Hellraising Dreamer

Chapter 1: First Meetings

Almadynis

AN: I don't know, I was in a Halloween-y mood and this idea has been bugging me for a few weeks. I intend to write this the rest of the month and finish it up on or shortly after Halloween.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hellraiser or any characters associated with it. I do own Kira. She's mine. Hands off.

She was 16 the first time she saw him. Or perhaps she should say that he saw her first. It was relatively harmless on the surface of it. It was when she started to look more closely that her heart began to race, whether in fear or anticipation she still couldn't say.

It was a long corridor with cobwebs and dirt in all the right and expected places of an unkempt home. It was a lovely gray stone that let each panel and crossing corridor look exactly the same. Every six feet or so was a stone archway to supposedly hold up the ceiling, but she doubted that the stone would ever fall no matter what happened. Well, it might fall, but it wouldn't stay that way for long. It had a sentient feel to it that could not be ignored. The old saying of "the walls have eyes and ears" took on a whole new meaning other than metaphoric when she looked at these corridors.

She would be the first to tell you that she was a cynic and a realist. She took everything with a grain of salt. Doubted everything good that came along in her life, looking for the catch in commercials, could hear that politicians never really said anything no matter how long they talked, and she debated with herself over buying brand versus generic on a taste-effective-affordable scale.

So when she peaked into one of the doors that occasionally went off the long stone corridor and saw a relatively beautiful woman trying to have sex with two men in connecting chains run along the ceiling so that if one moved forward, the other had to move backward to accommodate, she snorted derisively and let out a soft mocking laugh. She shook her head and moved on down the corridor, having no desire to open the door and interrupt the trio's "fun". "Adulterer."

The next room she peaked into, for while she was a cynic she was also incredibly curious, there was a man that seemed to be having a conversation with himself via a mirror, but while she could hear another voice speaking that sounded exactly like the man she could see, she could not see a reflection in the mirror. The man seemed to get rather desperate after only a couple of minutes, desperate to see himself apparently. She gave a small 'hmm' sound before "Narcissist."

The third seemingly innocent door held something that actually made her raise her eyebrows. A teenage girl, looking to be about her own age of 16, was hanging on a wall by rusty, or bloodstained, chains. Chains with hooks on the ends dangled threateningly from the ceiling all around the room. All of them were rusted or bloodstained, she really couldn't tell. Well, she had always been accused of being too curious. Might as well live up to the accusation.

Carefully, she pulled open the door as softly as possible. The other teenager's eyes immediately went to her, the eyes wide with pain and fear, and she was sure the other girl was trying to communicate the need to run. She ignored it. Judging by what she had seen so far, she wasn't sure that the chained girl didn't want to be right where she was...or deserve to be on that wall. She made sure not to touch anything as she stepped closer, she didn't want to disturb…yet. She just wanted to see if it was rust or bloodstains. That would tell her a lot.

So, she stepped closer, blatantly ignoring the girl's eyes as they followed her with their pleading gaze, and peered at one of the chains with hooks that was closest to her. She never used her bike, it just stayed in the garage, so she knew what rust looked like. Her father was a diabetic; she knew how blood looked coming out and after it had dried. She leaned near the chain and sniffed. Blood. The color was too dark for rust, and she could smell a slight copper hint under the metallic scent of the chain itself.

"Intoxicating, isn't it?" The voice was decidedly male. It was very deep and made her immediately think of royalty.

She turned around, not too fast and not too slow. Actively trying to communicate the lack of fear and surprise was harder than she thought, but she might have pulled it off. Maybe.

The man that had spoken was…interesting. At first glance he was a guy who didn't go outside, ever, that liked to wear a lot of black leather. But a split second and eye blink later let her mind register the peculiarities of his dress and skin. His complexion was bordering on blue in reality, not just pale but a very subtle white-blue. He had a incised pattern of a grid over his entire head. If she didn't know anybetter, it almost looked like he was born with that pattern. But it was too perfect and exact to be a genetic quirk. Someone had also decided that the grid wasn't enough and had added a spike or nail into every intersection of that grid. They weren't deep enough to be imbedded into the bone, she could see them move. Oddly, the nails didn't detract from the man's grace, poise, or…royalty, she couldn't think of a better word. He had a way about how he held himself that spoke of a surety of self and lordship.

