Jarod sat chained to a concrete wall, his clothing in tatters as the only piece of clothing that truly remained intact was his shirt, but even then several holes littered everywhere from the times he was stabbed.
Next to him was a cart filled with several tools, tools that Mackerel had put to good use. Knives, saws, drills, hammers, and everything else in between laid on the cart, some stained with red while others were shiny clean, yet to be used on the Prince of Hell.
The temperature of the room was set to at least a hundred and five degrees Fahrenheit, something Mackerel had said that it was to make his ice powers activate in order to cool himself down, yet the sweat and blood-soaked teen hadn't shown any signs of the seal breaking.
Despite the heat, Jarod's body was shaking terribly, his eyes looking at the floor devoid of any color, trying to ignore the burning he felt as his wounds healed. Every stab, every cut, would heal within a couple of minutes. While that happened, Mackerel would leave the hot room to cool off, his frustration increasing with every single minute that passed.
Jarod heard the door into the room creaked open and his body tensed as the sound of footsteps echoed in his ears. How long had it been? Five, maybe ten minutes? He slowly drawled his head up, his light grey eyes meeting Mackerel's insanity-filled blue.
"This is getting quite irritating, I must admit." Mackerel said as he practically floated to the cart filled with his tools of torture. "After a day of almost constant torture would break you. Are you sure there's no way for you to activate them yourself? This pain could be spared within seconds."
"I-I don't k-know," Jarod whispered, his lips shaking as he struggled to speak. "I c-can't d-do it." Mackerel picked up a drill, pressing the small trigger, the drill came to life. Jarod couldn't help but watch in fear as Mackerel spun around, his trench flapping around his legs at the quick motion.
"It's a shame. I was initially angry at the fact you killed so many of my guards and then forced my hand into absorbing so many pieces of trash's power, but now I'm getting tired. So I'll leave it up to you to decide how much longer you can take before you break, whether physically or mentally." He said cruelly.
"Please, no!" Jarod begged as he saw Mackerel press the cold metal against his foot. "P-Please!" He had gone through much so far, but this would be a new type of pain. Mackerel pondered upon it for a moment.
"I think," Jarod got hopeful for a moment as he watched Mackerel pull the drill back for a second. "No." Mackerel said with a twisted grin on his face as he pushed the drill forward, pressing straights through Jarod's foot as blood and bone began coming out as he screamed in agony.
Then black.
Jarod felt his veins pulsing before he opened his eyes, the pain no longer there and he stood in an empty abyss with nothing but the chains around his wrists and himself. Was he dead?
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" That dark yet smooth voice said. Jarod turned around and saw Dark Jarod looking at him but without any of the similar clothes. He wore a pair of black and grey-striped dress pants with a plain black button-up dress shirt with a white tie going down the middle and a dark grey vest over the shirt.
"W-What?" Dark Jarod walked over to Jarod and cupped him by the chin, a small sadistic and sarcastic smile spreading across his face, his crimson red demon eyes filled with nothing but contempt for his lighter half.
"You heard me you weakling," Dark Jarod spoke bitterly. "You've wished for death longer than most your age. Most suicidal teenagers begin their thoughts by the time they're fourteen or fifteen, yet you began at the ripe age of eight, wishing for death as an escape for your own incompetence, your own weakness."
"Shut up, you don't know a thing!" Dark Jarod shifted his grip to Jarod's neck, snarling.
"I know EVERYTHING," He growled, his glare increasing in intensity. "Have you forgotten? I'm YOU! I'm every dark thought you've ever had, every single bad thing you went through went to me. I've existed since you were born." Jarod's eyes widened as he felt the hand on his throat begin increasing in pressure.
"You're the one who claims to his own ignorance. Instead of embracing and learning from your darkness, you shove it down and put on a fake little smile and then play the victim. News flash: Nobody cares."
"Be quiet," Jarod choked out. Dark Jarod rolled his eyes and released the teenager, watching as he fell onto the floor of the empty abyss of blackness.
"Do you really think anyone cares about you?" Dark Jarod spoke rhetorically as Jarod sat on the ground, still glaring at Dark Jarod but his ears were listening, causing Dark Jarod to smirk. "Father never cared about us. If he did he would've saved us from the moment we were born."
". . ."
