Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ Taming the Tiger ❯ Introspection ( Chapter 3 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

A/N: Hola. Chapter four. This is more introspective. That's about it.

Disclaimer: Death Note belongs to Takeshi Obata.

Mello shivered against the cold that had begun to invade his dark cell. He could tell that winter was beginning to set in and that thought was chilling in more than one way: he had been captured in the summer. He wondered where Matt was. Was he safe and warm? Was he happy? Did he miss Mello? Or did he even realize that Mello was gone? What was he doing right now, at this moment? What about Near? How was the investigation going? Had Kira been captured yet? Did anyone even know he was gone? Probably not.

He curled into a tight ball. It was so cold. Lying on the hard floor hurt because he was so thin, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. When he tried to stand he just got dizzy and fell back down, so he had stopped trying. This he attributed to the fact that he wasn't eating or drinking nearly enough. He was fed once every week and a half and given water every third day. Just enough to keep him alive. He wasn't even sure he wanted to be alive anymore, but something in him just wouldn't let him die. It made him bitter to think of just how far he had fallen. He had been a skilled fighter once, perfect with any sort of weapon and deadly in hand to hand combat. And yet it had taken one shot to take him down. Just one. The shooter had been hiding and he had shot to immobilize rather than kill. That was the worst part of it. He had been holding on to the barest edges of consciousness when he had been captured. He knew what was happening, but he couldn't fight back. When he had first arrived they starved him into weakness before his door was ever opened. There was no way he could have broken out, as he had been stripped of all tools and weapons, and by the time they finally opened the door for the first time he was too weak to fight back effectively enough to get away.

And now... Now he was ruined. He was broken, physically and emotionally. He was so deathly thin that his joints hurt when he tried to move. Just lying there, even if he sprawled out on his back, was painful. It was to the point now where he threw up blood nearly every time he tried to eat. And that was just from the starvation, speak not of his injuries. He had been beaten and ...raped so many times that he was certain it was impossible that he would ever full recover from his injuries. And emotional and mental damage. It was astounding, really, what they had been able to do to someone who had once been so strong. He was afraid of everyone, he jumped at every little noise, he feared contact, he feared light, he wanted to die. He was just a broken shell of the veritable warlord he had once been.

He had given up all hope of escape. He was going to die here. What was the point in denying it when he knew that to be the inescapable truth? He was going to die here, broken and alone. He would never see Matt again. Never hold him, never confide in him all the terrible things that had happened. He had never confessed to Matt just what he felt for him and he regretted that, but it was too late now. He was going to die here broken and alone without ever seeing Matt again.

Even if he did miraculously get out of here alive, he didn't know what he would do. The idea of being able to hold Matt again like he had done at the orphanage when the boy had nightmares... that seemed to foreign. He would not be able to let Matt touch him. He wouldn't be able to let anyone touch him for fear of hurting them simply out of reflex. By this time he had come to fear contact above anything else and he was afraid of what would happen if he let Matt get too close. But it was all wishful thinking. He was going to die here, cold and broken and alone, unloved and without Matt.

He couldn't keep thinking like that. He would get out. He had to. He couldn't keep living this way or he would simply cease to live. If you could call this living in the first place. Where would he go? He had no home and no one to turn to. He had been utterly alone. Powerful, but alone. The only real difference now, he supposed, was that now he was broken and alone. There was nothing left to live for anymore.

He fingered the collar around his neck. It had begun to fray from all the time he had spent pulling at the threads. He had the feeling that with the exception of the bruises and the raw patch under the collar he would be deathly paler. That was if you could tell through the grim. To say he had been poorly kept would be an understatement. He felt utterly disgusting. Not only was he covered head to toe in grim from the past however many months it had been, but there was also the feeling of uncleanliness from the brutal assaults he faced nearly daily. He could probably scrub forever and never feel clean.

He pressed his knees harder into his chest as he fought to stay warm. If he didn't starve to death or die of his injuries surely the coming winter would kill him. He wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. When he had first arrived he had cried. The first time in years, the tears leaving streaks down his cheeks. But now he had gone through so much that he couldn't cry anymore.

He wanted to sleep, but he was afraid of the nightmares. He remembered Matt's nightmares at Wammy's. He had been the only one to know about them. He would dream that he was back in his home on the night his parents had been murdered. He watched them die over and over in his mind. He had been a child when it happened, not yet old enough to rationalize what had happened and it still haunted him. Mello's nightmares weren't quite like that. He could feel the rough hands of the men, feel the pain of being beaten or... he didn't like to think about it. He felt so helpless, so out of control. He wanted to die. He was going to die. He couldn't last much longer. He was going to die here, cold and broken and alone. He was going to die...

The door creaked open and Mello cringed. He knew what was coming.