The very first sensation to round it's way back into Tahlia's body, was the unmistakable feeling of her throat being completely and agonizingly parched.

The saliva in her mouth could only keep the surface lubricated for so long without water, before the intense soreness from thirst had roused her out of her death like sleep.

The sound of something perked her ears. It was a faint thudding, so trivial that had she not been surrounded in perpetual silence, her mind would have never even perceived it in the first place.

Her face stirred sideways, a sudden throb creeping onto the nape of her neck, eliciting a small moan of discomfort from her cracked lips. Her vision was just coming to be, eyelids fluttering in and out of a pitch black void. As her body attempted to shift out of instinct, the realization that it wasn't just her throat that felt constricted, but also her limbs, jerked her brain awake.

Her eyes flew open, being met with the hazy outline of 3 walls. Sheer horror filled her veins as it registered that her torso was positioned upright on a chair, hands bound behind her back. As she abysmally attempted to lurch her body off it, the dreadful realization of her feet being fettered to the legs of the chair, ebbed her bolt for freedom. Her head darted around the place like a maniac, looking at the three wooden walls in front of her that entrapped her.

Her sight and her mind had by then, merely just begun to clear up, only pumping her with more trepidation as she apprehended the fact that she was tied up to a chair in an empty room.

Her head was spinning, but it was all starting to come back to her.

Coming back to the campus. Being followed. Finding the policeman dead and...

No.

No. No. NO.

She opened her mouth to scream, only to find that her voice refused to come out under her dry and heavy tongue.

As if mind-numbing panic hadn't seized her by the throat before, recalling that it was Logan himself who had put her in this predicament, her insides went into a frenzy.

Tahlia rabidly thrashed her body around in the chair, her bone-chilling revelation finally eliciting a few whimpers from her lips.

"Help." She croaked out with all of her strength.

She strained her neck to look all around the room, take in everything that she could. There was no door in front of her, or to her side; no windows either. There was however, a fireplace to her very right that would crackle aloud as the embers sizzled forebodingly. It's warm glint was the only source of light in the space.

Her neck was abnormally sore. All her muscles felt sore and aching for that matter, indefinitely cramped from being sat in the same position for hours.

But something about the her neck stuck out in an endless sea of discomfort. All she wanted to do was run her palms along the region, feel the tender flesh under her fingertips.

As the faint adrenaline in her bloodstream too began to wear down, sheer dread began to rapidly pool into the pit of her stomach.

'I'm going to die', was the only thing running through her head.

Minutes spun like silk into hours, as Tahlia was left to stew in her morbid thoughts. Her breathing was becoming more and more spasmodic with time and her head whirled like a carousel; she needed her pills.

Every once in a while, the same thudding noise would come from the other side of the walls and jolt Tahlia up in fear, as if it were the sound of Death itself.

She rued the day she stepped foot into that asylum. She rued the day she ever even applied for the scholarship of that damn subject.

And it was in the middle of her bitter thoughts, that a distinct sound went off behind her- the sound of wood chaffing against the floor.

Ignoring the stiffness in her neck, she twisted it to the side, letting her eyes roll over their best to the periphery.

Instantly she whipped her face back around, shutting her eyelids close, suddenly wishing she hadn't seen that.

Slow, but firm footsteps taunted her from behind. The sound of creaking floorboard stopped just inches from where she sat, her body suddenly erupting into violent shivers as terror rattled her bones.

For a minute nothing happened, it all stood still, before Tahlia felt a light but unmistakable pressure of fingertips, inching it's way on her shoulder.

She froze, goosebumps appearing all over her skin at the scathing contact. Her lips quivered as she felt the cold fingertips drum against her shoulders cynically.

Moments of excruciating silence flickered by, before the sound of a heavy exhale reached her ears.

"I've thought about it." His liquid silk voice sliced the thick silence.

Her clenched eyelids flew open. All these months later, and yet his voice didn't fail to disarm her. It was him. This was real.

"I've thought about it for a while now, you see, it's been too long since I last saw you kitten. "

The sardonic tone in his words flowed like river water. Only after a long drawn out pause did he speak again, and this time, another hand was rested over her other shoulder.

"What am I gonna do to you?"

Tahlia almost jumped out of her skin, for the last sentence was whispered right into her ears. He had drawn himself too close for comfort, with his face so close to her neck, she could hear him breathe, so calm and steady. The scent of a midnight's ocean breeze was choking her senses.

Tahlia turned her face away from his, fearing her cheek might touch with his nose, her teeth gritted together.

He let go of her shoulders, straightening up in her peripheral vision, before stalking over to finally face her.

It was then that Tahlia lost all sense of reality.

She could swear his eyes were darker.

Maybe it was the lighting of the room, maybe it was the intent deep inside of them being reflected.

His lips were stretched into a thin line, placid, quite opposite of the mad simper she'd expected him to sport.

"Who are you?" Tahlia finally found it in her to croak out, her voice scratchy, barely coming out of her throat.

Of course, it was without a doubt Logan Hunt standing in front of her, but who exactly Tahlia was speaking to was unknown to her. Was it Logan himself or his extra-psychopathic alter Ian?

He sauntered into small steps right in front of her, bending down to her eye level. Latching his gaze onto hers, he smiled magnificently; making her stomach lurch.

"It's me Natalia. It's always been me."

Tahlia didn't know what to make of it, so she just shook her head weakly, "You don't have to do this." She bit down on her lips to stop herself from tearing up.

"Please." She added as an afterthought.

As if etiquette meant something to a demented serial killer.

He straightened up, all of a sudden, walking all the way over to where he came from, behind her. She heard the door slam twice, indicating that he went out and then came back in.

Next thing Tahlia knew, he was standing in front of her with a plastic white can.

A gasoline can.

