Page 20 of Drown Me Gently (Flipped Fairytales)

The world was too bright.

Firelight throbbed against his eyelids, searing into his skull. His body was heavy—unnaturally so. Every limb dragged, as if filled with stones. His spine ached fiercely as he shifted on an unforgiving, flat surface.

He tried to roll over. But as he did, something snapped taut and bit into the delicate skin around his wrist.

Rope.

Auren’s eyes flew open. And the stench hit him like a wave.

It was the same rotting scent he’d caught on the wind back on the beach— it was everywhere. It clung to the air, soaked the walls, crawled into his mouth, and gagged him.

Auren turned his head and retched, but there was nowhere to go. Nothing in his stomach. His throat seized, his body twitching weakly against the restraints.

He was tied down, his arms and legs strapped to four corners of a wooden table, each limb stretched and fixed tight with coarse rope.

A thick leather collar dug into the skin of his throat, buckled around his neck, and secured to the table below.

He wore nothing but the thinnest pair of shorts—barely more than a strip of fabric clinging to his waist. His chest was bare, exposed to the chill of the room.

The frigid air bit at every inch of exposed skin, and it wasn’t long before Auren was shivering.

Panic seized him. Gripping around his lungs, locking his joints, making his breath stutter in shallow, useless bursts. His head swam as he blinked away the haze, trying to make sense of the room.

This was no bedroom. No sanctuary.

The walls were stone, slick, and sweating. Shelves lined the perimeter, filled with glass jars—some fogged, some translucent. And inside each one…

Gods.

Floating organs. Coiled intestines. Pale, bloated eyes that stared without blinking.

A jar of white teeth sat open on the counter, crusted in brown.

Everything bobbed in a thick, yellowish fluid that burned Auren’s eyes and filled the room with fumes.

It was chemical, like stomach acid soaked in rot.

Instruments gleamed from wall racks. Blades, needles, bone saws. Some were clean. Most were not.

What is this place?

It was the opposite of Ulric’s apothecary—where every vial shimmered, where herbs hung in fragrant bundles, and mirrors caught the glint of light like magic. That place was full of wonder and life.

This place oozed with death.

The door creaked open.

“Oh, you’re awake, darling,” came that soft, velvety voice.

Elias.

Auren’s heart stuttered. He turned his head enough to see Elias step into the firelight, calm and smiling, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hands scrubbed clean.

The voice that once made Auren feel safe, seen—now sounded like it belonged to a stranger.

Too soft. Too casual. Completely out of place in this room of horrors.

“I was worried I gave you a little too much,” Elias said cheerfully.

“You slept like a rock.” He walked to the table and reached for something behind Auren’s head.

“I hope you won’t take this personally. I am thrilled you’re here.

Really, I am.” He chuckled, rolling something small between his fingers.

“You just made it so easy. Walking up to me like that on the beach—saved me the trouble of setting another trap on the deck. It was a good trap, too. I designed it specifically to take you alive without wounding you too much. But alas, you never came. After a week, I thought I’d lost my chance.

That you’d slipped away forever.” He leaned in, eyes bright with fascination.

“And lo and behold, you walk right into my arms. Walk! Of all the things I imagined you capable of, I must say you still managed to surprise me. This transformation… how did you manage it?”

His hand slid up Auren’s leg—clinical at first, until it passed his thigh and crept too high. Too close.

“I must say, I’ve had many specimens on this table. But you’re the first to tempt me. The first to make me want to… partake.”

Auren recoiled, jerking against the ropes. He tried to kick—tried to scream—but the collar held fast, and no sound escaped his throat.

Elias sighed. “Now, now. Don’t struggle.

It makes this so much harder than it needs to be.

” He turned away, selecting a scalpel from a tray with a practiced hand.

The metal gleamed as he examined its edge, utterly unfazed by Auren’s panic.

“I don’t mean to frighten you. I simply need to know.

You’re incredible. Your body—your biology—it’s beyond anything I’ve studied.

I could spend a lifetime trying to understand it. And I intend to.”

He walked with heavy boots, blade in hand, trailing the tip across Auren’s bare stomach. The cool metal kissed his skin. Elias paused, standing over him, gazing down Auren’s exposed form.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, almost to himself. “You really are something else. And so quiet, too. That’s a blessing. Saves me the trouble of a gag.” Elias smiled as he crouched down, eye level with Auren’s abdomen. “Poor unfortunate soul. You’re not going to like this part.”

Then he cut.

It was deep. Clean. Measured. The scalpel slid through his skin like fruit flesh.

Auren arched off the table, body straining against the restraints as a white-hot blaze erupted across his belly.

It felt like being flayed alive. He was being flayed alive.

His body convulsed—and yet, no scream came.

His mouth opened in a soundless wail, but there was nothing. No release. No voice.

Only the silent pooling of blood down his side.

He trembled, gasping in silence. The pain didn’t stop. It spread, blooming in nerve endings he hadn’t known existed. And through it all, Elias hummed to himself, dabbing away the blood with a pristine cloth as though wiping down a dinner spill.

“I’ll keep you alive, of course,” Elias murmured, his tone still conversational. “I want to see how everything works. How it all connects. We’ll go slow—section by section. That way, I can make the most of our time together.”

His voice softened, but the gleam in his eyes was cruel.

Sadistic.

Auren screamed inside his mind. The blade bit in. He arched in agony as the scalpel cut into the skin below his navel. Tears streamed down his face as fire spread through his belly. He thrashed uselessly against the ropes. His voice—gods, why couldn’t he scream?

How did I let this happen?

How could I have been so stupid?

He’d been so in love with a fantasy that he didn’t see the monster behind the smile. Ulric warned him. Again and again. Told him humans consume beauty.

And now…

Now, he was a science experiment. A curiosity to be sliced apart and studied.