"Morina? Your so-called 'master'? She doesn't care about you either. She cares about the power you have deep inside you, the potential you'll never reach as long as you continue being the same person you are now. To her, you're nothing but a weapon to be used against Heaven." Jarod slowly stood up, his legs shaking slightly as his glare intensified at his darker half.
"And finally we're to Arlyn," Jarod lunged towards Dark Jarod, throwing a punch that was easily caught before Dark Jarod delivered an equally as hard fist to his stomach, causing his saliva to fly out of the mouth as he fell to the ground again, clutching his stomach as he groaned in pain.
"S-Shut up!" Jarod moaned out. "D-Don't you talk about her!" Dark Jarod cocked his head to the side, a frown appearing on his forehead.
"Are you crushing on the little demon girl? It'd be sweet if your infatuation was not a plan set by that wretched woman and her student," Jarod's eyes grew big as he looked at Dark Jarod, who was scowling freely. "Do you think it's weird how she kissed you out of nowhere? Even though it would only distract you from the upcoming fight? She wants to use you."
"Please," Jarod got out, tears bubbling up in his eyes as they threatened to spill over at any second. "Stop it." He suddenly found himself bound to a steel chair with handcuffs connecting his wrists to the arms of the chairs and his ankles to the legs.
"No," Dark Jarod spoke calmly. "You need to know the truth. Arlyn is an outcast in Hell, that much we know. She wasn't really born special and wasn't considered anything but a lesser demon till Morina took her in and trained her. Now, why would she try to seduce you I wonder?" He was quiet for a moment before cupping Jarod by the chin. "I'm waiting for an answer."
"She wants to use me," Jarod whimpered. "She wants to be at my side when I become King of Hell." Dark Jarod grinned and snapped his finger.
"Exactly!" He circled around Jarod, his hand on the boy's white hair. "She wants to use you! She's tired of being treated like trash, and when you kill the council all of those problems will be remedied and she will stand at your side and use you as a shield to protect herself. She doesn't really care about you. No one does."
"You're wrong," Jarod whispered. "Ellie does." Dark Jarod glanced over and saw an image of Ellie grinning happily.
"One person, sorry I forgot." Dark Jarod spoke bitterly. "How does it feel to only have one person who very well may be dead?" Jarod's blood froze in his veins as he fought against the chains. "But what do I know? I'm just you after all."
"She's not dead!" Jarod yelled. "S-She can't be! Arlyn was fast! She got away with Ellie!" Dark Jarod laughed.
"You truly are selfish," Jarod jolted back as if he had just been slapped across the face by his darker half. "You only care about those close to you, you know that? You try and justify yourself and your actions by including everybody, trying to help them escape, but the moment Mackerel emerged from those woods drenched in blood you only cared about two people," He held up two fingers. "And only those two. You don't care that Noah or anybody else died. Only for yourself and those you care about."
"I-It's not like that!" Jarod defended himself but faltering when he saw that horrible and chilling smirk of Dark Jarod. "It's really not," He said quieter than before. Dark Jarod rolled his eyes.
"Yes, it is. When you woke up after destroying an entire town you only cared about Ryan, not about the hundreds, maybe thousands of children you had killed. Not the teenagers, not the adults. You killed more than most demons ever could and the only thing you could think of was yourself and the fact that Ryan died for you. You beat yourself up about his death, not the death of everyone else. You suppressed those feelings, do you know who got them?"
It was quiet for a moment and Jarod knew what was coming. "MEEEEE!" Dark Jarod roared as the screams of thousands of men, women, and children filled Jarod's head. "I felt that pain! That guilt! You're nothing but a sorry excuse for a demon! You aren't anything! You're nothing!" Dark Jarod shouted as he began punching Jarod repeatedly in the face. "Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!" With each 'nothing' came another punch, each one getting more intense than the one before, Jarod's face not getting bloody despite getting hit so many times.
"You're nothing," Dark Jarod spat out with a glare, taking a step back. "I just thought to remind you."
"Fuck you," Jarod replied, breathing heavily. "Leave me alone." Dark Jarod chuckled.
"We both know I can't do that," He giggled a little bit. "I'll talk to you in a bit." With that the dark abyss, as well as Dark Jarod, disappeared in a fine black mist before Jarod's eyes widened and saw Mackerel's back towards him, the demon hovering over the cart of torture tools.
