A few hours have passed since my meeting with the princes. The meeting left me feeling impatient, confused and angry, without Dreamora here to ease my frustration, I decide to head down to the dungeons of the castle.

Usually Dreamora will bring me one of the damned souls to my throne room for me to release my bloodthirst. It has been many years since I stepped foot into this part of the palace. Heading to the east side of the castle I walk by the kitchens; the smell of roasting young flesh catches my nostrils. My fangs sharpen and saliva starts to pool in my mouth. I continue to walk by as my need for violence overcrowds my need for food. Many slaves stop and bow, cowering away from my gaze, some even go as far as to avoid me by scurrying into dark corners like the insects they are. My castle walls are a mixture of black and blood. Various statues of grotesque creatures decorate the curved pillars, large chains hang from the ceiling, stained black with the blood of their adornments. I notice some are empty and make a mental note to get that fixed. Apart from the normal shuffles and mumbles of the slave going about their duties I notice that the castle is quiet..too quiet. The regular screams of torture victims usually resonate through the halls, clicking my fingers to one of the slaves, he follows me down the dark, damp stairwell to the dungeons. ‘Why is there no screaming?’ I casually ask the servant.

‘Screaming? ... oh yes, the screaming…erm... well... my lord, Silathis has…’ he stops abruptly as I raise my hand to silence him.

‘Silathis!! That little parasite! I will deal with him later, I fucking hate that little worm’ I mutter through gritted teeth.

‘Go to Nicolieus, ask him to send some of his Imps and Lesser Demons to the dungeons. At my command,’ I turn the servant staring him down.

The servant bows and runs off back up the stairs to carry out his orders. Releasing a sigh, I turn back to my original route, this time my pace quickening.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs the room opens, a single aisle is suspended above thousands of sharp blades that are coated in blood, I can hear small murmurs of pain from bodies that have been tossed down there.

With a gesture of my right hand, bright yellow and green flames ignite from below the aisle. The murmurs quickly transcend in to screams, the air quickly heats up and the smell of burning blood begins to replace musty smell of damp walls.

I stride down the aisle allowing my body to heat up from the flames below, reaching the large iron doors at the end I gesture for them to open. The doors coated in rust scrape along the floor, the aisle begin to vibrate as they expose the path the dungeon cells.

Taking a deep breath and smiling I enter, the doors grinding shut with a loud bang as they meet in the middle.

Suspended in darkness I take a moment to compose myself. Rolling my shoulders to loosen up, the smile on my face widening at the excitement. With the same gesture of my right hand I empower the torches that hang outside of each cell to blaze with new life, illuminating the darkness.

I glance into each cell as I pass them, deciding which one I want to use. The fifth cell on the left catches my attention, Dreamora had recently brought this human up from the third tier in the pit, a mass murder, who abused its victims before killing them.

This will do, I grin as I peer through the bars of its cell. A male human, average build, short dark hair, I enter its cell and the human decides to rush for the door. Laughing I watch it struggle against the chain around its neck, preventing it from going any further. With a swift movement of my claws, I slice open the Achilles heel on both legs, ensuring that it is unable to walk. The body collapses to the ground as I snap the chain attached to the wall, using it like a leash I drag the human, on its front, out of its cell to my personal torture chamber at the end of the corridor. Two female lesser demons walk around the corner in front of me and quickly vanish into one of the cells, at this point I’m too distracted with my activity to be bothered by them. The door to my chamber swings open and the torches instantly blaze to light as I enter.

The walls are red with fresh blood, ‘Someone has been in here,’ I frown looking around the room. The table in the centre of the room is still in the same place, tossing the human into the corner, I check the shackles on the table to ensure that they have not weakened. Satisfied with their strength, I grab the human by the head, digging my claws in to its neck, with my hand covering the full diameter of the crown, I easily lift the human on to the table and flop it down on its back, strapping the human in tight. The shackles have small spikes on the inside of the cuffs which will dig into the skin should the human move. Pushing its head down on the table and fastening the chin strap, I stare into the glassy eyes. Its lids removed as with all souls as they enter the pit a simple and effect form of torture and hells claim on that soul, after all the eyes are the window to the soul.

