Warnings: Blood, Death, I suppose gore, the ingestion of one's own organ ... To sum up, this story is mindless torture I wrote because I'm sick and twisted and with too much time and pent up irritation and frustration.

If you haven't been scared away yet, enjoy. But don't review to tell me that I'm mentally disturbed and sick and twisted and anything along those lines because I have warned you. Plus, you will accomplish little more than just amusing me because I already know that I am all those things.

Drip …

It was cold. Cold and dark. The darkness was pressing down around him, against him, in his nose, down his throat, clawing at his eyes, pressing against his ears. The only sound that cut through the dark was his unsteady breaths, the only light the crack between the door, shut and bolted, and the cool stone wall.

The smell of mildew hung heavy in the air, almost masking the smell of blood and rotted food and rotting flesh. Almost. But he had gotten used to it after a while. Now it was familiar, a part of the everyday, like breathing.

Breathing was not as natural anymore. Each breath he took was forced, ringing loudly in his ears, as pain whispered in his chest, blossoming with each shaky inhale. Blood gurgled up in his throat, sliding over his tongue, curling richly over his taste buds, and leaving a faint metallic tang in its wake, long after he coughed it up.

The chafes on his wrists burned in the cool air, only recently been release from the rope that had bound them together for so long, adding to the many other pains littering his body. But it was a distant kind of pain, there, but not really, only there when he focused on it.

Light flooded the darkness, burning at his eyes. He stood up slowly, using the wall for help, when the door creaked open, and a dark silhouette stood against the light, hands crossed over his chest and a smirk playing on thin lips.

"M-Mom?" he asked, more out of habit then anything. Why aren't they coming? They said they'll never let anything happen … "Dad …?" he tried again, when there was no answer, but the figure laughed, cruel against the silence and he shrank back, slumping down against the wall again in defeat.

Drip …

"Listen, little boy, your mommy isn't coming to save you." His voice was deep, a lot like his dad's, but it couldn't be his dad. Not my dad, who always tucked him in, kissed him goodnight. He stepped forward, grabbing a lock of tangled brown hair, kissing it softly, tenderly, making him shiver. "No one will ever come for you, understand? No one's even looking for you."

He cringed, pulling away, but the hold on his hair tightened, making pain erupt where several strands had pulled loose. He wanted to cry, but no tears came. He wanted to –needed to scream, but his voice refused to leave his throat, as if it, too, were afraid of what was to come next.

"I never asked before, how old are you, little boy?" his voice was tender again, and he sounded like his dad once more, and he wanted him to hold him, if he really was his dad, and tell him that it would be okay. But it wasn't his dad; his dad knows how old he was. His hair was tugged on roughly, and a cry fell past his lips, tumbling into the darkness around them. "I asked you a question!"

"I-I'm th-thirteen." He said, closing his eyes against the pain, turning his head away when his face came closer. His breath ghosted over his face as his mouth twisted into a grin. He gagged and coughed, making pain erupt in his chest.

"And your name, little boy?" Tender, his voice rang around him. His hand caressed his cheek, carding softly through his hair. The touch, although tender, felt twisted and dark and wrong to him, perverse and unwelcome.

"A-Art-Arthur." He choked out. Fear pumped through his body, ice cold and burning. "Why am I here? Where's my mom?" Always the same questions, he always got the same response, but he refused to stop trying, not until he knew where they were …

His grin widened, twisted, sickening. Blunt nails caught on his skin as they dragged down his cheek, pain blossoming where they dug into his flesh. "Your mommy isn't here, little boy. No one is here except the two of us."

Drip …

"You must be hungry … Are you hungry?" the man whispered in his ear, making him shiver as the warm air caressed his ear. A bag was held up before his face, tantalizingly close. It smelled of greasy take-out food, causing Arthur's mouth to water as he reached out a thin, bony arm to grab it.

