Reign of Ruin

by Bene, Jennifer

  Nodding, accepting, she tried to focus on the feeling of warmth in her belly where it gurgled and rumbled, as desperate for the food as she had been. For once she was actually grateful when she said, “Thank you, father.”

  He smiled at her, setting the bowl and spoon on a counter beside an old stovetop. A large pot squatted on a back burner, and she wondered if it was full of soup. Just how many bowlfuls could be waiting in there? Did the priests always have hot soup? Every day? Did they eat it more than once a day?

  Useless questions.

  “Come now,” he beckoned, tilting his head towards the door on the far side of the room. It wasn’t a choice to follow, there were no other options. But the priest had been gentle, and he had fed her warm food. For that, she would crawl after him over the rough floor if he asked.

  How little it cost to buy her fidelity.

  They passed through another door, but the next hallway was a little wider than the first, with a long, worn carpet running down the middle. It was softer on her feet, warmer, in fact the air itself seemed to lack some of the chill of the rooms upstairs. Or maybe she was just drying off and filled with warm food for the first time since she’d awoken in Hell. Anything was possible in a world that made no sense.

  He stopped at a door just before a bend in the hall and knocked softly. “You may enter,” a man’s voice replied, and the priest led her inside. White curtains hung from the ceilings, cordoning off six small spaces in the room. Like an old hospital.

  Had she ever been in a hospital?

  There was no memory roused by the sight, but the man that stood from behind his desk made her stomach twist around the digesting soup. It was easy to see cruelty once you knew what it looked like, once you’d experienced it, and this man was cruel. Even if he was dressed like one of the priests, sans the white collar. Instead of the traditional marker, he had a white sash around his middle, keeping the narrower style of robe close to his waist.

  “She is fresh from baptism,” the man commented, approaching to run a finger down her damp arm, and she masked her shudder as a shiver.

  “Yes. Her two hundred and sixteenth.” The priest said the number in his quiet voice, but her heart stuttered in her chest.

  Impossible.

  She hadn’t been in Eden long enough for that many punishments or calls to service to have happened. And the damage had to be serious for a baptism to be ordered, which made it impossible. She’d remember that many horrible things happening to her, even if she couldn’t remember the good things, the things from before, she remembered everything in Hell… right?

  Her stomach churned, nausea burning a path up her throat as she lifted her eyes to the kind priest to find him smiling.

  Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

  “She’s still functioning,” the man said, sounding almost impressed as he looked her up and down, but she didn’t care about the cruel man. Couldn’t listen to anything else he said.

  There was no way. They had the wrong girl. The papers were wrong. She hadn’t been in the baths that many times, she hadn’t been here long enough for that. It had only been… how long? Time skittered away from her as she tried to think, as her heart raced in her chest and water dripped from her hair, running in chilling rivulets down her spine.

  The priests were still talking, but she could barely hear them. Words about God and grace and purity. All lies, but their voices were narrowing, growing softer, just like the lights. It was hard to breathe in the dim. Her heart beating too loud in the mounting quiet.

  And then the world tilted and everything went black.

  Chapter 4

  A sharp pinch between her legs woke her with a jolt, and Danielle tried to shift… but couldn’t. Body stiff, her eyes were sticky, refusing to open even as something hard and cold slid deeper inside her. Then there was another sharp stab of pain at her entrance coupled with a metallic clink.

  “Ah, you’re awake.” It was the cruel priest, his voice light, but she felt his hand on the inside of her thigh as he pushed it wider and manipulated the thing buried inside her. “The sedative worked quite quickly on you. Have you been eating enough?”

  Sedative?

  Questions that she couldn’t ask or answer through her stiff throat, and it took more effort than it should have to swallow. Her mouth was dry, like her eyes, but she finally managed to scrunch up her face enough to get her eyelids to open.