"Oh? You're awake. That's good to hear. I've been continuing on with our little sessions, but over the past day and a half your eyes were glossed over, even if you screamed it felt as if you really weren't FEELING it you know?" Mackerel said as he glanced back at Jarod and then back at his tools.
"Drilling your feet was pretty fun, ya know?" Mackerel continued as he picked up a small saw, the blade itself being about six inches long while the handle was only two inches. The teeth of the saw were sharp and ready to cut into wood, or for Mackerel's purpose, skin and bone.
"W-What are y-you doing?!" Jarod whispered, already knowing the answer as he thrashed against his restraints. Mackerel only cackled with laughter as he placed the teeth of the saw against Jarod's middle finger.
"Your healing factor is quite impressive, many demons would be very jealous of it if they were to see. I want to know if you can handle the loss of limbs and then regrow them as new? It's time to found out, don't we?"
"STOP!" Jarod shouted as he felt the blades begin cutting into his flesh, an ear-splitting scream coming straight out of his lungs as Mackerel laughed hysterically as he increased the speed of the saw, cutting right through Jarod's finger bone as his middle finger fell to the ground into the puddle of blood below Jarod and Mackerel.
"AGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" His screaming continued as Mackerel moved onto his ring finger, cutting it off slower this time as if to prolong Jarod's agony as he fought against the shackles that held him, desperately trying to break free so he could run.
Run from this pain, this torture. Run from his responsibilities. Run from this agony and sadness that welled up inside his chest. Run from Earth, Hell, and even Heaven, just run. Run from everything.
Everything. . .
He blinked and found himself sitting in another chair made of an unknown metal, his wrists and ankles once again chained to the arms and legs as Dark Jarod stood before him, a cruel smirk on his face.
"So we went over how you have no one except Ellie, who might be dead, correct?" Jarod felt a shiver crawl down his spine at how casually Dark Jarod spoke of it. "Now, we will go back into the past, mainly when you were just a child."
A video-like image began playing and Jarod saw himself as a three-year-old in a rocking change sitting on his mother's lap as she hummed him a song he didn't recognize. Her arms were wrapped around his stomach and waist and his head was resting on her collar bone, his eyes closed and his body asleep.
"Mother," Dark Jarod whispered in a delicate tone. "She treated us correctly then. She loved us."
"And we loved her," Jarod finished, his eyes wide as he watched the calming image play. Dark Jarod's eyes softened.
"She was a mother back then, all until HE came," The way he said "he" with so much venom sent chills down Jarod's body, trying his best to shrink in his chair to get away from the sheer amount of hate Dark Jarod was now displaying.
The peaceful image of him and his mother disappeared and another image burst to life. It was the kitchen Jarod had once eaten in before he was declared the Prince of Hell, the kitchen to his old home.
A home that was his own living Hell.
"Are you questioning me?" He heard his stepfather shout as he backhanded his mother across the face in the old kitchen, his mother falling to the floor. "You think you're better than me?!" He began kicking his mother over and over again.
"Get off of her!" Jarod shouted as he tore against his restraints. Dark Jarod watched his lighter half struggle with a frown on his face, unhappy by the reaction. The image zoomed in and saw Jarod at five-years-old watching the altercation in a corner, hiding his body with a blanket.
"Now you say something," Dark Jarod spoke bitterly. "Now that you realized your mistakes as a bystander you scream at the past. How ironic," The image shifted again and Jarod watched as his mother was wailed and beaten by James over and over again.
Each time he did the smile she sent to Jarod was a little bit smaller, a little bit thinner. Soon she stopped smiling and turned to drugs all the while taking the abuse from her husband. Then she broke.
"I hate you," She spoke to him before tackling him to the ground and slapping him in the face with one hand as she pinned his arms with her other.
"If you had spoken up about her abuse to anyone, if you hadn't kept it to yourself," Dark Jarod said as he forced Jarod to watch every time he was abused by his mother, every time he was hit by his stepfather. "Then none of this would've happened. You could've had a happy childhood, yet you were neutral. You were selfish."
Tears crawled down Jarod's cheeks as he watched his younger self get beaten up by both of his mother and his stepfather, both of them being drunk and high off of whatever drugs they had gotten their hands on.
"Please make it stop," Jarod whispered, not even bothering to fight against the chains now. "I don't want to see anymore." Dark Jarod scoffed.
