#da'an

Here it was, at last. The answer to his desperate quest, the reason for all of this insanity.

Da’an felt sick.

The tower was tall, reaching up to the heavens. But he knew that was not where he was headed. No, he was approaching the fiery halls of hell, glistening white in the unnaturally bright moonlight.

Had the moon always been that close? Close enough to make out the glimmer of a face. Rher, laughing down at him. Laughing at the blood encrusted on his boots and under his nails, the blood of everyone that he had slain.

Laughing in his head, like a cat’s incessant meow.

The answer was there, in the figure encircled by moonlight. A man stared back at him – or what had once been a man. The creature stared back at him with the gleam of a smile, his large eyes unnaturally dark. Predatory, bird-like. He was wearing a jester’s hat, a jester’s outfit. His skin looked as though it was carved from porcelain, cracking around the edges.

His abdomen had been carved away, revealing a bare ribcage and nothing else. Everything human removed.

He wasn’t human, not even close. He was the same as the insane creatures that roamed the Festival of Termina – the man who spoke to them in their dreams, the harbinger of Rher’s madness.

His cloak was covered in feathers, draped around him with an air of elegance.

Thus, the porcelain creature beckoned him close. And he went towards it.

“Greetings,” The man said, with that jeering grin. “Finally, the deed has been done. And early! My master and I are impressed. Already finished by the second night, aren’t you a quick one.”

Da’an swallowed.

He hadn’t meant to do it. The bodies, the blood… It was self defense, he wanted to argue. To whisper, his voice hoarse with desperation. They would have killed him, right?

…Right?

The creature leered at him, as though reading his thoughts. Seeing the agony in his eyes.

“Your eagerness should be rewarded. My master, he does not control Termina like he used to. So I have been using it for… a bit of fun. And to initiate new members for my true master.”

Da’an stared at him, hollowly. He barely heard the demon’s words.

“Only those who are eager to kill can claim his name,” The creature said. Per’kele, he had said that his name was? Perkele. Demon.

But he was talking about someone else, something greater and older than even Rher. Forgotten by all but the most bloodthirsty of cultists.

“Whose name?” Da’an whispered. He didn’t care. Everyone was dead. Elise was dead.

The answer shouldn’t have mattered this much. But it did.

Nothing else mattered.

Per’kele looked at him with a gleaming, predatory grin. Da’an could sense that, behind his congratulations, the demon wanted to beat him to death and rip out his guts. The desire for violence was so strong, so visceral, that it overshadowed all else.

Was that how he seemed? Was that what he had become?

Did the creature think that he was the same?!

“The Sulfur God,” Per’kele said. “The only god that matters. We - the Cult of Sulfur - choose to live and breathe in chaos, outside the artificial boundaries created by society and mankind. You can either be at the receiving end of the stick or holding it.”

His grin tightened, suddenly looking like a doll. Mimicking humanity, but too far removed to have any warmth. "We choose to hold it. We revel in the blood of the sacrificial lambs, the masses are for slaughter, for the fallen god - the Sulfur God.”

“You’re mad,” Da’an said. He steadied himself, his hand hovering over the handle of his sword.

“Am I?” Per’kele seemed amused. “I have seen you, Da’an, worshipping a lesser deity. Whoring yourself out on the streets, spreading your lowly gospel while you spread your legs.”

Da’an immediately flushed. He had not thought about those days in years. Before he was found by Elise’s father, when he was selling his talents on the street. The talents of Sylvian, whose healing powers always came with the price of flesh.

“Sylvian,” Per’kele sneered. “To heal instead of to kill. To love instead of to destroy. Even Gro’goroth, her opposite, destroyed for the sake of creation. None of them truly understand, none of them are born from suffering. They do not understand killing for the sake of killing, reveling in hatred and bloodshed and finally knowing true power, and true happiness.”

