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Sickening dread washed over me.

What are they doing to her?!

Their forked tongues flicked at her exposed flesh with a sadistic hunger. Those scales glistened in the candlelight as they moved with a sinister grace, winding around her limbs, across her abdomen, and her breasts.

And worst of all, one slid across her face, obscuring her features with its scaly form.

I picked up my pace.

The masked figures snapped their views my way.

The air grew even colder, seeping into my bones and numbing me from within.

And then I just couldn’t move anymore.

I wasn’t frozen in fear.

I very much wanted to fucking get to her, but I couldn’t.

The power to move, to breathe, to even blink, had been cruelly stripped away from me.

Come on!

This sinister energy sparked on my skin.

Move! Move!

A force, invisible yet unyielding, had seized me, pinning my body in place. My arms were locked at my sides, my legs rooted.

What is this? Am I that high? Or is this really happening?

I strained against whatever it was, muscles corded with effort as I attempted to push forward. But it was like trying to move through a wall of dense, solid cemented-air.

Only my heart continued to pound.

I stood there, frozen and choking.

Powerless.

A mere pawn in a twisted game of torment.

Oxygen whooshed back into my lungs, allowing me to breathe.

I gasped on air.

My chest rose and fell, but that was all that moved.

Although my vision was blurred, I could make out another masked figure emerging from the darkness.

It was a small-framed, short person wearing a mask that was a grotesque parody of an evil elephant. Jagged menacing tusks protruded from its large snarling mouth. The eyes were black holes, hollow and dark.

The person raised a bone in the air that was slick with crimson stains and patches of red flesh.

Is that a. . .human bone?

Then, Delphine’s voice sounded from the elephant mask. “Calm yourself, lion.”

I couldn’t open my mouth to speak. I tried to will my legs into action, but they remained as immovable as stone.