Misfortune

Will contain: Violence, Gore, Obsessive Behavior. This is a work of fiction and none of this is to be condoned in real life.

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Soul's mother always warned him about the dangers of powerful men.

They could do anything, she had said, her pretty lips pursed into a grim line, they can take anything from you. They can hurt you. Torture you. Kill you. They can take away your most beloved person in the whole entire world; make you grovel at their feet. They can make your life a living hell. They are the devils. They will prowl like a predator waiting for the prey: and they will pounce. Sink their fangs in.

They were the ones that tore your father away from us.

Soul had been young then. He hadn't understood where his father was. He hadn't understood the meaning of what dangerous meant. He didn't know that his father had died—at the hands of the Ivanov group. Had been tortured, killed by the Russian Mafia, whom he had foolishly loaned money from. 

Soul Alexeyev had forgotten about her warning. 

And yet now, it all came back in a flash: zipping to his kind, flooding it, making shivers crawl down his spine. Goosebumps pricked his skin; along with an unsettling sort of coldness that made his body tense all over, made him physically recoil.

No.

The door slammed open; with such great force that Soul was sent tumbling back from where he had been desperately hiding.

Father's debt collectors—! Was the sole thought that echoed in his mind amidst the bustling panic—my father is dead, yet his sins still haunt me.

Fuck—

—Fuck!

"Are you Soul Alexeyev?"

Soul wanted to shake his head no. He wanted to somehow desperately claw his way out of this situation; pretend like he was just a naive, innocent person. But instead his answer came out from his trachea, scratchy, coarse, fearful: "yes."

There were six, seven, eight men in front of him, towering before him. They were dressed in suits; all bulky and muscled, clad with dark glasses. They were intimidating. They were the powerful men his mother had warned him about.

And now they were here for him.

"Come with us." One stood before Soul, and Soul could read his name tag: Ivan. Ivan grabbed his arm, making Soul hiss in agony. It felt like the flesh could have so easily been ripped off from his bones. That the skin that once cradled his organs could have been forcibly torn apart. They were powerful. Strong. Soul had no chance of defeating them. Not even one in a million.

"I will find the money," Soul gasped out from the blinding, searing pain—"please, sirs, I promise you. I will find the money that my father has—"

"The Tsar does not require your money," Ivan spat, "he merely asks for your presence."

"Didn't the Tsar say that Soul Alexeyev was to be brought untouched?"

"Tch. He must want to torture this one himself. I am merely helping him, Sinclair."

Torture. They wanted to torture him. The devastating truth enveloped over Soul: today would be his death day. Today would be the day he would witness and bear sheer hell, and would return to the heavens. He would die.

It felt like hours on end, where ringing seeped into the cracks of his skin until he almost sobbed; the silence drenched Soul's brain like he was drowning in deep-pooled blood. And Soul tried, he tried so hard to relax. He pressed his eyelids harder, clenched his fist tighter, and yet he couldn't stop the incessant panic from rising.

"Please—! I have done nothing—!"

"Silence!" Ivan's voice rocketed in Soul's head: sending a heated migraine bouncing off the walls in his mind, before settling in a deep-seated pain that made his head throb. "The Tsar has entrusted me to this mission. I will follow it through."

"But he has requested Soul Alexeyev to be brought unharmed. Surely this means.."

Soul heard it before he saw it. The loud bang! sound: the metallic smell in the air, the strangled sound of the men. There were three consecutive shots being fired: and none of them missed. Soul was forced to bear witness to the death of a person, now a corpse. Crimson matted the floor and Soul let out an inaudible scream that immediately got swallowed down his throat when the barrel of a gun stared right back at him.

"Silence, you fool." Ivan hissed, "I do not tolerate such noise."

Please. Please let me out of this alive—! Please—!

Soul didn't know what God he was begging to. If God was real, he wouldn't have put him down to this earth to suffer.

"I'm sorry," Soul croaked out, forcing his body to move. His motions felt thick and sludgy, suspended in time. Soul felt like he was moving in slow motion. In his peripheral vision he could see the men surrounding him, guns visible in their gloved hands. 

It was like he was being led to the guillotine. Tears pricked in his eyes, a bruise could be seen blossoming in brilliant purple on his wrist. Blood had splattered on his cheek and he didn't fear to utter a single word.

"Bring him to the car."

Whoever Ivan was, he was likely to be at a position of authority. The men obeyed him, emotionless and expressionless even after the death of their colleague. They had not batted an eye. It was obvious they were used to these horrors.

Soul felt himself being thrown into the backseat of a plush seat; surrounded with bulletproof glass and locked doors. There was a driver in front of him. It was an obviously expensive car: and the truth was even more terrifying now.

Whoever the Tsar was, he was powerful and rich. Wealth could do a lot in society. It could corrupt, kill, and silence. If Soul had any doubts of if these men were truly part of the Ivanov Mafia, now they were all squashed under a building sense of dread. He felt a gun press to his leg and he stood straight and tense, looking ahead.

Anything but the barrel of the gun. Anything other than for the bullet to pierce my leg. Perhaps they valued silence, and Soul did not trust himself to keep his cool if he was shot.

His wrists and his head throbbed.

The car journey was torturing. Soul kept his ramrod position, his lips pressed together so hard that teeth glided across them, allowing crimson to trickle down. Fear and uncertainty bubbled in the pits of his stomach: he felt hollow, dreadful. He had to prepare himself for Death. Mother Death to embrace him.