Da’an laughed. He had come this far, killed all of his friends, lost everything that he had ever cared about, to be told that it had been for nothing. For the journey, the sake of suffering. Well, he was suffering all right, to the point where he almost felt nothing at all.

There was just the smallest glimmer of rage, demanding revenge. He clung to this, to avoid truly going insane.

This charlatan was no different than the cat. Promising escape through apathy and giving in, embracing the inevitable death and misery that befell all humanity. Or escape through debauchery, through the mockery of Sylvian, through flesh and chasing pleasure until he was lost in it – just as his parents had been, so long ago.

If there was truly no other option than to give in, he would at least die avenging those that he had killed, just to try and understand something that made no sense.

Thus was Rher, the God of Madness.

“If you are asking me to join your cult, then the answer is no,” He said.

Per’kele snorted. “You cleaved through your friends, spread their innards across the streets of Prehevil, to deny my offering? What a miserable worm you are, clinging to your pathetic memories of love, of happiness. When you join the Sulfur God, you are hollowed, burnt by the scorching sun and frozen within by the cleansing ice. Your silly notions of loss and despair will be forgotten. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Da’an considered it. He would never miss Elise again, he would never feel despair. Instead he would cause those feelings in others, but he would not care.

Just as his father-in-law had not cared when he ripped Elise away from him. Just as his parents had not cared when they gave in to pleasure and abandoned him.

“No,” He spat, suddenly incensed. His carefree manner forgotten, the trauma unearthed and unburied. “I will never join you! You are a fucking monster, your followers are monsters. Rher may be dead and forgotten, but he will take vengeance on you killing in his name.”

Per’kele snorted again. “Doubt it.” He suddenly looked bored. “Have it your way. However… you may have earned your freedom in the eyes of my master, yet…”

He stared at Da’an, and the jeering bloodshed burned more intensely. “I have followed your journey since the beginning and I've slowly come to the conclusion that I simply hate your existence. Absolutely detest your guts. I can't stand the sight of you.”

He shrugged, unwrapping his cloak, and revealing that it was actually a set of wings. Green, with large feathers, his hands perched at the very end of the appendages.

“This is strictly personal. Between you and me.”

With a tinkling laugh, like ice, the demon approached Da’an, lifting one winged hand to hoist a small meteor.

 “Have you seen the color blood takes under the moonlight? Such beautiful blend of pale red and sickly green drenched in cold hues of blue.”

“Wait,” Da’an’s voice caught in his throat, suddenly realizing that the creature was about to attack him. He wanted to kill it, the desire for bloodshed was almost stronger than he could control. But he forced himself to control it, to prove that he was still himself, still tied to reason.

“Oh, there is no waiting, Danny boy,” Per’kele sneered. “How long I have had to sit here and listen to that chaotic, idiot servant of Rher simpering about you. Wringing his paws with the desire to possess you, to own you, to use you. Why? I cannot answer. Because Rher ordered him to desecrate servants of other gods? Because you worship Sylvian and have already proven your ability to serve degeneracy? Or is it because he likes the idea of overpowering a stupid bitch?”

Da’an felt as though he had been slapped. He lifted his sword, bracing himself for battle. There was no reasoning with this madman.

“But the wiles of Rher’s servant are not even understood by me. No, I’m just glad to be rid of you.”

The blast hit him hard, knocking him clean off his feet. Da’an coughed, and was surprised by the blood splattering his thighs.

Per’kele was strong, blessed with the rage of a truly evil god. Da’an suddenly wondered if he had any chance at all of enacting revenge. But what other choice was there? There was the edge of the tower, the drop to the floor below.

Would it still titillate the creature’s bloodlust if Da’an pulled the trigger for it?

“Pay attention,” Per’kele growled, irritated with Da'an's thoughts. One of the wings moved through the air in a sharp slice, crisper and faster than a bullet.

