[h1][b][center]SIX MONTHS AGO[/center][/b][/h1][hr]Vic didn’t know why it was so cold. Not freezing, no, freezing didn’t seem to exist here. He’d caught a glimpse of the surface once when he was brought here. Vast stretches of ecumenopolis in between towering pillars spewing endless flame. It shouldn’t have been a place that could support life. Certainly not human life, and yet, here he was staring up at a dark stone ceiling. His breath came in and out but he didn’t feel any air moving. He moved his right eye. His left didn’t want to work, nor did the rest of his body. Vic had sleep paralysis once before. It had been peak football season and his knee had been acting up. He hadn't told anyone, just in case he was benched in his last school year. His grades were slipping and his parents were getting on his case (like he wasn’t still valedictorian material with a 3.9 as opposed to a 4.1). He’d known they were just worried about him, and it’s not like they were wrong, what with how stressed he’d been. Stressed enough to have a bout of sleep paralysis, he’d assumed. They were parents and he was just a kid, it’s what they were supposed do. He didn't remember what their faces looked like anymore. He just imagined them with purple eyes and the overbite of the only humanoid face he’d seen, one that plagued him like a ghost since he’d gotten here. He still had the feeling of them and the love or annoyance they’d given, holding on to everything through his waking moments to keep it from slipping away, but he felt like it was slipping away always. Was the grass of the football field always gray? All his memories had been tinted to red and orange for that was all he’d seen. That and black, like the shadows that filled every corner and the whips that tore his flesh when he had  misstep on his menial labor of moving stones back and forth across a field for no reason other than to do it with no end in sight. Come to think of it, it’d been football sized. Moving stones back and forth for no reason: it was all the same.

He heard laughter and chills went down his spine. It was low, droning, and forced, made because there was no other choice rather than out of true mirth. Laughter itself was a crime here, mirth more of a privilege than anything. He wondered who was laughing, but it was him. He wasn’t in sleep paralysis, he was awake indeed. Why couldn’t he feel anything but the stone he lay his head on? A sharp grip found his scalp, pulling the skin under his curly hair. A face curled over him: the dull purple stare and bald head of [url=https://comicvine.gamespot.com/a/uploads/original/6/66303/3220794-screen%20shot%202013-08-05%20at%209.07.09%20am.png]Dr. Bedlam[/url] causing him to go still. He held a lone finger up to his lips. [color=84859a]“Shhhhhh, the delicate part is almost done. I will forgive you just this once, but should anyone else hear then there will be not a thing I can do for you. Not a thing! And I’m already taking care of [i]everything[/i] for you.”[/color]

Vic could speak but he didn’t want to. Instead he tried to move his body, but it wouldn’t listen. His eyes flickered but he couldn’t even see past his nose. He felt fear but his heartbeat seemed distant and stable. Dr. Bedlam casually wondered, [color=84859a]“Do you want to see?”[/color] Victor didn’t say yes or no. Bedlam took it as a yes. Flashing his teeth, his grip was a bit more gentle this time. He pulled Victor up and he saw a segmented length glistening red expect where metal plates were installed, small metal arms working on coating the structure with machinery. Wires and cables were attached to what remained of his spinal column, going off to other machines. He couldn’t feel his feet because he had no feet. He couⱢdn’t feel arms because he had no arm𝕤. He cou𝚲dn’t bod𝚢 had n𝘖 body. C𝇈uldn’𝛕 fe𝀣l no l𝛦gs no leg𝛓s ꧶ould︖’t feel bac𛱘 no ︸꤂uldn’t feel fi𝈆gers cou꠵d꣣꣤꣤nꢓt ꠷o lungꚘ elbowꜦs heꞵrt nail꣔ stꕕmach coꔅuldn’t ䷽eel no꒤ thin︙

He screamed he screamed he screamed he screamed he screamed he screamed he screamed he screamed he screamed he screamed even though he didn’t have a throat or lungs or vocal chords so he couldn’t stop[hr][center][h2][color=b4ced0]“HRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”[/COLOR][/h2][h1][b]ONE WEEK AGO[/b][/h1][hr][img]https://i.imgur.com/CtdkgDX.png[/img][/center][hr]Victor jumped with a start. His right eye was greeted with darkness, slowly adjusting to the low light of night. His red eye flashed with warnings, highlighting danger as a gold and green bug eyed monster with small metal wings and a black firearm stood over him. Victor threw aside his blanket, gray with a coarse texture, but the gun already fired, a red beam of energy sending him back to the floor before he could do more than sit up. The concrete was scoured by the metal of his silver limbs as Victor rolled to his feet. There was a crack, and he saw stars, head colliding with the small bridge under the walking path he’d found to sleep under. His skull might have been metal, but the skin still bled, the brain within knocking lightly. Generally, Victor treasured the piece of humanity he had left, but now it wasn’t doing him any favors. He felt a rough shove from behind, a second parademon giving him a brutal shove. He splattered into the dirt, the two of them letting out shrieks that might have been laughter. No, not laughter, not from Apokolips. They were war cries of victory sung too soon. Fingers melting away, a cannon took the place of his arm, a sonic blast fired off. The wooden bridge was reduced to splinters, and the parademons were blasted back. Getting back to his feet, Victor leapt at the nearest one. With a feral roar, he plunged his remaining fist into his face again and again. Though they were monsters there was flesh underneath, and Victor brought out of hiding. Another blast hit him on the back but after being buffeted he turned his sonic cannon on them and tore them to shreds before going back to his main prey, launching another fist into the puddle of flesh.

It only found dirt. Frantically patting the ground, Victor didn’t find even a stain. Jumping to his feet his head swiveled around, there was no sign of parademon or weapon anywhere, only the destruction left behind from his cannon, its technology beyond this world. Running fingers across his forehead he rolled the blood and sweat he found between his finger and thumb. The messages from his red eye still flashed.

[right]STRESS LEVELS HEIGHTENED. APPLY SEDATIVE? Y/[B]N[/B][/RIGHT]
Dismissing it, Victor closed his eye, letting his thoughts quell, letting sleep the nightmare that had awoken him every night since he returned to Earth. He fought to escape for what? A family he couldn’t bring himself to see? A prison he was still trapped in? Mirthless, he laughed. It was the one freedom he’d earned. Stooping down, he grabbed his blanket, pulling it from the rubble and shaking it free of as many splinters as he could. Draping it over his shoulders he walked off, going parallel to the city lights of LA, for he didn’t know where to go but in whatever arbitrary direction he’d decided was forward.