Harker woke up to the smell of smoke all over his house.

He jolted up, and saw that the flames had already reached farther than he thought. They spread like tendrils reaching through the gaps of the walls and floors, the holes and crevices they had made. He coughed as he rushed to the rooms of his brothers and sister.

"Chloe! Sam! Sammy!"

But none of them were in their rooms. None of them answered his calls either.

The curling tongues of the fire cheekily tried to lap at him, and Harker just dodged. Maybe they have escaped? He went downstairs just to be sure, not really in a hurry to save himself.

The fire was much worse downstairs. The sofa had burned almost to ashes, the dining table where they ate and their chairs too. Of course, his father's woodworks had been scorched easily, turning a deep black.

Harker couldn't find his siblings anywhere, and the fire completely covered any escape routes. That means they should have gone out before the fire had spread this much....

Or it's already too late.

Harker chose to believe the earlier. Maybe they already went out to the neighbors for help. Their cul-de-sac was in no way a remote area, a fire like this would have alarmed EVERYONE.

But it was too quiet. There was only the crackling of the fire, and nothing else.

Harker know something was wrong. He then remembered that Wendigos can bring snowstorms with them, and so he tried to transform into one.

But for some reason, it's not working.

"Your time has run out, Master."

He heard the familiar voice of Yan, but the eyeball was nowhere to be seen in this inferno.

"Yan! What the fuck do you mean!? I already absorbed all of the DNA I gained from Legion just like that?"

But his obedient servant of an eye merely responded with.

"This is the End, Master. I must look for a new Master, for there is surely no way you would survive this."

And just like that, he too had left Harker in this desolate house.

"Yan! Yan, answer me! You can't do this to me, you... Help me!"

Harker called out again and again. He felt so weak, the smoke and ashes pushing through his airways and filling his lungs. It felt like they would drown him in soot from inside out, turning his lungs all black. And eventually, even his heart and veins would be black.

He curled up into a ball on the floor. No way to escape, and nothing but fire to keep him company.

But more than the fear for his own life....

There was the fear of losing everything. Once he loses this life, he would lose his family. He would lose Mina, Joan, Roland, all the people he knew, all the memories he had and shared with them... Everything.

And it would hurt them. He knew it would hurt them.

How devastated would his father be to find his son gone, just like his wife? If his siblings were still alive, how devastated would they be to lose their eldest brother, the one they relied on their whole life?

The people who loved him.... How devastated would they be to lose the one they love?

Within the tall walls of flame, he could see the silhouette of a woman. She was laughing, her shoulders shaking as she cackled without sound. The pleasure she took from all the destruction and pain was disgusting.

And truly frightening.

She approached him, the flames parting like curtains as she did.

"I like you. Unlike Howard, you are someone with many to lose. I am waiting for that day, and when your hurting becomes a desire to hurt everything.... You and I shall make a cute couple."

She gave Harker a peck on the forehead. His skin started to sizzle, until it grew hotter and hotter and he was soon burning.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

A piece of glass, possibly from the broken windows, showed his own flaming skull to him. But before it was a skull, he burned layer by layer, revealing the red flesh underneath.

Blood dripped down at someone's feet. historical

Harker looked up. He was in another burning house. But it was familiar, he can recognize its floral wallpapers, decor, and the staircase leading to the mistress' room.

The person before him smiled.

"Now you know what an awful sensation it is to burn, my dear Joseph."

The burning had stopped all at once. That person became slowly more recognizable to him...

As her bones started to gain flesh, and eventually some skin. Smooth, flawless skin that she maintained at the expense of others.

"Don't give me that face. Hadn't I taken great care of you as a guest in my home?"

Miss Lovette kneeled next to him. Harker wanted to move, but he couldn't. His face had stopped burning, but the heat of anger remained.

He wanted to shout, to yell curses at this woman... But she had him wrapped tightly in her sickening peach blossom scent.

"You must join us in the bedroom. I promised that you and I will have our nice little talk there."

Harker's body moved on its own, and no matter how much he tried, he couldn't stop it from moving. He was now back inside this woman's bed full of patterns of daisies, and was made to lay down.

"I don't mind if you're no longer fresh. My daughter doesn't mind as well. She had been hungry for a long time, you know."

Harker's eyes widened, as the figure of a girl with blood-red hair and lips appeared right next to Miss Lovette. Her green eyes gleaned at him as she licked those lips.

"Let's relish him for a long time, mother. I'll eat him piece by piece... And leave the 'meat' for you, of course. As a gift."

Miss Lovette started going on top of him and undressing him. "Oh, I would like that very much. His meat is very gifted indeed. It'd be a shame if you just took it as a snack."

Harker could only watch in terror as the mother and daughter feasted on him, once on his soul and one on his body. And it was torturously long.

So long that it felt like forever. He had been abused again and again, in a cycle that repeats like the turns of a clock.

Swirling and swirling...

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A/N: The next 2 chapters had detailed descriptions of non-consensual sex and cannibalism/vore happening to the MC. If you can't stomach that, I suggest you skip them.