Prologue

She had always been such a good girl.

Now she hung helpless in the darkness of the large chamber, shackled by her wrists and ankles and suspended from the ceiling by a long length of stainless steel chain that ran to a crank on the wall and coiled around it like some kind of silver serpent. She had been hoisted into the air sometime before regaining consciousness and now she hung naked except for a pair of white lace panties, her lithe body stretched taught by its own weight. She couldn't even feel the ground beneath her toes.

A strip of gray duct tape sealed her lips, and tears streamed down her face.

"Bitch."

She heard the voice from somewhere in front of her.

"Stupid, whining bitch."

This was probably the furthest from what she'd expected to happen to her after her first college party. Everything had been going so well. She'd been accepted on a cheerleading scholarship, gotten to know a few of the popular girls, dumped her piece of shit boyfriend she'd been seeing since her junior year of high school, and had been trying to get accepted into a sorority. She'd even been invited to a major party thrown by the most exclusive and powerful fraternity on campus, which was when all this mess started.

She had always been a relatively good girl. She'd smoked a little pot in high school, but who hadn't? She'd gone farther than third base—all the way to home plate, in fact—with her boyfriend on several occasions, many times sneaking out of the house at night to do so, but she'd never hurt anybody. She'd never done anything really bad. She didn't deserve this, did she? Maybe the wildest thing she'd expected to do in college was maybe take part in a sweaty orgy or ménage a trois, but that was all. She thought she'd probably end up getting it on with a girlfriend, or maybe taking two guys at once, she had always thought that would be kind of cool. Instead, she ended up hanging from the ceiling of some dark and foul smelling basement, surrounded on all sides by kneeling figures in black friar's robes.

At least she didn't have amnesia, for she could remember everything about herself. She had been the first daughter of two of the most loving and tender people she'd ever known. She remembered when she'd glued her third grade teacher to her chair so many years ago, and she remembered the look of disappointment on her mother's face. After so much time had passed, she even remembered crying her eyes out that night in her room for making her mom so sad.

Her childhood had its good times, as well. Plenty of them, but just like everything else in life, they faded away and she decided to move to California to become an actress after college. Her dad was still selling insurance and now her mother sold handmade embroidered pillows over the Internet.

Sorry, Mom.

As her vision gradually cleared and the effects of unconsciousness subsided, she saw one of the hooded figures creeping around the room lighting candles at equal intervals. She looked below her and saw that she hung above some kind of large circular diagram drawn upon the floor of the chamber. With each subsequent candle that was lit, she could make out more and more of the strange shapes within.

Though much of the writing and design meant nothing to her, she did recognize one symbol that she had seen on many of her brother's CD cases from time to time. In her experience, the pentagram was usually accompanied by some dark or evil pretext, and though she knew the symbol itself was not inherently evil, its presence did nothing to calm her in her current predicament.

As the dark monk finished lighting the final candle, the rest of them on the floor began to chant slowly in some strange language she did not know—Latin, perhaps, or something equally old or esoteric. The chant began as nearly a whisper, but as it progressed it also grew in volume until it sounded like the most beautiful and yet most haunting thing she'd ever heard in her life.

No longer groggy, but now painfully alert, her body began to tremble as a terrible fear set in.

From the darkness directly before her, a single hooded monk emerged and began to speak in what sounded like the same language of the chant, but what it spoke was something more complex, more sinister sounding than the strange mantra of rest of the robed congregation. This figure was obviously of a higher rank or order than the others, as he wore a robe of a finer material and was adorned by an ornate looking dagger tucked into a sash at the waist.

She tried to scream, but the tape held strong, and so she merely hung in the soft glow of the candlelight and sobbed.

The monk before her concluded his strange chant and without further custom unsheathed the dagger and with it in hand he reached up and slowly—almost teasingly—slid back the hood. In the light she beheld a wicked, glowering…familiar face.

She recognized him immediately. She'd seen him around campus, noticed him at the party. In fact, he was one of the guys she'd expected to have inside of her by the end of the night. For a moment her tears stopped completely and a righteous indignation arose within her. Had she the freedom of her lips, she would have spit in his face. Had she the strength in her legs, she would have lashed out with her feet and broken his stupid grimace into a million pieces, but instead she just hung there glaring at him.