His fingertips barely skimmed the paper bag before it was yanked away from him. A whimper forced its way past thin chapped lips. "Please …" he croaked out, causing a smile to settle upon the older man's lips, giving his face a look of perverse pleasure.

"What do you want?" he breathed in his ear, mock curiosity dripping from his voice. "This?" the boy nodded and the grin only widened. His voice dropped to a whisper, sharp, slicing through the silence, "Hurt yourself. Cause yourself pain. Scream."

Drip …

Blue-green eyes widened as he swallowed thickly, one hand coming up to rest at his throat, tilting his head back. Sliding over pale ashen skin, Arthur dragged his nails harshly over scabs, old and new.

Blood ran down his stomach, increasing with every wound reopened. His hand wandered over a broken rib, pressing against his skin as if desperate to break free, and he pressed down firmly against it, forcing it back down sharply, crying out in pain.

His other hand found the cut on his hip that hadn't even had the chance to scab over properly yet. His fingers dug into the flesh, twisting, scissoring, parting the flesh. His fingers coated in blood as his other hand found a rhythm against his rib. Up. Down. Up. Down, each time harder, sharper than the last.

He dug his nails into the internal tissue of the cut, twisting his fingers further. It was warm, hot, burning him, scorching to his very core. He gave a sharp cry, his head snapping back, hitting the wall loudly and sharply.

The hand at his chest faltered as unimaginable pain filled his brain, coated and dulled his senses. A larger, rougher hand covered his and his eyes fluttered open, thinking he could finally stop. Instead the hand covering his forced him to press down harder against his rib, making a scream tear past his lips.

His fingers continued to twist and scissor, tearing the flesh further. His knees shook and his entire body twitched and shuddered, trying to escape the pain he was causing to himself. His eyes screwed shut, he never saw the knife taken from the man's pocket, only felt it when it settled upon his quivering lip, digging down lightly, splitting the chapped, dry skin.

The metallic taste flooded his mouth, curling richly over his tongue, dribbling down his chin, mixing with the saliva and dripping onto the floor in a clear, red mess. His mouth opened in a silent plea to stop, and the knife immediately slipped between his lips, laying innocently on his tongue.

"Lick it." The words joined into the symphony of pained whimpers, and he immediately did, closing his lips around the cool metal and running his tongue tentatively over the blade, until it was pulled out.

Thoroughly coated in saliva, it slipped into the flesh of his shoulder, cutting through the muscle easily, hot knife through butter. The blade brushed the bone with a sickening sound that stuck in Arthur's throat. It twisted harshly in his flesh, tearing muscle and scraping the bone painfully.

Then, it stopped. The hand at his chest left, letting his fall limply at his side, and the knife withdrew from his shoulder, letting a river of crimson run down his pale, blue and black skin, dripping into the gaping laceration on his hip as his fingers withdrew with a sickening schloop. Arthur collapsed to his knees, twitching in pain, covered in blood. Tears ran down his face, onto his split lip, salty liquid stinging terribly.

The only sound heard was his shuddering breaths and the paper bag as it rustled, thrown in front of him. He looked up briefly to see the man, slip out the door. He held the door open, coating Arthur in impossibly bright light from outside, turning around to glance at his work, smiling darkly to himself.

As soon as darkness surrounded him once again, Arthur crawled forward, reaching with his good hand to grab the bag, ignoring the blood, still flowing steadily down his side. He opened it eagerly, taking out a mostly-eaten burger and a couple old French fries that looked like they had been gathered from the floor.

He ate it all eagerly, picking up every crumb that escaped him, ending up on the floor, in his blood or a miraculously clean patch of stone. Staring at the bag, he wondered if he should eat it now or save it for later. In the end he folded it nearly and hid it somewhere, thinking he can use it as a snack for when he had to go long periods without food once again.

By then he could feel his consciousness waver, blurring around the edges from loss of blood. He slipped his eyes shut, laying his head lay against his uninjured shoulder, letting himself slowly slip in and out of wakefulness. He didn't even bother to look up when the door opened once again, admitting the man in once more.

