Bare feet slapping on stone floors, echoing down the endless hallways of Hell.

Her arm is laid open to the bone and lags useless behind her, leaving a messy trail of blood. There are hooks ripping her flesh, still trailing broken chains that once bound her. The woman doesn't seem to notice. She has had worse.

She hears her own ragged breath over the sound of her feet, it is exhaustion with a heavy undercurrent of terror well learned by her time here. She barely remembers a time when she wasn't overpowered by fear, perhaps that is merely a figment of her imagination.

She's so tired. She's so scared.

But clutched in her other hand is a cruel spear, stolen from her tormentor on the frantic flight to freedom. She's tired, she's hurt, she's so terrified her heart feels like it may stop any moment, but she's still fighting.

A creature springs from the darkness lured by the scent of a mortal's blood. Her instincts, sharpened by desperation, tell her when to brace her one good arm. The monster slams halfway down the spear before catching, and its slavering jaws snap inches away from her face. She does not move, and the creature slowly wastes away.

She keeps running.

The hallways are endless.

She won't stop.

Nothing will make her go back, she'll die first, she swears it under her breath a thousand times as she runs.

Shrill laughter mocks her as an ill proportioned figure slides along the wall. Black leather clings to it like a second skin and chains dangle musically from its twisted hide as it paces her. She doesn't stop to question why it leaves her be.

The Cenobites know this game well enough by now. It has been played through countless times before, but the woman does not know that. She is not allowed to. And so she fights for her life as if this is her only chance to escape. What is the most desperate moment of her existence is but an amusement to her captors.

The thing on the wall slings chains at her heels and gives up the chase, allowing its screeching to follow her awhile longer and then leaves this round. The child is not for just any of them, and they know better than to take part in her suffering, lest they bring their own upon their head. The lesser demons do what they will, the woman is dangerous in her own right and can deal with them. The lesser cenobites can torment if they will, push her along, if they wish to risk their own hide. But she belongs to the greatest of them.

In life she had been an innocent, one the cenobites should have been barred from. Fate brought her into their reach, and her own quick wits saved her soul. Most mortals would have counted their blessings and never had dealings with demons again, much less try to get the better of them. She tried twice more, and succeeded. Three times a child of mortals outwitted Hell's executioners. Most of them knew only frustration. One of them found desire.

He had eternity to wait for her. Once touched by them, her soul was forever tainted.

Inevitably she came to their power. No matter how many times she dodged them all they had to do was wait for their next chance. When the day finally came they were greedy for her flesh, for her eternal soul. They would have taken turns, but he laid his claim. This mortal was his alone to instruct. She would play his game.

He had waited half a mortals lifetime to teach her the pleasures of pain and the pains of pleasure, not a long wait for one such as himself, but much longer than he was accustom to.

It is with delight he draws out her anguish, and it is her prerogative to fight him every step of the way. That's how he knows he chose wisely when he gave his interest to this woman. She screams and cries like all the rest, but she holds it back longer then they. She succumbs to the pain and takes the beatings, but she spits and curses when he draws near. For many years their game has been played and while neither will concede, he knows time is ever his ally. She is mortal, and as inevitably as she came to him, inevitably will she yield to him.

When the game grows slow, he lets her escape. So tortured, so driven to madness and back is she that she does not realize how many times she has run this same path. She feels dread in the deepest corner of her soul, the part that knows how this ends, but she doesn't understand it anymore. He knows it rekindles her spirit to let her run free, and she fights that much harder when the chains take her back.

She hears the chains before she sees them. They clank in the shadows the instant before they move for her. Although she knows it is useless she makes a wild leap to the side, expecting to feel the hooks in her skin anyway. Instead she feels them brush by. Up on her feet again and fleeing she knows he missed on purpose, she knows it is his pleasure to tease and taunt, and what better way then with her escape so close. His laughter haunts her now, the mere sound of his voice sending her near into fits.

"That's enough exercise for now Kirsty. Come back to your cage."

She wails, half defiant half hysterical,

"No!"

Her ankles are suddenly bound, a cold chain wrapping her legs and pulling. The wind is knocked from her lungs as she lands hard on the ground and she slides backward across the cold floor. The spear is useless against him, but she stills cries out when it clatters out of her hand. Steel twines around her arms as she manages to sit up and realizes she is at his feet.

"We've played this game before, child, surely you remember?"

As if his words are the trigger, she begins to realize the true horror of the situation. Suddenly she recalls uncountable times she has broken free and fled through these dark corridors. She remembers the chase done so many times, so desperate for her yet so effortless for him. It is always hopeless because this is his realm and she is a prisoner here, the very world heeds his whim. How can she ever hope to escape? Wet streaks are on her face and she absently realizes she is crying, but it seems to her the gesture is woefully inadequate for the despair she knows.

She knows from the faintest of smiles on his lips that he knows exactly what she is thinking. She knows he enjoys it, and that he enjoys tormenting her more than he has enjoyed anything in a long while. It's obvious to her, because he acts differently around her. It has taken decades for her to realize it, but somewhere along the way she has come to understand him better than any in his charge. When she first met him he seemed almost bored with his calling. He had been doing it for so long nothing was new, no surprises and no challenges. It was the same when she first spoke with him, the wrote responses and disinterest. By slipping through his grasp she had intrigued him and now he smiles when he sees her.

She knows this is far from a good thing. The last thing any creature could want is the exclusive attention of the Prince of Pain.

The woman is dragged along behind him, and he doesn't hide the pleasure on his face. She's not broken and he knows it. Beaten but still fighting, lost her hope but not her spirit. That's what he likes about her, that and the knowledge that someday she will thank him for what he is doing for her.

There is something in her that she either does not see or refuses to acknowledge, and part of his delight comes from bringing that out. From peeling away her mortal qualms and showing her the truth that lies at the center of her soul.

Very few humans make worthy cenobites, and he has since destroyed many he once made out of need. But this woman, he is certain, is suitable. With the proper instruction he can forge her into something both fearsome and lovely.

Her screams echo in the corridors as her soul becomes undone.

Tonight she is his victim, some day she will be his consort.