My heart pounds in time with the throbbing ache in my cock—still hard after everything Adrian did to me.
After the fucking vacuum bed, the gag, the utter violation of my body, mind, and soul.
And I liked it. Wanted it. Needed it.
Jesus Christ.
And the dark thing in the mirrors watching me. It wasn’t just the echoes of the house, not some trick of the light. No, it was there.
It was fucking there.
I glance up, half expecting to see it again in the mirrors above the bed, but they’re empty—just reflecting my own disheveled, broken image. Sweaty hair sticks to my forehead, green eyes bloodshot and barely holding on to any resemblance of control.
My body breaks out into a cold sweat.
All those nights as a kid when my childhood home would erupt. The screaming. The silence that followed. That’s what this feels like—the moment before something snaps.
I used to hide in my room, organizing my shit, making things neat and tidy while the storm raged outside—a way to grasp at control in the midst of chaos.
But I can’t organize my way out now. Whatever’s happening in this manor—it isn’t something I can clean up.
And lying here, tangled in my thoughts, isn’t going to help. I need to move, need to get the fuck out of my head.
I exhale hard, sitting up, and swing my legs over the side of the bed. I stand, rubbing my hands over my face, and take deep, steadying breaths to calm the mess in my head. The cold floor bites into my bare feet, grounding me for a moment, pulling me out of the mental spiral.
I’m not that same scared kid anymore. I’m not powerless.
After getting dressed, I shove open the door of the bedroom and walk out into the hallway. The silence claws at me, more suffocating here than in the room. Downstairs, I wander around hoping to find Adrian.
“Where the fuck is he?”
The kitchen is empty, the living room too. Same with the den and the office.
He’s nowhere.
Gone.
I run my fingers through my hair, making my way to the front door. Maybe some fresh air will calm my nerves.
But the manor shifts under my feet, the ground unstable in a way I can’t explain. And my duffel bag is gone.
Adrian probably just put it back in the guest room.
Stepping outside, the icy fog wraps around me. I pull up the hood of my sweatshirt and head down a broken cobblestone path covered in ruined weeds, where death and life are tangled up together in a forgotten mess.
It leads to a garden on the east side of the property. The statues lined along the sides loom over me, their faces masked by vines, their frozen embraces both haunting and seductive, a mockery of something beautiful turned rotten.
Everywhere I turn, these broken lovers are consumed by the wildness of the overgrown garden—cracked stone, twisted limbs, dark ivy wrapping around them like it’s been growing there for centuries.
Forgotten. Like they never fucking mattered.
Same way I was when my parents screamed across rooms and through walls, their voices somehow bypassing their child curled into a ball upstairs, ears plugged.
I pause in front of one of the statues, my fingers brushing against the cold, cracked stone, and my stomach twists. I’m starting to feel like them, frozen and slowly being devoured by this place, by Adrian, by my own fucking self.
Was it the same for the people in those videos? Did they walk away from the manor, or did it break them so thoroughly they never got the chance?
Shaking my head, I step back from the statue and keep moving. The deeper I go into the garden, the wilder it becomes—like the house itself has spread outward, consuming everything.