‘Let’s start with these,’ smirking as I continue to watch the fear in the glassy eyes escalate.

Like a surgeon I carefully align my claws with the humans pupils, lowering my hands slowly until the tips pierce the cornea and gently touch the pupils surface, the humans starts to pant and scream with pain, concentrating I start to heat up my hands, my blood vessels begin to glimmer like orange magma as the boiling blood courses through them, my very skin charring to black, my veins begin to illuminate, passing through the hands and down to the sharp claw points that pierced the corneas. The heat that is generated is searing, passing through the claw and into the eye, slowly cooking the lens and eventually flowing back to the optic nerve, this is a very slow process and worsens when the human begins to thrash in pain. I allow the human to move its head as much as it can within its restraints, the feeling of the eyeball twitching within its sockets is like a small stress relief. Smoke starts to rise from the eye sockets, I take two long thin needles and place them in the same position of my claws to keep the wound open and to tear the optic nerve with every twitch. Moving down the face I let my hand scrape along the skin, ripping it as they travel down. I start to flay the skin, but not too deep to expose the muscle but to the connective tissue that covers the muscle, exposing the nerves; the human squirms and struggles with the restraints, ‘ooh I bet it stings,’ I laugh at it, the human screams uncontrollably in agony, I stop and give my attention back toward the head, ‘shush now, this is a very delicate procedure, if I go too deep I will have to restart from scratch,’ scratching the humans face to emphasise my point, closing my hand around its mouth, I begin to melt the flesh of its lips together reducing its screams to muffles.

Once finished I look down at the body, now red and raw from the removal of skin, blood oozes between the strands of connective tissue. The human’s wrists now cut deep with the thrashing. Smiling I proceed with the next stage. Walking across my chamber I approach a small wooden box containing thousands of juvenile ash beetles, found in the base layer of the pit, they hatch under the settled ash in the drainage shelf, usually feasting on souls that stop to rest there. One bite from these will cause a demon to shriek in pain, they release a virulent toxin that attacks the blood painfully, poisoning the host, the feeling starts with uncontrollable an itching sensation followed by an infernal burning, the blood begins to necrotise, quickly changing into a devastating acid, which painfully starts melting the body from the inside out, you would be considered fortunate to be eaten by the adult variants, as they would probably just devour you alive with their powerful pincers, horrible things indeed.

Reappearing at the side of the human, that is still struggling and screaming behind his melded flesh hole, I slowly empty the beetles on to his chest, at first, they sit there and only a few moves. ‘This will not do, come on little fellas, aren’t you hungry or do you need motivation?’

Hovering my hands over the body and the beetles, a small blanket of fire begins to spread from the chest, up to the head and down to the feet. The human is now enclosed in fire, slowly being burnt, the beetles begin to panic and by instinct start to bury into the flesh, biting at the exposed nerves to create tunnels. Taking up a seat, I decide to take a break and enjoy the show.

An hour passes, I notice that the human is no longer moving, no longer making any noise. Walking up to the table I wave my hand for the fire to disperse, the flesh of the body now burnt black, wisps of smoke levitate off the surface of the flesh. Huffing I frown at the corpse in front of me, ‘tut-tut, I expected better, oh well,’ placing my hand above his heart, I send a warm pulse through his chest cavity, restarting his heart and healing his major wounds. The chest starts to rise and fall as the lungs begin to work, the heartbeat becoming stronger, eventually the human awakens and instantly begins thrashing in confusion. ‘Nice of you to join me,’ I mock, it mumbles behind the melted flesh where its lips once were.

‘I best finish up here as I have work to do,’ I note to myself whilst search the body in front of me, deciding what I should do next.

I turn to the door of my chamber and shout to one of the female demons that is cleaning the cells.

