Of course, Alexander struggled when his hand was seized, but the creature's grip was like iron, unyielding, like him trying to pull at a steel post that would not budge. He winced as his hand disappeared inside the strange mitt, expecting his fingers to be shoved into needles or dipped in acid or assaulted by the painful, poisonous stings of a thousand ants from Africa like in that documentary he had seen recently while bored and down on his luck at home...

OK, his imagination was getting the best of him, but it was impossible not to think the of outrageous, the outlandish, and the positively crazy when he was in a place such as [i]this[/i].

It was almost worse that no pain accompanied the imprisonment of his hands, as though this small act of mercy meant he would endure much more in the near future.

Still, Lilith wasn't being entirely unreasonable. She and her minions hadn't hurt him [i]yet[/i]. If this was Hell, Afghanistan had been something far, far worse...

He blinked, realizing how lucid he was being. Something like this should have more than triggered his PTSD by now. He should be beside himself in anxiety, delirious in stress, and completely overtaken by the lingering emotions of that terrible past, yet here he was, considering the words of a demon in this strange place where no one would save him.

No one had bothered to save him at home when they had access to. Alexander realized that if he was going to escape this place and live to tell about it, he had to save himself. That meant he needed information.

He turned and faced Lilith directly, legs shoulder-width apart, arms in front, back straight, chin up, gaze direct, though he really wanted to piss his pants in fear of how crazy and risky and dangerous this all was. "Clear enough, I guess," he said in response to her question. "You said you needed me for something." He could not entirely shake the fear in his voice, though he made a valiant effort. He tossed his head in an attempt to move the hair out of his eyes. "What is it?" By the life of him, he couldn't remember every detail of her ramblings up in the surface, the whole ordeal one big, bizarre blur. "Are there others like me down here, too?" More questions threatened to tumble out of him, but he bit his tongue, holding back. He needed to be patient. Besides, Lilith wasn't really good at answering questions thus far, in his opinion.