"We have arrived."

Soul was pushed out. His gait was unsteady. He felt nausea rising up his throat, and his eyes stung with unshed tears.

"I have no money," he said numbly. "I don't have any money to offer. I don't..."

"Shut up," Ivan said harshly, before he kicked Soul to the side, making him double over in pain, "you don't speak until the Tsar allows you to."

"Sir, the Tsar really requested him to be unharmed..."

"—do you want to end up like Sinclair?" 

The men retreated back.

Ivan grabbed Soul's chin, sneering at him. "What use will you be? A bed warmer? A person to torture? Your father owed us an abundance of funds, so perhaps you will pay that money back with something else."

Soul didn't dare move. His breathing was ragged and uneven.

Don't touch me.

Don't touch me—

A memory jolted in his mind.

.

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"Don't touch me!" The little boy yelled. His eyes were bandaged, his hair golden and mesmerizing. Soul, aged eleven, looked at him worriedly and withdrew his hand.

The little boy fidgeted about, his hands moving wildly to hold onto something—just something—to regain his balance. Scars mottled his body, and Soul was confused.

He was injured, yet the little boy could not have been older than twelve. Same age, at most, or perhaps a year younger.

"...you cannot see," Soul said in realization. "I'm sorry."

The boy stilled. "Do not address me so casually. I am not someone you can lightly address. Who are you, even?"

Soul hesitated. His mother had always warned him not to tell others of his name, but...

He was so lonely. This boy could be his friend.

"Soul Alexeyev."

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"Soul Alexeyev! Be quiet! The Tsar is coming," Ivan dragged Soul up painfully, "you will respect him, and bow to him when he arrives."

The Tsar. The one deciding his poor fate. Soul obeyed and bowed down, his knees brushed against the cold, hard floor. 

There was a silence and the telling sign of someone's arrival from the shoes that clacked on the floor, the pressure that was immediately placed onto Soul's back—unyielding and harsh, and the way it seemed like all the air had been punched out of his gut. The one above all. The ruler of the Mafia.

"...He is hurt."

The voice was familiar in a strange sense. Gave Soul deja vu. Where had he heard this voice before; somewhat younger, lighter, higher? Now the voice was low, deep, authoritative. It had a noticeable Russian accent yet all the words were crisp and clear.

"Yes, Tsar. I have—"

"—Did I not request for Soul Alexeyev to be brought unharmed? Did you disobey my orders, Ivan?"

The tenseness of Soul's muscles made him feel like he was more of a mannequin than a person made of bones and blood. When Soul was anxious, he used to tear fistfuls of his hair apart, praying that he could soak his brain in cold water but he couldn't. He wanted to scald his tongue with bitter coffee but he knew that the caffeine would only tighten the static buzzing throughout his flesh.

For a second Soul allowed himself to look up. And the sight that greeted him could not have been described with nothing less than heavenly. Satan had graced the earth in the form of a fallen angel. Lucifer had been a fallen angel, had he not? Golden hair was arranged articulately and neatly, his pale green eyes looked at Soul with—with some sort of undesirable emotion that he feared to attach meaning to, and...

"I only tried—!"

Then another sickening thud. Something covered Soul's ears, his eyes. There was temporary blindness but even though the skin on his ears, there were the muffled sounds of screaming: pure agony, pain. And then they were the unmistakable sounds of gunshots. When it was all over, Soul found himself looking at nothing but the Tsar who was now taking off his bloodied gloves. The stench of blood was evident and heavy in the air, and Soul knew someone was dead.

Ivan was dead. The Tsar had killed him in a blink of an eye. There had also been popping sounds, cracks—smoothly and efficiently, the Tsar had tortured him with practiced precision.

Whatever for? Ivan had only been helping him. He had only been—

"Ah, Soul," the man's voice was a purr. "You don't understand how long it took me to find you, Moy Sladkiy, my sweet. You are so pretty now. So beautiful." 

Soul blinked.

He blinked again.

Then he questioned his hearing. Did all the panic make his hearing go wrong, perhaps? Just what—was this a side effect of a drug that they had injected into him unknowingly? The Tsar. The Tsar, speaking to him tenderly like he was a loved one; someone precious and dear to his heart.

His hand, now bare, lay on Soul's cheek. It was cool and smooth to the touch yet Soul found it was utterly impossible to soak in it. He was rigid, alarmed. His breath caught in his throat when he felt the man's fingers brush against his cheek, before they glided down smoothly to his lips.

"Don't look so confused, moy sladkiy," He chuckled, "Andrei Ivanov. That is my name. Do you not remember it?" Then his fingers went down to Soul's neck, his collarbone...then drifted down to his wrist.

His touch was gentle, like he was someone afraid of hurting Soul. And Andrei's eyes were sorrowful as he traced the bruise on Soul's skin.

"I did not want you to get hurt. I specifically told them not to hurt you," Andrei glanced at Soul, "you believe me, right, my sweet? You always believed me when we were younger."

When we were...younger? Soul did not move at all.

"Ah. So perhaps you have forgotten. No matter. It was so long ago." Andrei took off his coat, before placing it on Soul's shivering form. "Come, Soul. You promised me when we were young."

"Promise...?" Soul whispered. "What promise—?"

Andrei smiled at him. 

"You promised, moy sladkiy, that you would stay with me forever."

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