Page 29 of Dark Therapy
“Oh, Millie,” he whispered, his voice soft but filled with quiet menace. “Youreallyshouldn’t have said that.”
The air seemed heavier, suffocating. His words wrapped around me like a vice, and I felt the room shrinking with every syllable. “You’re amonster,” I choked out, the words scraping against my throat.
His smirk widened into something grotesque, something wicked. “Maybe,” he mused, his tone light, mocking. “But I’myourmonster. And that’s the part you don’t seem to get.” He glanced around the dim room, his eyes flicking over the walls as if planning his next move. “You think you want to escape me? To run back to your safe, boring little life? Nah.” He leaned forward, his voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper. “Deep down, you fuckingneedme. The thrill. The danger. Admit it—youcraveit like a drug.”
“No!” I spat, panic flaring in my chest. “I want out of this madness! I wantnothingto do with you!” My voice cracked, but the defiance burned like acid on my tongue.
“Liarrr,” Damien hissed, his voice slicing through the room. “You can say whatever you want, but I see you, Millie. Every twitch, every shiver. Youfeelme in your blood, the way I feel you inmine.” His words were both intimate and venomous, a chilling combination that left me paralyzed. “Face it, sweetheart. You and I? We’re tied together in ways you’re too scared to fucking understand.”
I flinched as he reached out, his hand snapping forward like a viper, his fingers gripping my cheeks. His touch was soft, his palm hot against my skin, a violent contrast to the cold dread pooling in my stomach.
“Look at me,” he growled, his voice low and commanding.
Before I could react, he lunged forward, his lips crashing against mine in a brutal, possessive kiss. It wasn’t affection—itwas a fuckingconquest. His mouth was demanding, overwhelming in a way that left no room for escape. The air was thick with his scent, his heat, his raw, unrelentingpresence.
A low hum of satisfaction rumbled from his throat, vibrating through me like a sinister melody.
And then, as suddenly as it began, it ended. He pulled away, leaving me breathless, my mind spinning, my lips tingling with the phantom burn of his kiss. I stumbled back, the cold steel pole digging into my spine, grounding me in the suffocating reality of the moment.
Damien stepped away, his movements unhurried, his unsettling smirk firmly in place. He strolled to the chair, his fingers brushing over the large box he’d carried in like it was a prize. “Now,” he said, his tone casual, almost amused. “Let’s see what surprises I’ve got for you.”
As Damien pried the lid off the box, the room seemed to inhale, the quiet thick with anticipation. Then, chaos erupted. A violent storm of wings burst forth, a livingnightmarespilling into the air. The sound hit me first—a deafening, frenzied buzz that clawed at my ears and drowned out my breath.
Moths. Massive, grotesque creatures, their bloated bodies dark and alien, their erratic flight painting wild shadows on the concrete walls. They filled the room, diving and swirling with manic purpose, their wings beating the air into a suffocating frenzy.
“No, no, no!” I gasped, instinctively pressing myself against the pole, desperately trying to escape the onslaught of flapping bodies. The sound was deafening, a relentless buzzing that drowned out all rational thought. I could feel the air thickening around me as the moths circled, their movement chaotic yet purposeful, as if they were drawn to me.
Damien stood there, reveling in the spectacle. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” he said, his voice laced with a sickening delight. The moths danced in the dim light, casting eerie shadows on the concrete walls. I could feel their presence, a swarm of dark memories flooding back, clawing at my mind.
The words twisted in my brain, but they barely registered over the onslaught. The fluttering wings blurred my vision, and I felt their heavy,furrybodies graze my skin, leaving behind invisible trails of revulsion. My stomach churned as a tidal wave of memories slammed into me—dim light, metal bars, the flutter of trapped wings as I sat huddled in the corner, terrified andbroken.
“No,” I whispered, the word shaking loose from my throat as the walls of my mind began to crumble. “No! Get them away!” My voice cracked into a scream, raw and panicked, but Damien only leaned closer, his voice a knife slicing through the chaos.
“Feel that, Doctor?” His eyes glinted, wild and shining with sadistic glee. “That’s your past clawing its way back. All the things you’ve tried to forget, buried so deep you thought you were safe. But guess what, sweetheart? You’renot. You never fucking were.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks as I struggled to breathe, each gasp like dragging razor blades into my lungs. I shook my head, batting the moths away, but they came at me in waves, relentlessand inescapable. “Stop it!Please!” I screamed, my voice shredded, my body trembling against the unyielding pole.
Damien stepped closer, close enough that I could feel his heat, his presence suffocating. The moths seemed to orbit him, drawn to the darkness that radiated from him like a vortex. “Don’t you see?” he hissed, his voice dipping into something low and venomous. “This isfreedom. This is fuckingtruth. They’re here to remind you—of the cages, the shadows, the shit you keep locked away. And now? Now they’re free. Just like you should be.”
I sobbed, shaking my head violently, my hair sticking to the sweat on my face. “I don’t want to remember! I don’t want any of this!”
“But you don’t get a fucking choice!” Damien roared, his voice cutting through my cries like a whip. His face twisted into something feral, his grin gone, replaced by a seething intensity that made the air feel electric. “You think you can just bury the past? Pretend it didn’t happen? No, Millie. You’re gonnafaceit. You’re gonnafeelit. Because you can’t run from who you are.”
The moths seemed to respond to his words, their frenzied movements growing wilder, their dark bodies brushing against my arms, my face. Each touch sent a fresh wave ofhorrorthrough me, until I was shaking, breaking, unraveling under the weight of it all.
“Damien,” I whimpered, my voice barely a whisper. “Please… you’rehurtingme.”
He stepped back, tilting his head like he was studying a piece of art. His grin returned, slow and sinister, curling across his lips like smoke. “Hurtyou?” he said, his tone mockingly soft. “Millie, this isn’t hurt. You’ve gotta walk through the fucking dark to get to the light. And trust me—” he gestured to the swarm still circling like a living nightmare—“the dark isn’t going anywhere. So, stop running.”
He reached out, his hand steady, deliberate. His fingers brushed my cheek, and I flinched at the contact, but the jolt that coursed through me was worse than fear. It was something darker. Something I hated. Something Iwanted.
“Let go of the past,” Damien said, his voice dripping with an unnatural calm, a sharp contrast to the manic energy crackling in the air around us. His thumb dragged over my skin, a slow, possessive caress. “Only then can you be free. You want to be free, don’t you, Millie?”
A shiver raced down my spine, and I cursed myself for the betrayal of my own body. “Yes,” I choked out, my voice weak, useless against the storm of his presence.
His lips hovered a breath away from mine, and I turned my head sharply, desperate to deny him. But Damien wasn’t a man who took no for an answer. His grip tightened, dragging my face back to meet his gaze.
“You’re so fucking beautiful when you’re afraid,” he hissed, his eyes narrowing as he studied. “But it’s notfear, is it? Not really. It’s that tiny little part of you—that dark part—that likes this. That likesme.”