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It was fucking endless.
When it wasn't the Lord of Dicks himself, it was always someone else; something else.
Another shifting mass of flesh and skin, ambling towards him in a twisting mess, ready to stick what probably didn't even constitute as a hand anymore into Zakk's ribs and tug.
Today (A tricky term really, as time didn't seem to really work around here, let alone have markers as to when was; the 'sky' was always a putrid shade of yellowish grey, like pus on a corpse and nothing ever seemed to sleep, not even Zakk himself. He only ever passed out from the pain.), he was graced with the presence of Aeloth himself.
Here, he towered above Zakk, seven and a half foot tall at least (eight with the horns, great twisted things, spiralling out the sides of his head and up like the world's ugliest tree branches), naked, showing more gnarled skin, like a walking tumour, grotesquely muscled like a comic book hero, ropey muscle bulging from every place, however inconceivable.
Zakk was still bound, hands, chained to his thighs with thick rusted chains, like the ones on his dad's engine winch, tight enough to dig in when he shifted to take pressure of his awkwardly bent ankles and to turn his skin white where they'd been pressed for hours.
Like this, he felt so fucking small before the Blind One, in forced submission whilst that dick who caused his death, killed his fucking dad, and ruined his fucking Spiritual Healing shirt, strutted all high and goddamn mighty like he owned the place. (Maybe he did. Zakk hadn't exactly had time to figure out the hierarchy of Hell, too busy getting his face beaten in again and again, healed each time through some mysterious fucking demon powers.)
Now, Zakk was knee-level with Aeloth, craning his neck to look at his face, readying himself for what was to come. When the bastard got close enough, he snarled, showing his teeth and spitting like a snake, doing his best to intimidate, to fight back. Aeloth crouched down, still taller than Zakk, and fucking laughed.
His laugh sounded like a record scratching, harsh and filled with static, making stars play across Zakk's vision like he'd been smacked hard around the face.
"Such fight. No wonder I chose you."
Zakk was surprised every time Aeloth spoke, at just how bad, how much he sounded. His voice sounded... Low. Deep. Too deep to hear, and yet he heard. It squealed and shot through his skull, like microphone feedback and glass shattering, his head lighting up with pain.
Zakk leant forward, teeth bared, and snapped at Aeloth's crotch, trying to bite at his cock, doing anything to fight back against this pain, this humiliation.
To Zakk's delight, Aeloth reared back, a look of surprise crossing his features like cooked flesh falling off the bone, quickly replaced by something in between fury and amusement. Shit.
Zakk didn't regret it, no, he never regretted anything (except perhaps sleeping with Medina, because Jesus was that more trouble than it was worth), but he did rethink making another attempt.
At least for the meanwhile.
"Bad dog."
Aeloth's voice sounded somehow lower, echoing in Zakk's ears like a bad riff, like claps of thunder and peals of church bells, and it sent waves of unease through him.
The Lord of Dicks had stood up and backed off, moving back into the dark shadows that seemed to hiss and fizz like boiling water if Zakk focused on them too hard, messing with something that clinked and rattled. Chains.
So fucking what, Zakk thought. Like he wasn't already chained. Like he hadn't already been chained since these cunts first found his wandering the barren and brackish landscape.
But when he turned around, Zakk felt a moment of regret. Regret for ever talking to Brodie, for ever picking up a bass guitar, for ever proposing the idea of Deathgasm.
Aeloth was holding a fucking choke chain.
Once silver, it was stained dark red with rust and blood, the prongs facing inward were sharp; as he drew closer, Zakk could see that they were filed that way, more blood, old and brown, stick in the scratches. Tetanus fucking central.
Aeloth approached... Not quite cautiously, but slow, giving Zakk enough time to panic. He started fighting against his chains, ignoring the aches of stiff muscles and old bruises and scrapes, just intent of getting the fuck away from here.
The Blind One crouched down in front of Zakk again, his face of writhing flesh, like a thousand crawling maggots, getting close, and Zakk snapped his jaws like a mad beast, spit flying wildly and dripping down his chin as his mind raced and catastrophized.
No. Fuck, no.
Gripping Zakk's jaw, Aeloth loosened the choke chain and slipped it over his head, it coming to rest across the back of his neck, feeling as heavy as lead and cold as ice.
The bastard didn't pull it tight yet, but reached down to the chains binding Zakk's wrists to his thighs, jerking them hard enough that white-hot pain flared through his legs as the chains snapped under the demon's beastly strength.
Zakk made an attempt to stand, to run, escape, but fell on legs numb and aching from being trapped under him for hours, falling and choking himself momentarily on the collar before he got his arms in front of him and righted himself.
He'd barely gotten feeling into the tips of his fingers, arms already shaking from being forced to hold himself up after such disuse, before the chain around his neck tightened sharply and the spikes were driven into his neck.
He tried to yell. Really. He's fine with admitting it. Who wouldn't have made a sound, screamed, shouted, roared in pain?