"Stupid fucking bitch," he said. "Slut. Tease. I wish I could cut you up and feed to you to him, piece by piece."

She tried to scream, but the string of profanity laced insults instead came out as a series of muffled grunts.

He stepped forward and put the knife against her right breast. "We've got something much, much worse planned for you, though. And as much as I'd love to kill you myself, I'll enjoy watching you scream just the same."

He drew the knife down sharply, cutting a deep laceration from the top of her right breast diagonally to the left side of her stomach. The pain was immediate and sharp, and when it was over it burned intensely. Looking down at the wound, she saw great crimson lines begin to ooze from her body and stream down her pale flesh. The fresh degradation made her forget her anger and she broke down into uncontrolled sobs once again.

"Let me get that for you," the guy said, stepping forward and ripping the tape from her mouth. Before she could even think to begin a long tirade of profanity and death threats he violently snatched her jaw and held it so tight it hurt. He looked deep into her eyes with an animosity unequaled by anything she'd ever known.

"He likes the throat."

This time she did find the strength to gather a small amount of saliva and spit right in his bastard face. The spittle was not abundant, but it had definitely gotten in his eyes. He let out a snarl and stepped back, removing his hand from her jaw. It was only a second after that he sent an open hand across her face, eliciting a scream of pain from the tormented girl.

"Fucking bitch," he said, reaching up and wiping the spit from his eyes. She'd expected to see a menacing glare, but instead was surprised yet again to see that his eyes were bright with homicidal glee, and a satisfied grin befitting a sociopath split his features. She followed his gaze to see that the blood from the cut on her chest had reached her feet.

"We'll see how hard you fight once he lays into you. Nice knowing you, slut. I hope it hurts," he spoke in a tone so acerbic she could practically feel his hate. He stepped back from the diagram and knelt with the rest of the still chanting monks.

She looked down and saw the blood running off of her feet and onto the marking on the floor. A sick, trembling fear turned her stomach from within. She watched in horror as the white lines began to glow an eerie neon green. She had only time to take in one last breath before all Hell literally broke loose.

The ground before her crumbled away into a great swirling vortex that reached to the limits of the large outer circle of the diagram, and as she looked closer she saw that the vortex was made up of millions of deformed, moaning creatures that all blended together and spiraled down forever into an oblivion that she wanted to know nothing about.

No such luck for her.

Suddenly, a great roar filled the room, drowning out the chanting of the monks. Their robes fluttered in a light breeze that seemed to emanate from the churning vortex of deformities below. Frightened beyond belief, she shook her head and tried to wish it all away. She tried to tell herself she was still the nice if not innocent little girl she thought she used to be.

She had grown up in Kansas.

Daddy was an insurance salesman and Mom sold pillows online.

She had grown up in Kansas, but none of that mattered anymore.

A tentacle lashed out from the palpitating mass and wrapped around her leg. She wanted to plead for help, to beg for her life, but as hard as she tried she could not find her voice. Her breath became shallow and quick as another slimy pseudo-pod erupted from out of the terror below and split into two—one branch whipping around her neck and the other taking hold of her other leg. The two tentacles gripping her legs pulled in opposite directions until she was now suspended spread eagle style over the Hell beneath her.

The tip of the slimy, writhing member that wrapped around her throat moved to the front of her face and began to push at her lips, trying to violate her mouth orifice. She pursed her lips tight and closed her eyes, wishing that she was just having some terrible nightmare or bad acid trip and reminding herself that none of it was possible and that she would wake up tomorrow morning with a killer headache and go on to class just like any other day.

The nightmare didn't end, though. It got worse. She felt something gigantic and evil rise up in front of her, no doubt from that glowing pit of ugliness. She felt something rubbing slowly against the crotch of her panties.

She'd grown up in Kansas.

There's no place like home!

There's no place like home!

She heard the guy's voice. "Remember when you told me you like 'em big? Let's see how you like this one."

She heard the fabric of her panties rip, and suddenly her life became a meaningless jumble of perfect agony.

She opened her mouth and screamed.