Da’an suddenly crashed to the floor, in a cacophony of armor and healing supplies. There was a sharp, violent explosion in his leg – the feeling of something sapped away, no longer there. He glanced downward and shrieked, seeing that the bird-like creature’s wing had amputated his left leg in one fell swoop, severing it at the knee.

“How did you ever manage to kill anyone?” Per’kele jeered, standing over his form. “Did you seduce them first? Parrot your true talents to me, whore.”

Da’an struggled to steady his hands, which were violently shaking. He placed his right hand over the wound, and began summoning Sylvian’s magic, desperately hoping to heal himself before he succumbed to bloodloss.

“Uh, no, none of that,” Per’kele said, and there was another horrible slash of pain, another horrible explosion of agony. Da’an screamed and clutched the bloody stump of his right arm with his remaining hand.

“Are you even listening at all? I said your true talents, not that piddling magic.”

“What?” Da’an’s eyes rolled in his head. He could barely keep them open, feeling rattled from the inside out.

This wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening.

This was the end, and he was going to see it through.

With his remaining arm, Da’an struggled to claw his way forward, toward the edge of the tower. To kill himself and steal the pleasure from this demon.

“You’re so fucking pathetic,” Per’kele shook his head. “A mere worm, a rabbit who should have kept playing in your little field, fucking all the other bunnies like a good little boy.”

He ground his boot into the stump of Da’an’s leg, making him shriek anew, tears coming to his eyes.

“Why are you doing this?” He cried, feeling nauseous from the agonizing pain.

“Pay attention,” The creature said. “Have I been talking to a brick wall? Have you been listening to nothing that I’ve said?”

Suffering. It was about the pain, and the pain wasn’t stopping.

Da’an tried to struggle, but it was useless.

“You’re pathetic.” Per’kele grabbed him by the hair from behind, lifting his head from the blood-splattered tower. “Magic of the flesh is all that you can offer this world, huh?”

As if sensing that Da’an had given up, Per’kele kept pushing. Kneading the soft spot until it would tear open, keeping the suffering flowing for as long as possible. Da’an’s heart was no longer in it, but it was still beating, and so the game wasn’t yet over.

“I told you to show me your true talents.”

“Stop,” Da’an pleaded. He didn't want to go back there. He didn’t want to remember.

The days that he sold his body. Many of them had been to Sylvian, yes. Healing whispers, words of love that he whispered from soft lips, pressing them to the neck of a stranger. Kisses that trained downward, that turned into him giving a stranger head, allowing them to splatter their love on his yielding flesh. Sylvian’s love.

And loving whispers, yes. To honor her love in the purest way, to heal a group of people. Pressing his knees into the dirt, the group pulling aside his robes and pushing themselves into him, fucking him in the street in an urgent, religious fervor. One by one, until he was spent, and they were whole again.

But not all zealots had money. Not all injured people sought a doctor of Sylvian.

There were those who didn’t come for healing.

Days where he made little except bruises, except cum trailing down his thighs, and tears bubbling in the corners of his eyes. Gritting his teeth and remaining cordial and friendly, even to those who had just paid to destroy him.

Smiling as one day one of them decided to rescue him from the filth, housing him in fanciful attire and a comfortable, posh existence.

His savior would tout him around like a prize, a gem found in the gutter. He would regale him in polite company, years later, when Da’an was a gentleman and no longer for sale to the masses. Brushing his hand against his cheek, knowingly, because Da’an’s body still belonged to him.

He was still for sale, no matter what.

Elise’s father was just the last one who bought him.

That was his suffering, and it was also his one true gift.

Per’kele knew this, perhaps everyone did. Perhaps it was hidden in his remaining eye, in his soft, plump lips. Da’an, the whore. Always for sale.

Just another gift from Sylvian.

Per’kele wasn’t interested in Da’an’s thoughts – the man doubted that the demon could even read them. All that it cared about was his suffering, and the perfect way to make him wish for a death that would not come.

