0-0-0-0-0

Am I… dead?

…

Rain.

It was the first thing Patricia could feel as she awoke. A light, misty drizzle that clung to her with fervor in the cold. Blearily, she blinked the collecting water from her eyes. Patricia's head felt like a heavy lead block as she creakily tried to push herself upwards from the damp soil, and her neck felt stiff and sore. Her blonde hair tickled her nose, and when she tried to look at it, the tip of her nose seemed almost too far away to be normal.

Woozily, she attempted to stand-

-only to collapse against the cold ground once again as her legs failed her.

It took her a moment to figure out why.

Staring down at her limbs in dim fascination and bewilderment, Patricia realized a very important fact about her legs.

She had four of them.

Her breathing rapidly increasing in strength and frequency, Patricia ogled her own legs for several minutes, as if attempting to determine how she was supposed to get them to work. Finally, the logical part of her brain kicked in and attempted to make sense of what was happening.

I have absolutely no idea what just happened.

And that pretty much summed up her day.

Or, to be more accurate, late evening; from the way the sky was darkening, she guessed the time. If only her poor head would stop aching…

Why did her head hurt so much?

Sitting down awkwardly beneath a nearby pine tree, of which there seemed to be plenty (which took some difficulty, as her legs wobbled quite a bit), Patricia peered about at her surroundings as she thought. With a small portion of the rain now out of her eyes, she could more accurately inspect her bizarrely peach colored body.

It was almost as if she possessed the mind of a child, temporarily – thinking, staring, exploring. At least, until she began slowly placing her two front hooves together. Almost as if she expected them to come together a little more fluidly, like cogs in a machine. Instead, they settled comfortably against each other like the most natural thing in the world.

Clop.

Perhaps that was what set her off.

Clop clop.

It just didn't seem right – the way her hooves came together when she gently placed them against their partner, and slowly pulled them apart. For a moment, she almost felt as if she were supposed to be wearing protective clothing for something. She could remember her name, at least.

And that's when it hit her.

She remembered her name.

Patricia.

And nothing else.

Clop. Clop. Clop.

Unfortunately, that was when the sudden, overwhelming sense of identity swarmed in on her in crushing collaboration with a peculiar sense of dread. Her breathing picked up pace again as her hooves clapped together oddly over and over again, and she stared at them in what could only be acclimated to a state of shock.

She wasn't supposed to have hooves.

What am I? Some kind of… horse?

I'm Patricia. Patricia… who?

… Patricia who?

"P-P-Patricia," she stuttered aloud, and her own voice sounded queer against her ears. So she said it again.

"P-Puh-ppp-ip-Pah-Patriiiiicia."

Her voice sounded light, lilting and dainty. However, that could easily have been because she was speaking so softly, saying her own name. It also could have been because her ears flickered around when she tried to listen, almost as if they were a size and shape she was unused to.

"Patricia."

0-0-0-0-0

Patricia couldn't tell how long she wandered through those woods.

The sky grew steadily darker, and the rain began to fall harder as the wind picked up in tenacity. Tentatively tottering forward as she tried to remember how basic body functions worked, Patricia managed to clumsily tumble from tree to tree, using each one for support. She hated feeling like this; the feeling of inadequacy, of lack of complete control over her own body. It almost felt as if she were being dull-witted on purpose.

She continued to blunder nearly blindly until she realized that she was still trying to walk on two legs. Carefully putting one hoof down at a time, she moved at a slightly swifter pace than before. A little more proudly at her grand discovery, Patricia hobbled uncomfortably through the wooded area in a much straighter line than before.

Calling out in a voice stifled by the cold rain, Patricia wiped her bedraggled mane from her eyes for the millionth time.

"H-Hello? Is anybody out here?"

So, she could remember how to speak well enough. That was a good sign. Resting against a pine tree and feeling the rough prickle of the bark against her side, she took a few shaky breaths. This weird body was hard to get used to. And above all, mindboggling.

It just felt… wrong.

The rain steadily came down from above, littering the ground with puddles.

Shaking her head again, Patricia spotted something on her flank that caught her eye. An odd image adorned her, looking almost as if it had been painted on. Not just on one side of her, either; a quick check revealed that both sides of her body held the bizarre image of a bowling ball.

