Raph's eyes snapped open and he still couldn't see anything. Panic surged through him immediately. He couldn't remember anything; his last memory was…
The phantasm in his apartment.
His heart began pounding. He tried moving, but his hands and legs were tied and something was stuffed into his mouth. His muffled cries echoed in the dark, and his legs kept hitting something.
He was completely naked, sitting on something cold.
At first, he thought he was inside a box, but as he wormed through the darkness, his hand touched something cold and smooth. After a frenzied second running his fingers over it, he realised it was a toilet.
Despite the chill of the room sinking into his naked body, he felt sweaty and slimy. His eyes adjusted to the darkness a bit, and if he squinted, he could see tiles on the ground. The pieces came together slowly in his mind.
He was in a toilet stall.
Hogtied like a chicken for slaughter. His heart pounded, suddenly every sound in the place was sharper, and he could see something moving in the dark—a heavy, vast form.
He closed his eyes and tried to calm his pounding heart; there had to be a way out of this. He just needed to keep a clear mind and keep his composure.
That was what Isaac always said.
But Raph suspected following this advice was easier when you were bulletproof. He shuffled over the dark floor, trying to find the door, which he bumped into a moment later.
But there was something taped to the door. He squinted his eyes.
It was a page torn from a book.
His eyes ran over the text that was written out with a green sharpie, reading aloud in his mind:
"I was going to kill you and just take over your boss's body, but I decided to give you a chance to save yourselves. If you fail, then I'll kill both of you."
His eyes widened; a muffled yell escaped his throat.
Isaac!
They were meant to meet at the gas station. Was he also in this place, maybe in another stall?
It took a long time for him to gain control over himself and continue reading the paper.
"Right below this paper is your box of matches that you loved so dearly. Take the match and light a fire, but be careful. I've covered your entire body in a flammable jelly. One mistake and you go up in a brilliant blaze."
Raph stopped reading, a horrified howl tightening his throat. He touched his hands and legs and felt the slimy draw of the jelly. The darkness fell on him like a guillotine, his vision spun as he hyperventilated.
This can't be real, this can't be real…
He kept repeating this to himself, hoping to wake up. But this was his hell, his fault for involving himself with the mafia and its supernatural side.
He read the rest of the paper with teary eyes.
"Use the lit match to find a pair of scissors that I've hidden in the toilet and cut the zip ties I used on your legs and hands. And you're free. I'll even spare Isaac. Good luck."
Raph swallowed his cries and reached down the door of the stall, fingers searching the dark floor till he found the box of matches.
He raised the box with shaking fingers. He couldn't even see his hand in the dark, and there was barely any room to navigate his hands to strike the match against the box.
Worse of all, his fingers were covered in jelly, meaning the box would be too. If he tried lighting the fire, he would die.
Was it already over?
He closed his eyes and tried to stay calm, breathing from his nose since he was gagged. The heat and pain in his head subsided, allowing his thoughts to flow.
The first thing he needed to do was clean the box and then his fingers. He dropped the matchbox where he picked it and began cleaning his hands against the paper note the phantasm taped to the door.
Once he felt it was good enough, he picked up the matchbox and did the same, rubbing the jelly off and cleaning it against the door and paper. He was about to try taking out a match when he had another idea.
He dropped the matchbox and shuffled towards the toilet, sticking his fingers into the water to try and prevent them from burning just in case. Once he was done, he got back to the matchbox and brought it closer to his eyes.
After a few seconds of checking, he was able to distinguish between the top and bottom of the match; he didn't want to get the matchstick wet.
He took out a matchstick and tried for a couple of unsuccessful minutes to light it. Then he angled it a bit and pulled his hand back till the zip ties bit into his hand. Then he moved both hands at once and struck the match against the box.
A fire glowed in the dark, giving him his first glimpse of the blue-walled bathroom, but then the match fell from his hand.
Raph shrank back as the match fell, opening his legs as wide as possible.
The match landed just between his legs, still burning. His heart felt like a wild animal clawing against his chest.
For a moment, he thought he was going to throw up, but he held it back.
Sweat rolled down his slick body as his chest heaved. When his mind returned, he picked up the still burning match carefully, then searched the toilet for the scissors. It wasn't long till he found them at the back of the toilet.
He dropped the match into the toilet and used his hands to brush over the wet, slimy bathroom floor till they found the scissors.
The joy inebriated him; this was better than any high, better than any mortal pleasure.
He swore the moment his fingers touched the scissors to never use any of those videos on his laptop again, to never even look at another bitch the wrong way.
He was convinced that one of the people he used had sent that phantasm after him as punishment for his actions.
They were all idiots after all; he didn't deserve all this. The thought of finding who sent the spirit after him crossed his mind with the faint delight of inflicting all this fear on the bastard.
But he didn't want to take that chance. He would leave all those things behind and stay away.
He promised himself all that.
But he didn't promise to apologise to the people he harmed, blackmailed, beat, abused.
He didn't sympathise with the suffocating feeling those people must have felt.
He didn't see that what he did was wrong.
That was when Noah decided not to free him.
Raph's hand froze, and a cold voice filled his skull, like the crackling whispers of a flame.
"I was waiting inside you, wondering if you'd see the error of your ways, but it seems I was being too kind."
Noah had learnt how to switch control between him and the possessed while setting the trap. He did it unconsciously, remaining in Raph's body when he sat in the toilet and stayed here to hear his thoughts.
They were infuriating, to say the least.
This bastard wouldn't learn. Once the fear passed, he would look for another person to harm because people weren't worth as much as his pleasure.
Noah raised Raph's hands, controlling only the body from the neck down. The man was fully awake and watching in horror as his body refused to obey his commands. A muffled scream shook his body as Noah picked up the matchbox.
He took out a match far more easily than Raph did, ignoring the man's stifled pleas as he lit the match.
"Go to hell," Noah said before dropping the match.