He tried to yell, but the chain tightened further and he felt it cut off his airway, leaving him feeling weaker than before.
Again came Aeloth's blinding laughter, louder this time, and echoed by a chorus of laughs from around them, hidden in shadow and pain from Zakk's sight.
If he'd thought he was humiliated before, Zakk knew this was so much worse.
The chain was tugged again, pulling Zakk of the palms of his hands, dragging him up by his throat, baring it in a show of perverted vulnerability, trails of blood running down in slow rivulets, the chain too tight for it to flow.
Aeloth lifts the chain far above Zakk's head, pulling him up to his knees, then further, forcing him into a position somewhere between standing and kneeling, pain shooting down from his thighs to his feet with the burn of it. The uneasiness of the position makes Zakk tremble and shake, falling repeatedly and choking himself on the collar even further.
Another sharp jerk and Zakk is laying sprawled across the ground, muck and blood and grime and whatever the fuck else that makes up Hell smeared across his body, face down in the dirt and taking gasping shallow breaths whilst the chain isn't pulled quite as tight.
A choking sob escapes from Zakk, feeling like coughing up grit and dust, a pitiful sound and rightly so.
He feels broken.
Aches and stinging scrapes and cuts all over, getting dragged around like some bitch, lungs working too fast for the chain around his neck, throat convulsing in painful spasms, trying to make up for the oxygen deprivation.
Aeloth grunts, rattling the chain, eliciting a strangled whimper and the demon only grins. An ugly grin, showing a mouth like an open wound filled with too many teeth and rot like damp wood. It infuriates Zakk.
He swipes at the chain in a long arc with his still-numb arms, catching it loosely before yanking it closer to him, giving himself some slack to breathe with, cut short by a furious roar and a vicious tug on the chain, pulling him up again, leaning down so they're face to face and fuck.
He is seething.
Zakk can see pink spittle fly at his face when Aeloth roars again, buzzing like a chainsaw carving through bone, hissing like a cornered animal, enraged, maddened by anger, and something in Zakk seems to break.
He roars right back, spitting and cursing and swearing, rabid in his intensity and fire, fighting fierce until-
Until-
Aeloth heaves on the chain and Zakk cannot do anything, he cannot breathe, he cannot think, and then, Aeloth does it again, and again, and again.
He does it until Zakk loses count, until he feels like that time he got too high and too drunk and lay on the garage floor until he could feel his toes again.
He vomits, at some point, when exactly he's not sure; he just knows that he can taste the bitter bile and feel the sting of stomach acid in his mouth, and that it makes his stomach spasm in false hunger, tight and twisting in his gut.
Vomit and blood feel hot on his chin and neck but everywhere else he feels cold, icy, like that time he locked himself out and had to sleep in the broken van outside and woke up blue, stinging skin and stiff joints making him feel like a fucking corpse.
The Blind One forces his chin up yet again, watching as Zakk chokes up blood and sickness-bitter saliva, the look on his face somewhere between disgust and amusement, and drops Zakk roughly back to the ground.
And so, the torture begins again. Up then down, giving him no time to adjust or to breathe, and he feels spots dance across his vision as he struggles and fails to focus on Aeloth's feet, dirt-crusted and warped like scar tissue as they are.
Again and again. He must pass out for moments, here and there, as he feels way too surprised every time the demon moves the chain.
When Aeloth finally releases the chain, dropping it like a discarded toy, bored of inflicting this brand of pain, Zakk's hand are on it immediately.
Maybe, maybe, some part of his brain is screaming at him not to, that it's a bad idea, that it's better to keep it there, but goddammit.
It hurts so much.
Silent tears have tracked down his cheeks, clearing paths through the dried vomit and smeared blood on his neck and jaw, and he can't make a sound still, both because of his battered wind pipe and his panic, his pain, leaving him senseless.
The moment he pulls the collar away from his neck, he panics even more; he knows he's fucked up.
Blood splatters on his hands, his arms, everywhere, from where it's expelled from the punctures.
He doesn't even have time to catch his breath before it's taken again, this time by blood loss, red covering his torse and pooling around his, spilling from his jugular faster than he can make sense of, dizzy and disoriented as he is, oxygen deprivation over time and sudden, shocking blood lock striking him dumb.
He keels backwards, knees bending and legs folding under himself - not that he can feel them to complain about it. Everything feels like static, feels like his hands after a particularly hard bass session, brimming with exhaustion and aching pain; all except his neck, which feels fiery. Like he gargled hot coals, like he swallowed used needles, broken glass and thumb tacks climbing up his throat, spewing up more hot blood as he breaths out sharply.
He sucks in air on instinct but knows it won't help anything.
He's dying.
Is practically dead already.
And yet, he flounders, hands clawing impractically, ineffectively, at his neck, sticky with hot blood.
As his vision goes black, he hears the ringing sound of the Blind One's laughter, and he almost recoils, jerking limply, one final wild, futile attempt to save himself, before he can't move anymore, head spinning with only one horrible thought: that this is not the end.
After all, you can't die in Hell.