Weird.

And that pretty much summed up her evening.

0-0-0-0-0

Cold.

All of these impossible new occurrences might not be so awful if only it weren't so unbearably cold. The freezing rain poured down on Patricia even harder than before, and the icy wind ensured that she shook with every tepid step. Her teeth clattered in vain within her mouth, and even that felt strange enough.

Like it wasn't her own mouth.

She shook the rain from her face, shivering pitifully. Her determination to forge her way forward, however, was unwavering. Regardless of the fact that she was so tired and felt so weak, and despite that she felt so frigid and miserable that just about anything else would have been tolerable, Patricia continued stumbling forward in the dark. A light mist had begun to stack upwards from the ground, winding in serpentine coils into the air.

To her elation, the wooded area came to an abrupt halt as it was severed by an asphalt road.

The paved highway glistered in the rain, and infinitesimal multitudes of droplets bounced across the street in symphony, pattering into the night.

It was a road.

And where there was a road, there was logically bound to be civilization.

Aching, wet, freezing and most definitely exhausted, Patricia felt a small spark of strength bolstering her determination. She would have answers, eventually; all she had to do was search hard enough, and remain her headstrong position. With the sound of falling water filling her ears, she began her journey down the road to discovery.

Her headstrong position wavered rather abruptly when she was oh-so-rudely run over by a screeching metal vehicle.

0-0-0-0-0

Thump thump.

Patricia blinked groggily, barely aware of where she was. It was too dark to see much, and it smelled of mildew and worn leather. The occasional bump from the stiff felt flooring beneath her gave some indication that she was moving, and she couldn't seem to think properly. Too much pain, and her head felt like it was going to split. A wave of nausea hit her, but she held it back before the jagged splinter of agony jolted between her eyes again.

Wearily, her aching eyes gradually pulled themselves closer together as she passed out once more.

0-0-0-0-0

The pain was nearly unbearable.

Patricia vaguely remembered being shifted and ogled at, and words floating around her head like so much debris before clattering noisily against her ears. Shady, barely perceptible memories of a struggle came to mind, and her side hurt terribly even though she couldn't remember why.

Her head pounded in rhythm with her heartbeat, and her limbs felt like rubber. If only she could remember what she'd been worrying about-

She awoke with a start, jerking wildly at her bonding. Patricia's eyes darted around, desperately adjusting to the dim light of the basement.

"Well, look-ie who just woke up?"

The gruff, if not gleeful voice of the bearded man looming over her startled her. Patricia tried to scream, to back away – to her chagrin, she discovered that she'd been gagged with some kind of hard object, wrapping around her muzzle. Her legs had been uncomfortably tied together with a thin, sturdy wire, which cut painfully into her flesh. She also found that she was unable to rise from her side, and twisted around in panic.

Chuckling at her fearful awakening, Patricia's captor made a waving motion to one of the other men in the poorly lit brick basement. Another taller man, with a sunken and hollow face, handed the gruff one with a beard and plaid shirt what he'd obviously used just a short while ago. It also explained why her other side hurt so much.

Letting out another panicked, muffled scream, Patricia instantly tried to wriggle away from the red-hot branding iron.

"Hold-fucking-still, would you?" Plaid growled as he roughly slammed her head against the concrete floor, bringing stars to her eyes. Squirming in soreness and fear, Patricia braced herself for the oncoming burn of the branding iron.

The tears flooded hot in her eyes as she let out another pained yell, and the sizzle of the strange mark on her flank being burned away filled the smoke filled musty air.

Patricia wasn't certain at what point she passed out again.

She did, however, clearly notice being forcefully yanked back to horrid reality by the same man that had branded her. For some reason, a taste reminiscent of cleaning solution and sweat befouled Patricia's tongue. Her mouth must have been freed at some point, as she could at least open her mouth to take in a deep breath. Patricia immediately tried to scream again, only to find one massive hand shoving roughly down on her lungs and pushing the air out into a weak whimper. Plaid finished pushing the latex hood over her head, roughly jamming it over her ears.

"H-help!" she yelped, jerking her head away from him. "Don't do this - help me!"