"Oh really? You don't even want to see your own mistakes? How bad can you get before you decide to quit? Fine," The images stopped and Jarod was left with his darker half in the abyss.
"At least you know you're trash," Dark Jarod said, moving the hair out of his crimson-colored eyes looked at his lighter half with disgust. "What are you thinking right now?"
"I don't know," Jarod whispered, hanging his head as his white hair shadowed his eyes. "I'm not sure what to think." Dark Jarod gasped.
"Oh no, what a shocker." He punched Jarod in the stomach, but he didn't even react. "You still continue on your little path of neutralness. Why?"
"I don't know," Jarod repeated, gritting his teeth. "I don't know what you want me to say. You're me, right? Tell me what I need to hear."
"It's not that easy," Dark Jarod said with a shrug of his shoulders. "I want you to change into a better form of yourself." A moment of silence passed. "Alright, how about another lesson then?" He quickly turned to the abyss and watch as the image of a young Ryan appeared before him.
Jarod slowly looked up, his body shaking as he was confronted with the face of his dead best friend. "Ryan, best friend for how many years? Six? Seven?" Jarod didn't answer, his eyes fixated on the image. "Whatever, let's see how you let him down!"
"STOP!" Jarod screamed at the top of his lungs, the black abyss around them shattering as they sat in a now an empty white abyss. "I won't let you tarnish whatever you have to say about him! Don't you dare try and playback my precious memories of him!"
Dark Jarod's eyes softened momentarily. "He was your light. To you, he was the reason why you never took those pills your parents stashed in their cabinets. To you, he was a lifeline. Protection from reality. He accepted the disaster that is Jarod and in the end, he died for the Prince of Hell."
"Do you really think Ryan would still like you after seeing who you truly are?" Jarod froze as the words were spoken right in his ear. "What about Ellie? Do you think she loves you as her older brother? What if she finds out how rotten you truly are beneath the skin Mackerel has been cutting into for the last week?"
"STOP!" Jarod shouted as he began weeping. "Stop it! Stop telling me all these things! Stop it!" Dark Jarod grabbed Jarod by the hair and forced him to meet his unwavering eyes.
He suddenly slapped Jarod straight across the face, shocking the prince. "If you don't stop being a little bitch then you're letting down everyone who's ever believed in you, and that list is pretty short. Right now you have nothing. Ryan is dead and only lives in the memories of humans and yourself. Ellie is most likely dead, or worse, being tortured just as you are. Is that something you are going to accept?
"Are you going to accept that their memories are going to die too? What if there's a way Ellie is still alive? Are you just going to wait around until Mackerel gets what he wants? Are you going to let her fade? If you don't snap out of this stupid humanized thinking then you will always be weak. Do you want to be weak?" Dark Jarod said, his voice going into a whisper.
"N-No!" Jarod whispered.
"If there's even the slimmest chance of Ellie being alive, aren't you going to save her? Don't you want to save her?"
"Yes!" Jarod said in a louder whisper, the tears still crawling down his eyes.
"And if that's not the case, don't you at least want to remember her? Remember Ryan? If you die their memory fades as well. If you die, it'll be as if they never existed. Do you want to remember them?"
"Yes!" Jarod shouted.
"Do you want to see Ellie again?"
"I do!"
"And if Mackerel or anyone else wants to stop you?"
"I'll kill them! I'll kill him and anyone else who stands in my way!" Jarod screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Even if they're humans? Even if they're angels?"
"No one will take anyone I care about away from me again!!!!!" He roared.
"Then my lesson is concluded." Dark Jarod finished with a smirk and stood up. "Now allow me to take over and give you what you want!"
Jarod's hands shot forward, breaking from their chains as if they were made of paper, and tackled him to the ground, his fingers wrapping around Dark Jarod's neck and he began squeezing.
"I'll take it for myself! I'm not holding back my darkness anymore! You're me, and most importantly, I'm you. I'm in control of everything now and you won't stop me anymore!" Dark Jarod began choking as he tried to pry Jarod's hands off of him but to no avail, the teen's grip being stronger than diamond.
"H-Heheheheh," He laughed in Jarod's grasp. "Good." He finished before dissolving into a black mist as Jarod closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the mist going into his nostrils as he breathed it all in.
He opened his eyes, revealing dark red demon eyes.
He was whole again.