Welcome back, people.

Ready for another round of spine-tingling horror?

I sure am, let’s keep this train rollin’. Oh, and here’s part 2 and 1 if you think you missed anything!

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Red, Part 3.

My cries had softened by now and I could begin to hear him shuffle around my side once more. 

“You know,” he started, again, as he rustled around the countertop nearby.

I closed my eyes, remaining on my side. 

“I’m going to have to punish you for that, Anna.”

He slammed something down on the counter, making me flinch in place. 

He scraped his feet around some more afterwards, and then fell to silence. 

“Get up,” he commanded. 

I slowly reopened my eyelids. 

“Anna…”

I didn’t move. 

I bit my lip. 

He let out a sigh, and then proceeded to step around me, now placing his feet directly in front of my range of sight. 

“Get up,” he repeated, a hint of irritation laced in his voice. 

I felt another tear come to one eye. 

Still, I couldn’t brave myself enough to move. 

Another second or two passed, and then he knelt down in front of my face. 

I steadily glanced up at him and, at the same moment, he reached down and snatched both of my wrists off of the ground, one in each of his hands. 

He immediately stood, again, and tugged my limp arms upwards in the process. 

“No!” I shouted, using my body weight to pull back from his grasp.

He continued to pull me, forcing me up to a stand. 

“No!” I repeated, my tone turning desperate. 

He let go of my right hand, turned to the side, and began to step towards the table a few feet away, keeping a strong hold on my other. 

“No,” I cried. “Stop!”

He pulled me behind his path, and I stumbled along as I continued to try to resist his strength. 

“No, no, no,” I mumbled, feeling a soft sob coming to my expression as he turned around and moved his grip onto my upper arms. 

He twisted sharply to the left, pulling me with him, and then threw me backwards. 

I staggered back and fell into the chair I had sat in previously. 

I grabbed at the edges of the seat underneath me as he whipped himself back around.

I let out the sob I had been keeping inside once he stepped up to the counter straight ahead. 

I cried as I watched him throw part of a long, orange extension cord on the ground behind himself. He then snatched a large, blue and silver device of some sort up into one hand, turned around, bent over to swipe up the end of the orange cable, and started to step back over to where I uncomfortably rested. 

Once he was close enough, he slammed the large mechanism onto the table by my side. 

It was then that I realized it was a metal clothing iron. 

He swiftly unwrapped the black cord from the base of the steamer and plugged it into the extension cable in his other hand. 

I stared as a tiny red light instantly illuminated from the side of the iron. 

After that, he let the bundle of cords fall to the ground, and turned towards me. 

“Don’t worry, it won’t take long,” he assured, a smile creeping into his expression. “It’s brand new.” 

He paused to pull the chair from the opposite side of the table up to the area where he stood. 

“I got it at Sears,” he went on to comment as he sat down in front of me and to the right. “Oh, I love that place.”

I silently stared at him, my eyes beginning to dry. 

“What’s your favorite store, Anna?” he inquired. 

I looked from him to my lap and didn’t respond. 

“Come on, Anna,” he prodded. “Your fans would want to know.”

I gradually returned my eyes to him. 

“I…” I started off, shakily. “I guess… Target.”

“Not bad,” he replied, sounding satisfied. “But, Sears is still better; they don’t question you if you want to buy a shovel, a set of power tools and a rope at the same time.” 

He let out a deeply rooted chuckle. 

I flickered my eyes down to my lap and remained quiet. 

“It’s probably ready,” he went on, after his soft laughter had subsided. 

I looked up to see him reach out and grab at the iron’s handle with one hand. 

“Now,” he said as he brought the steamer inwards, towards his body. “Where shall we start?” 

I looked up to his face, tears immediately reforming in my eyes. 

He glanced downwards on my body. 

He smirked, and then gently touched my knee with his free hand. 

I flinched a bit at his touch and looked down as he began to inch the iron to a hover over my thighs, specifically the right one, where my freshest cut was currently placed. 

I bit my bottom lip until I could taste the slightest amount of blood seep from it and tightened the grip of both my hands on the edges of my seat. 

Without making another sound, he lowered the simmering hot metal overtop my bleeding leg wound. 

I screamed out in pain. 

A strong, rancid scent began to fill the air around me as I leaned back, tensely, in my chair. 

He pressed the burning plate even farther downwards. 

I continued to shout, louder. 

After a number more seconds, he released my leg from his torment. 

My scream turned into a forceful cry as I threw my head back on my neck. 

I could faintly hear him laugh over the throbbing in my temples. 

“What’s next?”

I carefully brought my head back to center, and then a strong ringing sensation began to pester my eardrums. 

I saw him turn his head from the camera across the room to me. 

“The arm?” he asked, his voice sounding very distant to me. 

I stared at him with wet eyes for a moment. 

The burning atop my thigh turned into a numbing pain as he stepped around my left side. 

A silence formed for a short second, and then an immense pain pushed itself into my upper left arm, directly above the searing feeling already left by the previous burns it had received. 

I screamed out, again. 

