“Hey! Wake the hell up already!” Shouted Ash, waking Ashton with a fright.

A foul stench hit Ashton’s nose, stinging his nostrils.

It smelt of urine, faeces and rotting corpses all laying out in the sun to sizzle for a while.

Unaware of his circumstances, Ashton sat up off a grimy, filthy floor and looked around.

He was trapped in a small room, three times his length in side lengths and twice as tall in height.

The floor was cold and blood soaked, the walls were layered with even more blood and presumably where the entrance was, there was a large boulder lodged in the entry way, blocking his exit.

Bringing a hand to his face Ashton wiped off a thick layer of congealed blood and weird black gunk, gagging a little at the sight of it.

Pleasantly surprised he was alive, Ashton looked over his body, the previous wounds from the spears were gone and in their place were a few bruises and grazes, hardly any cause for concern.

As happy as he was with his state of… aliveness, the accommodation wasn’t exactly to his standards and was fairly lacking in the lighting department.

He swore he could he something or other scurrying around the room, yet he could barely make out his hand right in front of his face.

Hoping they were only mice or something similar, Ashton simply ignored it and tried to move the massive boulder blocking his escape.

Ashton pushed as hard as he could, desperately launching himself at the giant rock, yet it would not budge no matter what he did, perhaps it was intended for him to starve to death, but surely it would be no match for Ash’s magic…

“Yeah… you’d think I’d be able to get us out of this one with my magic, however… they slapped this fancy collar on our neck and since then I’ve not been able to do anything, just like those chains back with the demons. We just have to hope they eventually come back and give us some food or something, although I doubt it’s looking good, seeing as we killed like thirty of them,” informed Ash.

“W-What do you mean? T-They? W-We killed some? W-What are you t-talking about?!” babbled Ashton.

“Oh right, you don’t know. Well… they are the goblins and ogres. We were being hunted by a group of them earlier when we both passed out after a massive explosion of magic, not quite sure what I did, but it wasn’t too good. I guess some more of them found us and locked us up here, cause when I woke up we were already here and in pretty terrible shape. I healed us, but they must have seen the orb things cause they came running. They burst in after I’d finished healing us and slapped this collar on us and I couldn’t fight back. Then a big ogre rolled the boulder into the door way and locked us in here, that was about a day ago,” recounted Ash.

Ashton paused for a while and felt around his neck, confirming the existence of a collar before replying, “I… I see. T-Then what do we do? A-Are we just going to die?”

“I don’t know, how about you just try and take off the collar? That would make sense wouldn’t it?” answered Ash snidely.

Ashton reached up and felt around the entire collar, searching for some kind of lock or loop, yet it seemed to be just a solid metal ring that went all the way around with openings or crevices, bringing up the question of how it was put on in the first place.

“Huh… Never mind, I guess we die then,” joked Ash.

Letting out a soft whine of defeat, Ashton slumped down to the floor, his eyes watered and a single tear rand down his face.

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********

A loud groaning noise came from Ashton’s stomach as he lay on the floor in pain.

He’d never gone too long without eating anything and it was now three days since he’d had any food.

The thirst however, was incomparable to his hunger, his lips were cracked, his mouth was dry and his eyes had sunken back into their sockets a little.

Drinking urine wasn’t very fun, he’d anticipated it wouldn’t be that great but it was far worse than he’d thought it would have been and he hadn’t been brave enough to try it again.

Ashton’s palms were all torn up from pushing against the boulder for hours on end and a far too much dirt and grime had wormed their way into his bloody wounds, an infection was inevitable.

Just as it seemed as there was no hope and they wouldn’t make it out alive, loud grinding and crunching sounds came from the giant boulder blocking the exit.

Ashton looked up at it in hope, fear and anticipation as it slowly rolled out of the way, revealing a large figure as tall as the room.

Freedom was right there in front of him for the first time, yet it didn’t look very inviting when an ogre twice the size of you, was standing there, menacingly flashing its foot long teeth at you.

