting to break free, his hands fisting and flattening in the restraints, pulling desperately against the harsh metal in his attempts to slip them free. Blood lubricated the cuffs but he could not squeeze his bones through however much he tried. The man trailed the knife down his stomach, the cold metal blade gentle as a lover’s fingernails on his skin. It dipped lower, passing his navel and he held his breath, body trembling, forcing himself to be still as the knife moved perilously lower.
“Please no, please, please I’ll do what you want, please, please don’t…” The knife trailed yet lower, heinous face turned down in fascination as the blade skirted over his upper thighs. Sungmin gasped and shivered with fear coiling around his throat, slowly asphyxiating him. He felt the tip trail down the inner curve of his leg and he bit down on his tongue, the metallic taste filling his mouth. He couldn’t even find the courage to beg now, he just lay, trembling, hoping, praying that this would be over… maybe if he killed him it would stop. Would it stop?
The arm pulled back and then the pain, the blinding, burning, tearing, wrenching pain between his legs, searing up his spine as he felt himself violated again and again. Torment so agonising he couldn’t find means of escaping it. He screamed, writhed, clutched at anything he could reach as the pain was repeated over and over and over.
Hands held him down, more hands than the man had and he didn’t understand. Looking up he saw blank, half-rotten faces, ice still clinging to their blue, wordless lips and he screamed again struggling violently as the pain and the fear overcame his senses.
He wanted it to stop.
He wanted to die.
Next part here.