  She was on a medical bed, surrounded by white curtains, her legs spread wide in stirrups. Strapped down at wrists, waist, shins, and ankles. The man at the end of the bed still wore no collar, and she wasn’t even sure he was one of the priests, but he did lift his eyes to hers before another metal clink heralded a painful stretch inside her. A croak came from her throat, as close to a cry as she could manage, and he smiled.

  “Hmm. You’re a little thin, but I guess that is to be expected. And we should never question the decisions of the divine.” He pulled a tray closer, metal clattering atop it before he bent between her legs once more.

  Like a gynecologist.

  A doctor. A word that she recognized, but like everything else she couldn’t remember going to one. How much of her memory was missing? The woman had said she would remember almost everything eventually, but she seemed to be losing more. Two hundred and sixteen baptisms, here, in Eden — that couldn’t be right. They had her confused with another of the women. Someone else. Not her.

  Something stabbed inside her and a croaked cry escaped her lips as she jerked against the straps, tears leaking from her eyes when she squeezed them shut. Then there was another stab, another, and she tried to pull harder on the straps, but only managed to earn a sharp slap to her thigh.

  “Be still,” he commanded, though there was a gleeful edge to his tone that made her feel sick as the next stab felt too deep. Wrong.

  Her inner muscles twitched as he withdrew a long needle from inside her, and then her cunt spasmed painfully hard around the metal still holding her channel wide. She whined low in her chest, unable to voice the horrible ache as her body cramped, seized. What had he done?

  “There,” the man said to himself, and then with another metallic clink the pressure was mercifully relieved as he slid the thing out of her to set it aside on the tray. Warm liquid seeped out of her, dripping down her ass, and she wondered if it was blood.

  But why go to all of this effort just to kill her? There were so many easier ways.

  His hands returned, pushing her legs wider until the stirrups seemed to catch and hold them farther apart. The position strained her hips, made the joints ache and her thighs burn, but there was no point in even trying to speak. Nothing she said would stop him. Eden had taught her that lesson well.

  Swiping through the wet mess between her thighs, his thumbs slipped through her folds and spread her flesh wide apart. Then the man leaned close enough that she felt his exhale, listened to the slow inhale that sent a shiver over her skin. There was no gentleness to his touch as he pinched her labia, roughly massaging before pulling those tender lips apart again. Inside, her cunt was tensing, fluttering, twitching, but she closed her eyes to all of it. Tried to push away the strange sensations, the clinical way he inspected her, and the dull ache whenever he manipulated her flesh.

  “Good, good,” he muttered to himself when he finally stopped. Danielle opened her eyes to find him standing at the end of the bed. Tall, thin, almost gaunt. “Now, let’s see how you perform in service.”

  No. She jerked against the straps, straining her voice to make some sound, to whine, but there was barely a grating sound as she forced air past her vocal cords. Toying with her folds, he stared down between her legs, and she braced herself for pain. She was used to the degradation of being a set of holes for men, but nothing prepared her for the agonizing stretch of just two of his fingers entering her. It hurt so much more than it should have. That horrible smile was back on his face as he worked them in, forced them deeper, bracing his other hand beside her hip so he coul
d lean forward and watch her suffering. An almost silent cry was all that escaped as her lubricated cunt eased his entry, even as her body refused to open for him.

  “Beautiful in your suffering. Like a proper virgin.” There was a manic edge to the way he said the last word, and she shook her head, denying the word, but he only grinned wider as he pumped his fingers once more, driving them in hard before he finally withdrew. He chuckled low, eyes meeting hers. “Oh, I know that you’re thinking of your calls to service, my child. But you have been baptized, purified by the Lord, our God. Made clean again so you can fulfill a higher purpose.”

  Shaking her head harder, she tried to whimper, to cry out as he plucked the white sash from around his waist and started on the buttons of his narrow robe. Jolting at the straps, she didn’t even know why she was fighting. It was only making him happy.

  It always makes them happy when you beg or fight or cry.