The monstrosity lumbered forwards towards Ashton, giving him a wild grin.

Stopping before Ashton, it bent down and stared directly into Ashton’s eyes with its sickly yellow ones.

Deep inside of Ashton’s head, Ash was cursing away at the ogre, projecting his hatred and rage towards the beast which reflected in Ashton’s eyes.

The ogre’s pupils dilated for a moment before quickly returning back to normal with lightning speed.

Not a single other movement could be detected, but for an instance, it had felt fear.

“RAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” the ogre bellowed, spraying spittle all over Ashton’s stunned face.

The ogre then turned around and left the way it came, grumbling a few strange alien words along the way.

In response a small, sickly green goblin dashed in with a bucket of water, tossing it in Ashton’s general direction.

Almost half of its contents spilled across the ground after it hit the ground yet Ashton payed it no attention and drank furiously from the bucket, quenching his enormous thirst.

After finishing the remainder of the buckets contents, he still craved for more and leapt to the floor, lapping up the bloodied water, the foul taste not registering in his mind.

He looked up at the exit in hope, perhaps they’d let him leave, yet it was too good to be true as both the goblin and ogre had left, rolling the boulder back in place after them.

Ashton lay on the floor, sobbed for a little while before he drifted off to sleep, his stomach howling throughout the night.

********

Three long weeks passed.

Water would be delivered once every three days by the small goblin, accompanied by his large ogre friend who would every time without fail stare deep into his eyes each time.

For reasons… a single corner of the room was dedicated to Ashton’s bodily functions, but seeing as the smell was so horrid already, it made little difference overall.

Whilst he had enough water to survive and was only feeling like death every third day, waiting for his water, food on the other hand was a major problem.

Ashton had lasted three weeks without food, but he doubted he could last any longer; he was at the point of wishing death upon himself.

He wanted to die, over and over the thought of actually committing suicide but he couldn’t make himself go through with it, no matter how hard he tried he’d always freeze up and stop.

********

For the eighth time since his capture, the boulder rolled out of the way and the usual ogre stormed in and following right behind him was the goblin.

Like normal, the goblin tossed him a bucket of water and then dashed out of the room, leaving Ashton and the ogre alone with each other.

The ogre looked into Ashton’s eyes, snarling before sitting down on the ground in front of Ashton.

After a crude snort the ogre pulled out a large chunk of raw meat from his back and began munching on it, right in front of Ashton’s face.

Ashton’s already low morale sank down to an entirely new level and he couldn’t imagine why this monster is doing this?

To make a point?

Blood sprayed across Ashton’s face as the ogre took a big bite out of the raw meat and tears began to run down Ashton’s face as he watched the ogre continue to eat.

As Ashton begun to sob, his voice leaking out of his mouth a loud, gravelly voice yelled, “Stop” inside of his head before… SLAM!

A rock hard, dark green skinned hand slapped him across the room, knocking his head into the wall.

Ashton groaned as he slumped back down onto the floor, the wall behind him smeared with his own blood.

“Stand,” commanded the voice in his head.

“A-Ash? I-is that you? This isn’t funny!” cried out Ashton.

Before anybody could say anything the ogre barrelled towards Ashton, backhanding him across the face, sending him flying back towards where he was, knocking out a few teeth in the process.

“Last time. Stand Up.” Ordered the voice as the ogre stared impatiently at Ashton.

Obeying, Ashton slowly got to his feet, where his frail and thin body could be seen.

His skin wrapped tightly around his body, fully displaying all of his bones and his muscles and fat were completely lacking.

His bloodshot eyes looked right up into the face of the ogre, its putrid eyes staring right back at him.

It walked right up to him, breathing heavily, its hot breath stinging Ashton’s skin.

“I own you. You are mine. Do not… Resist. Obey. Failure… means punishment. You… must not die. You are… nothing. I am everything. Obey. Now… Fight,” commanded the ogre in Ashton’s mind.

And that… was the point of no return, the start of a whole new life of pain, corruption and never ending suffering for both Ash and Ashton.