"Oh God." She whimpered, her eyes going wide with grisly horror.

Her case profile was, as if, flashing in red all over her mind like a cautionary siren.

❝ The alter, Ian, was fixated on mutilating his victims before burning them alive. His choice of fire accelerant, on 3 out of 4 occasions had been gasoline. ❞

For a split second, Logan's features contorted with perplexity as he saw Tahlia's petrified face, before following her gaze to the can. As it registered, a small grin overcame his lips.

"It's water."

The thought of water running down her dehydrated mouth was, quite literally, like finding water in a dry desert. Heaven.

But you see, the problem was Tahlia had been fooled one too many times by the pretty psychopath to believe one word that came out of his lips.

For all she knew, tricking her into drinking fuel was his idea of fun.

She shook her head 'no' in answer, ignoring the pangs of ache in her throat.

The smirk never dissipated from Logan's lips as he brought the can to his own lips and took a drink from it, letting some of the diamond water run down his chin callously.

Tahlia had to vigorously keep swallowing her own saliva to stop the temptation to ask for it, from taking over her self.

She had to escape. She had to.

She mapped the room in her head, from what she presumed, the door was behind her. She had no idea where she was, but it didn't matter. She'd had to find a way to get out that door.

'But how am I supposed to overpower a 6'4 man?' She mused to herself, when the fireplace smoldered.

That's it. She could attack him with a hot log or coals or something, the fear of searing her hands not seeming a big deal at the moment.

All she had to do now was get out of the bindings somehow.

"Thinking hard, are we?" Logan's voice taunted, his head tilted to the side in apparent amusement.

"I.." Tahlia began, biting her lip, looking for anything not mildly suspicious.

"..Need to pee. Please."

Logan crossed his arms, his eyes fixed onto her stance, assessing her for a moment, before uncrossing them and moving towards her.

He reached into his back pocket, and within a second, he was brandishing a shiny metallic knife in his hands.

He walked behind her and with one swish, cut the sticky tape confining her arms. A groan left Tahlia's mouth as she let her hands fall to her sides, before bringing the reddened and raw pair of wrists to the front, rubbing at them softly.

As Logan appeared in front of her yet again, squatting down to reach the legs of the chair to cut the tape, something in Tahlia's brain went off at the sight of the knife.

That is your ticket out of here.

Overwhelmed with adrenaline and fear; Without thinking, she lunged for the weapon with her free hands, catching Logan by surprise.

Not that it mattered.

Before she could even as much as touch the hilt of the knife, Logan was up and backed away from her.

Tears welled up in her eyes, the one probable shot she had at freedom, she blew it with impulsive thinking.

The sound of Logan clicking his tongue soon entered her ears like a death omen.

The amusement on his face had only heightened with her little attempt.

But something was different about his face, it seemed more..more.. Manic.

"Little girls shouldn't play with sharp objects." He chided mockingly, swiveling the knife between his fingers for her to see.

"But," His cool tone send goosebumps running down her skin, his eyes growing more sordid by the second.

"If you really do want to play, I can help you."

He inched forwards slowly, diabolically.

He disappeared behind her like before, returning a few minutes later. He had a small stool in his grasp, that he placed right in front of her.

Tahlia's eyes flickered from the stool back to Logan's in confusion, when he suddenly gripped her right wrist.

She hissed at the harsh manoeuvre, working to put in all of her strength into resisting him.

He was peering right into her eyes, as he placed her hand, palms-down, on the stool, her fight not affecting him in the least. He then spread the fingers apart, almost into a jazz-hands position.

It was only when Tahlia saw Logan holding her hand out with his right hand, while clutching the knife in the other, that she finally connected the dots.

A horror-filled shriek left her lips.

"No, no, no, please, Logan NO."

She pleaded miserably, the tears finally beginning to run down her cheeks like a water faucet.

The blade of the knife suddenly fell onto the space beside her pinky finger.

He smirked, "You have to count Natalia."

"PLEASE NO I-." She'd only just begun begging hysterically, before she had to cut herself off from the shock of the knife stabbing the wooden space between the pinky and the ring finger.

"Count, or I'll do it for you Natalia."

But Tahlia was too stunned to say or do anything.

"Fine." He announced, "2," The knife drove into the space between the ring and the middle finger. "3", followed by space between the middle and the pointer finger; finishing with the pointer and the thumb as he said "4".

Tahlia was positive she could hear her own heartbeat.

"1,2,3,4." He repeated again, this time a smidge faster than the previous time.

And again.

And again, and again.

His counting got faster every sequence, and with it, the speed of the knife. At one point, Tahlia couldn't even see the knife with how quick the movement was.

The sixth time he repeated the action, the knife nicked Tahlia in the cuticles of three different fingers, making her yelp with the sting.

Then the tip of the blade tormentingly cut into the sides of her fingers, her knuckles, covering her whole hand and the surface of the stool with little splatters of blood within ten minutes.

She screamed and cried at the toe curling pain, gnashing her teeth together in pure agony.

When he was done, he let go of her hand, watching Tahlia retract it back at the speed of light, using her other one to wipe at the blood and put pressure on the tiny little punctures that ran all the way down to her knuckles.

Her face was a mess, her nose running and mouth raw from all the screaming.

When Tahlia looked up in a blur of tears, she saw that Logan was sitting on the stool, mere centimetres away from her face.

"What was it again? A criminal psychology project?" His face remained tranquil, but his voice held nothing but contempt as he jeered.

"You wanted to observe me, know everything there is to a murderer. You wanted to know all he would feel as he racked up a plaything. The victim, you call it. You wanted to know every last, nitty-gritty detail of how the victim suffered before he granted them their tragic death."

He pulled his body in a little closer, if that was possible, so much that his forehead was a fraction away from resting on hers.

"Now you know."

✶✶✶