“Whore,” Per’kele said again, roughly, simultaneously mocking and filled with disgust. He shoved Da’an’s face into the pool of his own blood, pulling his waist into the air.

Per’kele’s erection strained against the tautness of his tights. He felt breathless, overcome with the dizzying feeling of power, of taking away everything in the man beneath him. The rabbit, pinned and helpless, another example of a worthless being worshiping a lesser god.

Oh yes, it would feel good to teach that lesson. So very, very good.

Despite his earlier defeat, Da’an still struggled when Per’kele pulled down his checkered pants. He still had enough pride to complain, he still thought that he was better than this. Better than a whore to be fucked in a pool of his own blood, bleeding out in the pale moonlight.

But he wasn’t. Per’kele was in charge, and it had always been so. The earlier dance had been a game, a showing, a taste of what was to come. He had been looking forward to this from the moment that he met that stupid, naive boy, who thought that he could bury his true self.

That was what Pocketcat saw in him, Per’kele knew. It was irresistible. Pocketcat wanted to champion him, to allow Da’an to blossom into what he had always wanted to be.

Per’kele couldn’t care less. He wanted to make Da’an into what he always had been. A piece of meat, to be devoured by a worthier being.

Da’an’s behind was well endowed, curvaceous and soft in the moonlight. Per’kele didn’t waste time admiring, breathing heavily as he pulled himself free from his tights and ground against the soft flesh.

Da’an trembled beneath him, terror running through his body. He couldn’t, not again, not like this-

To his surprise, he felt his surviving hand reach for the pistol that he had come to Prehevil with. And despite his earlier wishes, it wasn’t pointed at his own head this time.

Per’kele was so shocked, he actually laughed. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

He knocked the pistol out of Da’an’s hand easily, breaking his soft flesh just as easily. Forcing him back down, back into the blood, and the agony of his weight against his bleeding and broken flesh.

Despite himself, Per’kele groaned when he forced himself inside, gripping the sides of Da’an’s thighs harshly enough to leave dark bruising.

God, the despair radiating from this ruined soul, it was exhilarating. And the way that Da’an tightened around him when he brushed against his bleeding stump of a leg… it was orgasmic.

Per’kele shivered. He hadn’t felt true bliss like this in ages – not outside of the moment of a kill, of course. This was even better – killing someone before snuffing the life out of them.

He began thrusting, roughly, erratically, obviously not caring if it hurt. Da’an couldn’t even brace himself against the roof, with no functioning hands to hold on. Humiliation ran through him, alongside the despair.

. . . (difference between other endings begins here). . .

Da'an almost didn’t notice when Per’kele groaned again, pulling himself free with a wet squelching sound. Pain in his head, as the demon lifted him by the hair.

“Cute,” Per’kele said. Da’an couldn’t see his expression, but he knew that his face was dripping blood. All that he could see was the demon’s leer, as Per’kele aligned himself with Da’an’s remaining eye.

“Wait, please-” Da’an stammered, but there was nothing that he could do. He sobbed as Per’kele forced himself into Da’ans eye, with another loud, excited groan.

There was no pain left to feel – he was already destroyed. But the humiliation, the agony of that was worse. Even his physical torture had to be sexual, even his destruction a mockery of his own body.

Per’kele reveled in it, holding his head steady with one hand, to avoid thrusting too far and killing him. No, there was still the game, of course, and leaving too early was against the rules.

Da’an weakly tried to push him off, with his broken, mangled hand, but the demon didn’t even feel him. It would have laughed if it had. He was completely helpless, and he knew it.

When Per’kele finally pulled out, Da’an’s vision didn’t return. He was completely blinded, somehow finding the ability to be terrified anew.

“I like you better like this,” Per’kele said, his leer reaching new heights, as he pushed into Da’an’s mouth. “At least now you’ve shut up.”