He sat before him, holding out his arm, stitching the wound shut neatly and bandaging it in a thick gauze. Weakly, he shifted his head to look at the bandage, contrasting magnificently with the blue and black of the rest of his skin. It was tight, too tight against the delicate skin and he keened softly, his undamaged hand reaching up and clawing at it weakly.

Eventually, he gave up, letting his arm fall back down onto his lap. His head was swimming, a dull pounding at the back of his skull. Every breath he managed to drag in burned intensely in protest, jerking him awake every time sleep even began to claim him.

Dry lips stung every time Arthur tried to moisten them. He groaned, tired, falling over onto his side in sheer exhaustion. Almost immediately, he cried out in pain, convulsing in pain, unable to muster the strength to pull himself upright again.

Slivers of pink appeared on the crisp bandaging covering his shoulder as his weight pressed it to the unforgiving floor.

Drip …

"Help … me." He breathed out into the air. His lungs shuddered as he exhaled another dragged in breath, burning his chest, making him cough violently. "I-it hu-hurts …" Tears slipped down his face once more, burning a path down his cheeks. "It hurts …"

The next time he awoke, the man was back, looming over him. He groaned, dropping his head weakly back to the floor. He was dragged up roughly by his injured arm, tugging violently, forcing him up on uncertain legs.

"Lookit. You wen' an' opened yer shoulder 'gain. Why wou'd ye do tha'?" A voice, dripping with an accent Arthur couldn't place, cut through the sleep induced fog clouding his exhausted, malnourished, and confused brain.

"I … I'm so-sorry …" the boy croaked out past his burning through. "I'm sorry …" he repeated, hanging his head down, more in a show of exhaustion than anything else.

"Looks like I'll have t'punish ye for tha' now. Damn pity tha' is" Arthur screwed his eyes shut as soon as he saw the other man reach into his belt, pulling out a knife much like the one used on him before.

His shoulder throbbed as the point of the blade rested momentarily against the wound beneath the bandaging, a whimper escaping through his lips unbidden. "Shou'd I do it h're?" He asked, chuckling as the boy shook his head. "No? Where, th'n?" No response came from the trembling figure. "Dun' know, eh? Fine I'll jus' choose fer ya."

The blade traced a path from his shoulder, up his throat and across his cheeks resting on one of his tightly shut eyes. "This'll only hurt a bit now, y'hear?" Arthur trembled violently, practically hearing the lies and the smirk in the voice, so close to his ear.

The knife pushed in, but he didn't cry out. He bit his lip, reopening the split down the middle, blood running down his chin as various fluids flooded down his cheeks. It twisted and pulled out, dropped somewhere on the floor with an echoing clatter. Fingers forced apart the eyelid, still closed over the remnants of his eye. "Pick it ou' now."

Arthur swallowed thickly, reaching up a trembling hand, thumb and index finger carefully picked it out, as whimpers slowly rose in volume as the eye fluids dripped over his fingers as the eye was finally pulled free, and the optic nerve was quickly severed.

He kept his good eye closed, for fear of what he'll see. The mutilated eye was clutched in his trembling fingers as the lid was swiftly sewn shut over the grotesquely empty socket and the voice cut through the silence once more, bright and cheery in the darkness. "See? Tha' wasn' so bad now, wassit?" Arthur shook his head, using the back of his hand to wipe his cheek as his arm was let go off, letting him drop to the floor in a heap.

He curled in on himself, knees hugged to his chest, chin resting on them as sobs wracked through his beaten form. Light fell across him as the man left, revealing to his good eye the sight of the eye still clutched in his hand, making his stomach heave violently and a groan of pain slip past his lips.

Drip …

Cold. Arthur lay, silent in the stillness. He was hungry, having gone the past few days without food, in total isolation. Water was sometimes poured in through the little window in the door, usually covered with something to prevent light from leaking in, leaving Arthur to lick the water up from the dirty floor.