Auren sobbed as Elias wiped the blood with a linen cloth, humming a sickeningly cheerful tune. His short gasping breaths and tear-filled eyes did nothing to slow Elias’s examination.

“There, there now, my beauty. It’ll fade. Or you’ll get used to it. Regardless, the first time is the worst. Take heart in the fact that the more I learn, the less I’ll have to cut.”

Auren grit his teeth so hard his ears rang.

He thought of Ulric. Thought of his voice. His eyes. His inked skin and the way he’d looked at Auren as though he were in pain.

I should’ve listened.

If he had his voice—if he could speak one word—he wouldn’t scream.

He would beg Elias to end it. To slit his throat and be done with it. Because this wasn’t life. This was punishment.

And he was a fool.

Auren didn’t know how long he had been unconscious. Only that he woke in bursts. Pain was the tide that carried him through the waves of torture—dragging him under and spitting him back out.

Each time his eyes opened, the firelight blurred and spun. His thoughts were fleeting and stripped to just sensation. He couldn’t tell if it had been hours or days. If Elias ever left. If he was still… himself.

The next time he woke, something burned along the side of his ribcage.

His vision cleared enough to see the gleam of neat stitches—black thread pulled taut over angry, raw skin.

He was sewn shut. Fresh panic clawed at his chest. What had Elias done?

What had he taken? His head lolled to the side.

Glass jars lined the shelf like trophies.

One was filled with a faintly blueish tissue.

Is that mine?

The next time, his eyelids fluttered open to the cold kiss of metal against his collarbone. A sharp pinch. Another cut. A tug. The smell of blood filled the room again. Auren wanted to thrash, to scream, to die—but his body wouldn’t obey. He whimpered before blacking out again.

When he woke next, he was colder.

Lighter.

His whole midsection ached like he’d been gutted and stitched back together.

He didn’t know how much was gone. He didn’t want to know.

The pain was constant now. Barbed around the edges, dull in the center.

There was a sick kind of rhythm to it. His body pulsed in time with the pain.

His breath. His heart. All of it synced to agony.

Elias’s voice was the only thing that broke the stillness.

“The elixirs I’ll make from this…” he mused aloud, scribbling into a leather-bound journal with one ink-stained hand.

The other held a vial—Auren’s blood, thick and red and glowing beneath the firelight.

“I’ll need to increase your iron intake.

You’re running a little dry, sweetheart.

Don’t worry—we’ll fatten you up again. I have so many more jars to fill. ”

He didn’t look at Auren as he spoke. Just talked around him, like he was already dead.

A specimen.

Auren stared blankly at the rafters above.

They swam in and out of focus. Was that supposed to be comforting?

That Elias would keep him alive? That he wouldn’t take enough to kill him?

Auren wasn’t sure anymore. Death felt less frightening than this slow unraveling.

At least death would end. Maybe if Elias slipped, he’d cut too deep.

Sever an artery. Let the blood run free until the world finally went dark for good.

Auren prayed for it. For mercy.

But Elias’s hands never faltered.

Time twisted. Collapsed in on itself. Auren was losing track of who he was. What he’d been. Just another piece of flesh on a table. Another wild thing caught in the net.

Dark hair swayed with the tide, and eyes darker still—like they had swallowed the ocean depths whole.

A place where light didn’t reach. Ulric’s reluctant smile.

His wicked smirk, sharper than his teeth.

The way his onyx-black tentacles had held Auren so gently, with more care than any human touch.

Arms that wrapped around him like they were made to fit.

Why now, of all times, did those memories rise to the surface? How much more was he meant to suffer? To regret?

The memories came one after another, but not the way he wanted, not wrapped in warmth or fondness. It felt like pressing on a bruise, like a hook buried deep in his ribs.

Ulric’s voice, rough as waves against stone. His scent, like obsidian warmed by underwater vents. And his eyes… black as trench water, where sunlight dared not touch.

Auren tried to banish the memories. Because those memories, growing more vivid with each passing heartbeat, kept him tethered.

Even now, with his blood in jars and his body in pieces, something in him held on. Wouldn’t let go.

But Auren was ready to let go.

He longed to fall into madness. To let go of thought, of memory, of pain. To drift away into the black where nothing could hurt him anymore.

But Ulric’s voice echoed through the dark recesses of his mind. Just loud enough to keep him from disappearing completely.

“Fight it, Spriteling. Fight it for me.”

It was cruel, the way hope worked. Worse than the scalpel. Because hope meant maybe. Hope meant what if. And in this place, hope was the most exquisite torture of all.

But I left him.

Auren clenched his eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the voice in his head. If anything, it made it louder.

I left him, and now he’ll never come looking.

Auren’s chest tightened, particularly on his left side, until it felt like he might snap in half.

His wrists strained weakly at the ropes again, but there was no strength left in them.

No strength to fight. No strength to scream.

Only the voice in his head, crueler than anything Elias could ever do to him.

You had someone who loved you.

And you chose the lie instead.

Tears slipped down his cheeks. Ulric had tried. And Auren had thrown it away for a smile and a promise wrapped in pretty words. For a man with soft hands and sharp knives. Now, all he had was pain. And silence. And the memory of a voice that would never call his name again.

“Auren.”

Elias scribbled a few more notes before setting the blood-filled vial into a rack alongside others. Ten now. Maybe twelve. Auren lost count. He couldn’t cry anymore. The pain ate all his tears.

He was so tired.

But the worst part was that his body clung to life.

And Elias knew it.

The human brushed a hand over Auren’s shoulder as he passed, almost fondly. “You’re doing so well. You’re a marvel.”

Auren wanted to tell him to go to hell. Instead, his vision blurred again. The firelight smeared into amber streaks. And he sank once more into the dark.