Da’an tried to push Per’kele out of him, his mouth filling with the taste of copper and other fluids. The taste of his own eye, like a mockery of his sacrifice for Elise. He thought about biting, about summoning the strength, but he couldn’t breathe. Per’kele tightened his grip on Da’an’s hair, thrusting in and out of his mouth roughly enough to choke him. Da’an weakly batted at the jester’s thighs, struggling for air, but luckily it wasn’t long before Per’kele was brought to the edge by his bleeding, empty eye. The demon pulled out, ensuring that he came across Da’an’s face, to finally solidify that expression.

Absolutely destroyed.

There was stillness, then. Both of them were breathing heavily. Per’kele had given in to something that he wasn’t supposed to feel, a very human debauchery that still had him twitching in his tights, trailing his eyes across Da’an’s ruined form. The pants strewn around his ankles, his half erection, a reminder that deep down, he knew his own place. The bleeding, gaunt hole in his head where his blue eye had once been. A delicious, finally helpless man, with Per’kele’s cum splattered across his face.

Per’kele shivered and had to physically restrain from palming himself.

Da’an could barely lift his head from the puddle of blood beneath him. “Just kill me,” He whispered, hoarsely. “I’m ready now. I want it to end.”

Per’kele pulled himself together, swallowing. “Oh, I want to. I cannot describe how strongly I want to kill you. But Rher’s servant has claimed your filthy hide.”

Da’an struggled to make sense of his words.

“W-What?”

Rher’s servant – that cat creature? Pocketcat, the demon that had been haunting him, threatening him to become what he feared more than anything else.

A jolt of terror ran through Da’an, distracting him even from the pain and the numbness of death.

“No-”

“-Yes,” Per’kele continued, “And so you are his. But he never specified in what condition. And you are still alive. So I have kept my end of the bargain.”

His eyes burned into Da’an’s, cold with rage, and his breath hitched in his throat with desire.

“It was nice finally meeting you in the flesh,” He jeered.

Da’an barely noticed when Pocketcat appeared, but he felt the creature’s paws against his cheeks.

“I’m sorry I’m late, old chap. You look like you’ve had a hell of a time.”

He felt something wet drip onto his shoulder, like saliva from a predatory animal, and knew that this was all part of the same game. He was meant to give in to one or the other.

“Are you ready to take my deal, yet?” The creature’s words echoed in his mind, like an illusion.

Pocketcat’s paw trailed downward, across Da’an’s chest, which was raising and falling in desperate, frightened gasps. Down to his bare crotch, to the semi soft form of his half-erection.

“You crave debauchery,” Pocketcat whispered. “I can see your hunger. Why not just give in? It would be so much more enjoyable to be able to enjoy.”

The paw wrapped around him. Perhaps it was the torture, perhaps it was his mind finally breaking, but Da’an moaned.

“That’s it,” Pocketcat purred into his ear. Without being able to see, Da’an had no sense of where the creature was. He could only feel its presence wrapped around him, the heavy weight of the demon against his back, the soft fur palming his dick, the heavy, hot breath against his neck.

“We can do it together,” Pocketcat purred, pulling Da’an into his lap. The huge creature was barely comprehensible. It seemed to tower, as tall as a building, as tall as the heavens themselves. Da’an felt his mind cracking.

Pocketcat easily pushed himself into Da’an, finding little resistance from the broken man. He purred as he worked his hand, ensuring that Da’an felt filled with his promise. Pleasure amongst the pain, pleasure in spite of the pain. Immortality in debauchery.

Da’an didn’t squirm. He didn’t move, leaning in to the soft, sweet feeling of Pocketcat thrusting into him, while jerking him off. He moaned, feeling the world fade away. Feeling everything disappear.

It felt so good, so, so, good.

It felt like being born again, as something new. Something that regained his broken limbs, his eye reopening to a bleary, moon-dappled tower.

Where no amount of suffering could ever touch him again.

“That’s it,” Pocketcat repeated. Something about the soft, reassuring voice twisted, devilishly.