The greasy bag from a few days prior was already eaten, making Arthur wish he had left it to last him longer instead of eating the entire thing in one sitting. Out of sheer desperation, he had also eaten the remnants of the eye that had been on the floor, even though he promptly threw up right after.

He sighed, laying on his uninjured side, his one good eye scanning about the floor, trying to pierce through the darkness. His mouth tasted like blood and rot and salty eye fluid and throw up and dirt. He would give anything for a chance to wash the taste away.

His head hurt. Pounding, deep within his skull, throbbing in synch with the dull stillness of his body. His shirt hung loosely from his thin shoulders, pooling around him almost elegantly as he lay on the dirty floor, chest heaving, shuddering with every breath.

He brought his hand up weakly, up in the darkness where he could clearly see the outline that melted so well against the darkness. He could see the scars that were spider webbed across his skin, the once pale flesh, invisible to his curious eye, was invisible still. He would have moved it around, but it would have taxed too much of his limited supply of energy.

He yawned, trying to stifle it in the invisible flesh of his hand, but he found it impossible. It slipped out anyway, hung in the darkness around him, deafened him. His mind was numb, dead in the grip of pain, endless anesthesia pumping through his veins. It stifled all of his senses.

He threw his arm back, over his head, slamming his knuckles into the stone floor. He hissed at the pull on his stitches, the pain that rippled through his body. His arm suddenly felt warm and wet and sticky and he vaguely wondered if he pulled a stitch.

He was covered in bandages, he could feel them. They pressed a vague pressure against his chest, arms, face. But the disgusting gaping hole in his hip was left uncovered. It was infected, he knew it. It was oozing something that he could smell over the blood and the rot, but he didn't care.

Drip …

Losing all track of time in the infinite darkness, he was shocked when the door banged open and several men in uniforms gathered around him. He looked at them through outgrown bangs and smiled, a broken sort of smile made of glass and plastic.

"Why?" he asked, the only question that he desperately wanted an answer to. Why did you let this happen? Why didn't you come sooner? Why are you here now? And most of all, why me? No one answered him. He could see the look of shock on their faces as he stood up, shakily, letting the one nearest him support him with a hand under his arm.

In the light for the first time, he glanced down at himself. His shirt hung off of his form, making him look so small and fragile, as if he could break by the slightest touch. It was stained, creeping splotches of rust coloured fabric dotted almost the entire surface. His hands were covered in it, no doubt from his bleeding shoulder.

His hip hurt with every step and after about three he collapsed to his knees, tears at his eyes, falling down his face and onto the stone. He was crying and whimpering and keening and sobbing and making a whole mess of dreadful noises that he was embarrassed to admit came from his mouth. He clung desperately to the shirt of the man that picked him up off the ground, supporting him in large arms, warm against his freezing body.

Drip …

He never got a glimpse of the outside, because the world faded to black as his eye remained open, his face turning towards the body holding him. He could feel, in a detached sort of way, his body going slack in the man's hold, all the tenseness leaving his body in a rush of exhaled air. His tears stopped too.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel. Instead, the exit collapsed, trapping him forever in darkness and isolation and frigid coldness that crept below his skin and remained there, slowly freezing him to the core.

Breaking him had been easy, his body yielding to the touch until it snapped, clean in half, irrefutably, irreparable, all the pieces raining down on that cold stone floor in drops of crimson that spattered and stained. It had been easy, too easy, and he made it so, by not fighting them and letting them win even after the darkness had claimed his tired mind and he could no longer see the light.

It had been easy. Easy as

One...

Two…

Three …

Well, that was a little too fun to write ... Oh well, the only point of this was to let out some frustration that I've been keeping pent up a little too long. The only reason the title is French was because it was a prompt. The prompt was that I have a title in another language (in this case, French), and then end the story with the same title, in another language. In case you don't know, 'un duex trois' is 'one two three' in English.

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