The ringing in my ears intensified as well as the pulsating in my head. 

The pain pushed deeper. 

I screamed even louder. 

After a moment, the pressure lightened up a bit, and then a little more. 

Once he released my skin from the iron’s hold, he let out a laugh. 

I turned my screams into silent sobs and gazed slightly upwards from my lap. 

The room around me began to darken. 

My head felt light. 

I focused my eyes on the figure in front of me as he placed the steamer back onto the table by my side. 

He looked back at the camera. 

“I think we’re getting close.”

My breaths lightened drastically as he twisted back into my direction. 

Every pain in my body began to transform into a type of numb, tingling sensation, all at once. 

“How are you feeling, Anna?” he questioned. 

The dark outline of his body was now a blot of black, entirely indistinguishable. 

The ringing in my ears followed up by intensifying to the point of an overwhelming feeling. 

I closed my eyelids, slowly. 

Then, suddenly, every tensed muscle I had caved in to a relaxed state, and I could feel my upper body fall forwards. At the same time, though, I took a large, gasp-like breath, and then threw my hands back onto the edges of my chair, forcing my fall to stop itself short. 

I took another deep breath as I whipped my head back to center and shot my eyes open once more. 

A cold rush swept itself over my head and my dark vision cleared up, just a bit. 

In the same moment, though, a cold feeling also rushed into the pit of my stomach. 

Immediately after that, my upper body forced itself into a curl, atop my legs, and then a burning sensation darted from my chest to the back of my throat. 

I had to open my mouth to let a thick, hot liquid pour to the ground by my feet. 

My back rolled with the movement of the vomit every other second until, after a good number of them, the last of the acidic substance from my stomach dripped to the floor below. 

I let out a few deep coughs, and then carefully straightened my back up, yet again. I glanced up as I did so and noticed that he was standing in front of the far-off counter, hunched over one group of objects in particular. 

The coolness atop my body lifted itself gently and my eyesight lightened itself a tad more as I focused my eyes. 

However, the pounding in my temples and ringing in my eardrums persisted. 

I watched him as he stood still a moment or two, and then cautiously pushed myself to the edge of my seat. 

I attempted to pull my weight up to my feet but, as I did, my knees buckled underneath me and I ended up tumbling back into the chair as a result. 

He turned around and took a few quick steps towards me. 

I leaned back in my seat, my hands still gripping the edges by my legs. 

He was holding a rusted hammer in one hand, next to the side of his thigh. 

I kept my eyes on him as he stepped around to my left side, and then glanced away as he seized a hold on the back of my chair. 

He jerked the metal chair back a few feet, close to effortlessly, as I remained seated in it. He then stepped directly in front of me and knelt down, making his eyes now at the same level as mine. 

“Are we ready for part four, now?” he asked. 

I searched his face, and then squinted my eyes and shook my head. 

“Hm,” he mumbled, and then cocked his head to one side. “Oh, well.”

He rose back up to his feet and turned around. 

He made his way over to the far left side of the workbench ahead, picked up a large wad of clean, tan rope, and then paced back over to where I quietly sat. 

He stepped up to my side, again, and tossed his hammer onto the table to the right. He then walked around my backside and dropped the mess of rope onto the ground, which let out a soft thud sound. 

I sat unmoving as he reached both of his arms around my waist. 

He grabbed each of my wrists, one in either of his palms, and then yanked both of my forearms behind my backside. 

I took a shaky, deep breath in as I felt him press my wrists together and wrap a section of rope around them. 

The scratchy material was cold against my skin. 

After a few moments, he released his hold on my hands and reappeared by my left side. 

I gazed up at him as he made his way back across the room, picked up a long, flimsy saw by its broken handle, and returned to my backside. 

I held my breath until I felt a wobbly tug from the rope on my wrists. After a few seconds, the tugging ceased and he walked back around my side, the saw in one hand, the lengthy rope in the other. 

He dropped both objects to the ground, and then crouched down in front of my feet. 

He snatched up one end of the rope and proceeded to wrap it around both my right ankle as well as the right leg of the chair underneath me. He tied three knots with it, and then pulled the thick string tightly towards my opposite foot, continuing to constrain it in a similar way. 

Once he was finished, he picked up the saw with one hand, and chiseled the end of the rope away from my left leg. He then stood, leaving the section of rope that connected both ankles uncut, and chucked the saw towards some area of the room behind me. 

I listened to the clatter-like noise of the cutter clashing with the floor as I watched him retrieve his hammer from the tabletop nearby. 

He turned leisurely back towards me and let a smirk cross his expression. 

My heart missed a beat. 

“Close your eyes, Anna,” he ordered. 

I looked from the tool in his hand to his face. 

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” he growled. 

I snapped my eyelids shut. 

“Good girl,” I could faintly hear him whisper. 

I listened as his footsteps drew near. 

After a moment, a silence fell over the room. 

And then I heard a soft grunt, followed by the feeling of a sharp pain piercing the side of my left knee. 

---

Oh, boy.

Get ready for part 4 tomorrow!

-iKari