And his clothes didn't detract from his composure at all, it added to it even. It was definitely black leather, but there were seven holes cut in his outfit that was part trench coat, part dress. Six holes were at his areolas, three on each side in a stacked pattern of rectangles and the third at his bellybutton in a long oval. She could see none of them. At each of the matching six holes in the leather, a square of skin had been cut on three sides, a hook placed in the flesh and left to dangle by the remaining side still attached to his chest. She thought she could see his bellybutton, maybe. It was partially hidden by a seventh hook that had been buried sharp-end first into the navel and then out the other side and apparently this hook was heavier than the others because his flesh was visibly stretched down by gravity.

All this she observed in roughly twenty seconds or so. Her eyes had snaked down his form and back up again, meeting his eyes without fear. His eyes didn't have whites, it looked like his pupils had taken over his entire eye.

He spoke again, no expression in his voice or in his face. "Like what you see?" With so little expression, the question could refer to her observation of him, or the room, or even the still-hanging girl on the wall, or even the stone corridor maze. So many possibilities.

She spoke with confidence and a small quirk to her lips, revealing a very small dimple in her cheek. Her voice was remarkably gentle, despite the topic of conversation. "It's a very interesting place. Every room is seemingly unique centering on a single individual and what they fear or want." She turned to look at the still pleading gaze of the girl that was starting to fill with a new fear of her. "I admit that she doesn't quite fit here. She's too afraid. The others were almost…resigned…to their rooms." She looked back at him, he had moved closer in her observation of the girl until he was almost within touching distance. "You are also interesting. Your appearance is unusual to say the least; you have wounds that seem to be so common that you don't notice, but are fresh enough to still be pink, however don't appear to be even in the beginning stages of healing, with no swelling." She looked up into his eyes. "And you have some very interesting…tools…on your belt." Her head quirked to the side. "I'd ask if this was Hell, but I doubt it. Or perhaps I should say that this is not the Christian idea of Hell. Or any other Hell I can think of." Her eyes flicked to the room, to the hanging girl, and back to him who had stepped even closer still. There was now less than six feet between them, well within reach. She didn't move away. "Nor do you conform to any demons that I've read about. Yes, this place is very interesting."

He gazed at her with those pure black eyes, no expression in his face, and nodded slightly. He couldn't nod with any depth due to the leather collar of his trench-dress, it came up and wrapped around all the way up to the base of his skull. She was watching though, and caught the small movement. "You are not afraid."

She smiled softly at him. "Why would I be afraid? Honestly, the biggest comment in my mind is that you need to hire a better caretaker. So much blood isn't good for the metal."

That did get a reaction. He quirked an eyebrow and she would have sworn she saw a minute quirk of his lips. "Indeed." For a moment, there was silence in the room. Not even the hanging girl spoke or moved. The next was a question, but it was spoke with a very small hesitation that he hadn't shown so far. For a man with his bearing, it could only be that there was something about the question he wasn't used to. "Who are you?"

Such a seemingly ambiguous question that was as general as his last. This time was different though. This question was not as easy to answer. Or as pleasant.

Her smile faded and an air of defeat came about her. Easy for him to spot and identify. Since it had not been his intention, he made a mental note of the response. "Kira. My name is Kira." She swallowed visibly and seemed to shake herself before her eyes focused back onto his face. "And you?"

"I am the Angel of Suffering."

"Bit of a mouthful." A very small smirk.

"I am called Pinhead as of late."

Quirk of an eyebrow. "No decent mother would name you that."

"I have no parents."

"Hmmm…well calling you Pinhead is silly. And a Nailhead is something entirely different. How about…" she cast her mind out for a name that would suit the man in front of her. "…Gideon."

He just looked at her for a few second before, "Very well." He reached out a hand to her as if to touch her shoulder. She watched his pale white-blue hand come toward her, but she didn't move away. She let him come.

His fingers curled in invitation or in anticipation of cupping her shoulder. His hand came over and brushed her skin that was uncovered by her simple tank top. In a split second, her eyes widened in alarm, and with a small puff of displaced air, she vanished. As if she had never been.

But he could still smell her scent.

Vanilla and despair.

Intoxicating.

Well, what do you think?

Reviews are love!