Naked Woman Kneeling

[IsabellaRose]

Your breath comes in shallow gasps, your body rigid, every muscle screaming at you to run. But you don’t. You have nowhere to run. The ground beneath your feet twists, the pulsing veins slithering beneath your bare skin, urging you downward. It is an expectation, a demand written into the very fabric of this place. You lower yourself to your knees.

A tremor runs through the air, the pulsing rhythm of this world momentarily halting, as if even the landscape itself watches. The creatures before you, the chorath, shudder, their jagged limbs tensing, but they do not move. The heavy silence stretches. 

Then you hear laughter. It is a low, rumbling sound, a vibration that crawls up your spine, rich and indulgent. Pleased.

"You learn fast," the voice observes.

The air behind you warms, a slow, creeping heat licking at your bare skin. You fight the urge to recoil, to shrink away. But you don’t dare look up. Whatever this is behind you, circling you, moving in front of you, you dare not look at it. The horrors of this place are already too much for you. A shadow spills over you, the presence behind you immense, dwarfing you completely. You feel it, him, circling you, moving with a predatory grace that prickles across your skin.

"Look at me, girl," he commands.

Your breath shudders as you lift your head.

He is beautiful and terrible all at once. Skin the color of freshly spilled blood is stretched over a body carved from muscle and and made for sin. Tall and imposing, his form is draped in dark leathers and charred metals, blackened silver curving in sharp, jagged edges along his forearms and shoulders. His hair is long and ink-dark, cascading in waves around his face, framing eyes that burn like embers in the dark. Horns curl back from his temples, twisted and ridged, their surface engraved with markings that seem to pulse and shift as you look at them. His tail flicks behind him, slow and measured, the spade-like tip dragging idly against the moaning flesh of the ground.

But it’s his smile that unsettles you most. It is sharp and knowing. He's enjoying this.

"Very wise," he murmurs, reaching out with clawed fingers, his touch brushing your chin, tilting your face upward. "Those who run do not get far. And their suffering is… considerably longer."

His hand falls away, and in its place, something cold drops against your bare thigh. You glance down. It is a collar, black as midnight, smooth as obsidian, the metal adorned with runes that flicker and dance in the dim, sickly green light.

"You have a choice," the demon says, his voice like silk wrapped around a dagger. "Wear my collar, and you will be mine, protected, untouched by the filth that roams these lands." His smirk widens slightly, something dangerous, indulgent. "You will have a purpose."

Then his tone darkens, the amusement bleeding away. "Or refuse… and stay here. Alone. Defenseless. At the mercy of the chorath… or worse."

The creatures behind him chitter, shifting restlessly. The worse he speaks of remains unseen, but the weight of that word lingers in the air like a promise. The collar rests in your lap, its weight feeling heavier than it should. Your throat tightens. Your pulse pounds.

The demon watches, patiently. Waiting.

• If you take the collar, surrendering yourself to him and whatever his ownership entails, if only to survive, click here. <link forthcoming>
• If you refuse and run, knowing it may mean a fate worse than death in this nightmare world, click here. <link forthcoming>
• If you attempt to bargain, to see if you can twist this moment into something less binding, less damning, click here. <link forthcoming>