  Swallowing, Danielle forced herself to stillness and stared at the ceiling, trying to remember every terrible thing that had happened to her inside Eden. The beatings where she’d been punched and slapped and kicked. Struck with batons and canes for disobedience. Whipped for punishment and entertainment. The vicious rapes in every hole she had. It had all been horrible, and for some unholy reason she had survived. She always awoke in the baptism baths. Clean and healed through God’s grace and love, or so they said. Alive in this haven they had built for themselves, believing their monstrous acts to be blessed by Heaven.

  But this was Hell.

  The woman in the chain room had told her that, and she had been right about everything except for her memory. Danielle didn’t even care about her memories anymore. She didn’t harbor the hope of being saved anymore — there was just the wait for a death that never seemed to come.

  “I am blessed to be the one to ensure you are prepared and, if necessary, I will provide any additional treatments you may need before your next baptism.” He glided his fingers down her stomach, gentle until he pressed the heel of his hand into the softness above her pubic bone.

  She flinched as he pushed down hard, like he was trying to crush her insides, but then there was another trickle of warm liquid leaving her cunt. Blood, or not, he swept his cock through it, prodding her entrance as he spread his fingers over her lower belly, fingernails digging into tender skin like a claw.

  “Be joyful in your suffering, child. We all serve God in our own ways, and through suffering you may find absolution,” he whispered reverently, eyes wide, manic smile spreading as he pushed in.

  Muscles jerking, Danielle gasped as pain blinded her. It felt like he was tearing her, sawing his way inside with blades instead of flesh. She tried to twist her hips away but he held her in place. Pinned under his weight, captive by the straps, in ungodly agony as her core spasmed and cramped around the invasion. He forced another inch inside and groaned as her mouth opened in a silent scream.

  “So good. So perfect.” Licking his lips, he stared down at where their bodies linked. “Let’s see how well you perform, my child.”

  It was useless to cry, but she did anyway. Tears slid into her hair, warm tracks on cool skin, and Danielle tore her eyes from him. Staring at the ceiling, she tried to escape like she had on so many other calls to service. There was no pleasure here, just a rending pain as he worked his way inside her. Whatever he’d done had made her cunt tighter than naturally possible, reducing everything to agony for his bliss. Nothing more than a body that he’d twisted for his own purposes. Grunting, he shunted another inch inside, and her voice croaked as she tried to beg him to stop.

  “You can take it. You were chosen, so I know you can. You were meant for this.” The man slid his hand lower to brush his thumb over her clit. “Remember, God honors those who serve.”

  He applied pressure to that bundle of nerves, rubbing her in merciless circles that made her tremble. It shouldn’t have felt good, there should have been no way that pleasure could leak in around the edges of the agony. But it was there, torturous and horrible. Building like a sudden tidal wave, and then — an explosion of bliss. It was the inverse of everything happening inside her as something like an instant orgasm flooded wetness between her thighs. Everything blanked for a moment, empty ecstasy shutting down her brain, and she wanted to hold onto it… but it slipped away as quickly as it had come.

  Desperate for air, for respite, drowning in a chemical overload that she couldn’t even voice Danielle pulled at the straps. In the haze, he’d forced the last of his cock inside and her body zinged back and forth between the extremes of bliss and torment until she was shivering, taut muscles straining at her bindings. Angled above her, he watched it all with eyes too wide, his fanatical expression taunting her with a zealot’s glee.

  “See? The agony and the ecstasy. God often gives with both hands,” he grunted through harsh breaths. “But we must accept his tests as well as we do his gifts.”

  Danielle shook her head, hair sticking to her cheeks as he began a relentless pattern. Hips pulling back and slamming forward, mercilessly fucking her until the bed clattered against the wall and the pain had her lungs seizing. Every thrust felt like being torn open, her inner walls cramping as her body tried to curl inward but couldn’t. Just when she thought she’d finally black out, escape the nightmare, his thumb would return to her clit. Forcing her to come in a soul-jarring snap of obliterating ecstasy.