‘You!’ pointing and clicking my fingers for her to enter the room.

She follows without question, closing the door behind her.

‘Open your mouth,’ I turn to her.

‘My Lord?’ she replies questioning my motives.

‘Open your mouth, let me see your teeth,’

She reluctantly opens her mouth for me, I grab her bottom jaw, and start to investigate her teeth. Small fangs, some chipped molars and a few missing.

‘hmm… not great but it will do,’

She closes her mouth and looks at me curiously.

Pointing at the human, ‘Pleasure it,’

She looks at the mound of twitching flesh on the table, then looks back at me.

‘But my lord..’ she protests.

‘But what.. wrap your mouth around its cock and pleasure it,’

‘My lord, he ... it can barely breathe, I doubt it will have the capacity…’

Smiling at her, ‘ Don’t you worry about that, it will soon forget its location… now get on the table.’

She looks over at the human pulling a face of disgust but follows my order without further question.

I walk to the head of the human and place my hands at both sides of its temples. Using my index fingers I penetrate the skull so that the tips touch the brain.

I begin to implant an image from the humans memory, something pleasurable, something arousing.

The human begins to relax and enjoys the vision behind its eyes.

‘Now,’ I nod to the female demon.

She begins to slowly massage the humans reproductive tool.

It responds pleasantly, small moans of pleasure, muffled by the melted tissue.

Its body twitching with enjoyment. ‘Use your mouth!’ I command.

Grimacing, she lowers her head and begins to suck, her head slowly bobbing up and down.

‘Build up speed,’

She does as I say, the human continues to moan and twitch. The pace of this pleasurable moment begins to speed up.

The human is close to climax, now... this is the time I switch the image into the stuff of nightmares.

The humans moans start to resemble the sound of panic, however its body betrays it, stimulated by the physical pleasure it is receiving.

‘Keep it going!’ I shout to her, she looks up at me and nods.

‘Nearly there,’

‘Nearly,’...the humans body twitches as its about to climax.

‘BITE!! NOW!!,’ I shout at her.

She looks at me then follows command, crushing her teeth down on to the meaty flesh between her lips.

Blood pouring out of her mouth. The human screams behind the fleshy gag.

Laughing out loud… ‘don’t you dare spit it out!’

She gags and throws up the shaft into a bucket in the corner of the room.

Laughing, I pat her on the back, ‘have the rest of the afternoon off, you did good for your first attempt at torture,’

Wiping her mouth she bows and leaves the room.

Looking at the human bleeding out from the hole where it genitalia rested, I smile, what a glorious day this was finally turning into.

A knock on my door distracts me.

‘What is it!?’ I shout at the closed door.

‘My Lord… Here are the Imps and the Lesser demons you requested,’ a voice replies.

‘Let the Imps in and set the Lesser demons to work on the other souls in the cells,’

Three Imps enter, small, skinny little creatures, the size of cats, a mixture of red and grey skin, tiny horns on their head and black beady eyes.

Their mouths however can swallow an enormous amount with one bite. They do not understand etiquette of the ranks however they are aware that I am powerful and quiver under my gaze.

‘Finish up in here,’ I point to the human on the table.

The Imps follow the direction of my hand and begin to drool at the easy meal, literally laid on the table for them.

Just as I’m about to exit the room, the lesser demon that I had sent to the pit for more slave’s approaches me tentatively,

‘My Lord…Erm… I have been told... to tell you… that… erm… Grim wants to see you at the gate,’ he bows, locking his gaze to the floor.

Patting his head, ‘ Thank you, back to work,’ I reply.

I exit the room, the Imps waste no time to jump on to the table behind me, the sound of muffled shrieking and jaws chopping through bone escapes the room.

As I walk past the cells, the Lesser Demons had taken up their duties and begin torturing the other souls.

Leaving the dungeons behind me, the halls now echo with the regular sound of pain and torment.

I smile and head to the gate to meet with an old friend.