Darkness wasn't empty.
It pressed down on Orien like a suffocating hand, cold and sharp as a blade against his skin. His chest heaved, but the air tasted of old blood, thick and metallic, like the bottom of a forgotten well. The rough stone beneath him scraped against his bruised cheek. Every ragged breath dragged dust and decay deep into his lungs.
Pain wasn't just his companion anymore. It lived inside him, gnawing and clawing, pulsing like a second heartbeat. But now it felt distant, muffled, as if wrapped in layers of ice and fire at once.
Then the voice came.
Not spoken aloud, but carved into his bones. Low. Velvet. Dripping with malice.
"Foolish man. So eager to believe in justice. In kindness. In hope."
Orien's eyelids fluttered. He wanted to scream, to fight, but his body refused to obey. His fingers twitched, grasping at nothing but air and agony.
"Look at yourself, Orien Thorne."
From the void, a spiral of burning shadows twisted into being. Six dark glowing circles pulsed within it, each one a wound bleeding hellfire.
"You have suffered. You have been broken. And still, you cling to your fragile ideals."
The darkness coiled closer. From its center emerged the demon, a nightmare of jagged edges and smoldering cracks. Its limbs stretched too long, too sharp. Its face was a fractured mask, eyes burning with cruel amusement. When its mouth opened, rows of serrated teeth clicked like a predator's trap.
"I am the hunger beneath your ribs. The shadow that twists your soul."
The demon's breath washed over him, hot and fetid, reeking of sulfur and decay. Orien's skin burned where it touched.
"You are broken, but not enough."
Its voice dropped to a whisper, soft as silk and sharp as steel.
"I will give you a gift. But gifts demand payment."
A sudden pressure bloomed in Orien's chest. He gasped as the mark appeared beneath his sternum, a dark spiral etched into his flesh. Six tiny circles lined its curve, each pulsing with hungry patience.
"Stab your finger through one. Feel pain doubled. Quadrupled. Pain beyond mortal endurance."
The demon's claws traced the spiral slowly, almost tenderly.
"You must remain awake. Conscious. If you falter, I will drag you back twice as furious, twice as cruel. Stabbing the next circle"
Orien shuddered. The demon leaned closer, its words dripping poison.
"Pain is the only truth you cannot deny. It will bind you to me. Your suffering will be the fuel. Your agony, the fire that forges your power."
"Win your fight, kill or force surrender, and your wounds will vanish."
"But betray me, and the spiral will consume you."
With trembling fingers, Orien unconsciously pierce through his skin on the 1st circle.
The heat under his skin turned to ice, then exploded into white hot shards. His breath left him in a soundless scream.
Pain flooded every nerve. Molten steel seared through his bones, twisting, burning, alive. Twice as fierce as any torment he'd known.
His vision swam in red and black, but he forced his eyes open.
He couldn't pass out.
The demon had promised worse.
Agony and power twisted together inside him. His muscles screamed. His skin felt flayed and aflame. Yet the fire sharpened his senses, tightened his fists.
The darkness shattered.
Orien stood, trembling but upright, bathed in crimson light. The spiral on his chest pulsed like a second heart.
Around him, the inmates froze.
The brute who'd beaten him stepped forward, sneering.
Power surged through Orien's veins, fed by the unbearable pain writhing inside him.
His fingers shot out, sinking into the man's side like claws. Flesh tore. Blood poured. The inmate screamed.
Pain doubled. Orien's teeth ground together, his eyes burning, but he held on.
The fight was a blur of agony and fury. It ended with the man crumpling to the dirt, broken.
Orien's knees buckled. His lungs burned. But the pact held him upright, whispering promises of strength and threats of greater suffering.
As darkness crept at the edges of his vision, the demon's voice echoed one last time.
"Now you belong to pain. And pain belongs to me."
His body collapsed.
But the fire in his chest still burned.
The first step on a terrible new path.