  Minutes or hours could have passed in that hellscape, listening to his harried prayers, his fucked-up comments between grunts and groans, until he finally pulled out of her. Fist wrapped around his ruddy shaft, he jerked his cock faster and faster, one hand braced beside her waist as he bit down on a moan and spilled his seed in ropes across her stomach.

  Panting, he slowed his strokes and groaned. Letting the last weak spurts pool at her belly button. “You are blessed, child,” he whispered.

  Danielle looked away, kept her tear-blurred gaze glued to the ceiling, tracing the tiny cracks that made the pale ceiling imperfect. If only they would spread, widen, bring the whole of Eden crashing down on her… maybe then she’d find peace. But if God existed, he wasn’t looking at this place. Definitely not looking down at her, at the naked body that couldn’t stop shaking. There would be no miracles here, no mercies, no freedom from this hell.

  When the man appeared beside her again, he was already put back together. Clothed and smiling like the world was as good as the priests described it.

  “This is the first of many blessings,” he said. Tugging his sleeve up, he held it in place with one hand so he could smear the ejaculate across her skin without tainting his robes. Priest or not, it didn’t matter. There was no one holy within the walls of Eden, and the nightmare had to end at some point.

  Maybe they’d finally kill her.

  “Drink this, my child. It will help you rest until they’re ready for you.” He wiped his hand on a small towel and then lifted the back of her head in a mockery of care as he held a cup to her lips.

  Hollowed out, all she could do was stare as she obeyed and swallowed. It tasted like water, maybe a little sweet, and some of it spilled past her lips to the rough sheet beneath her, but there was no chastisement in his expression. Just that plastic smile carving out creases around his mouth.

  As he walked back to the tray, he leaned between her legs and prodded the tender flesh he’d violated before grinning wider. “Only a little blood, very good. Still… another dose would be wise.”

  Returning her gaze to the ceiling, she clenched her teeth together and tried to block out the rest of his idle chatter and the sound of the metal tray shifting. None of it mattered. She didn’t matter.

  If there really was a God, he’d call her home.

  Chapter 5

  She had been dozing, lost in a place between waking and dreaming where she could almost smell warm food cooking. A perfect place where kind words hovered just out of earshot, and all she wanted with every tattered piece of her soul was to stay there — but in Hell that
was more than she could ask for.

  A pinch to her arm sent lightning through her veins, like a full body shock that had her heart pounding and ripped her back to reality. Danielle sat straight up, gasping and clutching her chest to try and make the traitorous organ still. Why couldn’t she just die? Why did her heart continue to beat when there was no more will to live?

  The kind priest grabbed her shoulder gently. “You must be calm, my child. Lay back down, the medicine is still working to wake you. Let it work, and it will keep you strong.”

  Turning away from his touch, Danielle frantically searched the space around her and realized she was in a normal hospital bed. There were no stirrups, no metal tray of horrors, and when she raised her wrists she saw they weren’t even marked. A thin, gray blanket lay over her, and she threw it back to find the same was true of her legs. No bruises, not even a lingering redness, but she could still feel the tender ache inside with each strange, involuntary flutter of her inner walls.

  “Pl—” she tried to plead with the priest, but her voice gave out, cracking into nothing more than an exhale of breath.

  “She will have trouble speaking for a bit longer, but the cardinals are aware of that. It’s a side effect.” The bastard that had done all of this to her stood in a gap in the white curtains, smiling directly at her. Just as fervent in his joy as he had been when he was inside her.

  Cardinals? Who are the cardinals?

  Swallowing, she looked into the soft brown eyes of the priest, trying to make him understand what the man had done, but he couldn’t see. Couldn’t understand, or didn’t want to. He turned away from her silent plea and shook the monster’s hand. “I will remind the cardinals if they ask. They want me to bring her soon. How long until she can walk?”