Another of his mates, a portly looking man with a face like a rat, stuffed the gag back into her mouth with a grin. His fingers tasted of oil and dirt, and pushed against her mouth coarsely. She tried to spit it out and shake away, but Plaid forcibly held her face in position while the tall gaunt man finished tying her back legs into a metal loop, screwed into the floor.

"Ah, ah, ah, Hot Lips!" Ratface leered at her, giving her cheek a couple of tender pats. "You'll get to put that mouth of yours to work again plenty soon, won't you, Hot Lips?"

Hot Lips? No, Patricia!

Struggling against the rope with more zeal, she tried to shout at him that he was wrong, her name was Patricia! This was all wrong!

Instead, it only came out as a muffled plea.

Ratface merely laughed at her, and flicked her hard on the nose tauntingly.

They weren't listening to her.

Trying to force her breathing to remain steady, Patricia thought furiously. Her every instinct screamed at her to panic and flail, to make them understand her fear. However, she took in as many details as she could, hopelessly trying to find logic and reason in her situation.

Slow down, Pat. Think. Have to think!

The rat-faced man wore plain looking attire, with a few dirty grease spots along his jeans. The tall, gaunt man in a sweater had a curved, wicked look about him; as if he were always thinking something nasty and only a moment away from doing something worse. Another was still behind her, and her neck had been tied to the floor in such a way that she had difficulty raising it up, let alone turn around to see the other. The fourth man, with the beard and plaid shirt with rolled up sleeves, could be seen out of the corner of her eye.

On the bright side, he didn't seem to be readying any more tools to injure or deface her body with.

On the not so bright side, he was taking off his pants.

Patricia promptly began struggling again.

0-0-0-0-0

I'm dead.

Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap.

I'm dead, I've died at some point, and this is Hell.

Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap.

I'm in Hell.

Patricia's mind itself felt like it had been beaten into submission. Maybe she was just in denial of her situation, or maybe she'd lost her mind completely. Either way, her head felt heavy and her thoughts were dulled. Patricia felt almost as if a fog had settled over her mind, making even the act of forming coherent thoughts a challenge in and of itself.

It also could have been because her captors would randomly shove a damp cloth against her nose, keeping her from breathing properly. What she did breathe in smelled of strong, sickly sweet ether, and burned her eyes regardless of how she tried to hold her breath. Each time they did so, they would affix her with some new outfit or some new torment, ranging from painful whippings with a flay of leather strips to pinching her skin with clothing pins.

The one with the beard seemed to particularly like the clothing pins. Or, more so, jerking them viciously off of her.

Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap.

Patricia's face bumped repeatedly against the cool concrete floor as consciousness slowly trickled back to her, creeping in as her head begged her to retreat into the safety of sleep. She couldn't tell how long she'd been down here. The four of them talked amongst each other occasionally, mostly with pointed jeers at her.

Strangely enough, she felt almost as if it wasn't really happening; like it was all just part of a hazy nightmare, or it wasn't really happening to her. Each new introduction to pain cruelly reminded her that it was no dream, unfortunately. Every one of the men seemed to have some preference to her suffering, each busily trying satisfy themselves in almost perfect synchronization.

One of them, however, remained relatively quiet. A plain, bland looking man with even parted brown hair stared at her as he sat backwards in a wooden chair, silently smoking a cheap cigar.

Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap.

Patricia breathed pitifully through her gag as she tried again to worm away from the rat-faced man that continuously plowed into her from behind, roughly thrusting into her as her face was crudely jammed back against the floor.

"Oh, yeah," Ratface hissed, rubbing one hand along her sore thigh before giving it yet another vicious smack. "You like that, bitch?"

Obviously – fucking – not!

She tried to kick or buck in protest, but her legs could only move so far from their posts. It wasn't helping that Ratface kept jerking her tail (when did I get a tail?) to the side and forcing her legs to remain straight and even, causing her back to arch painfully.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. Ain't got all night here, Chuckie," the bearded man said gutturally as he scratched himself. "You got your fuckin' turn."

Ratface grinned as he used both hands to flip off Plaid, simultaneously giving one final cruel slam into Patricia before finally releasing her. A heat poured into her before she fell, and her legs buckled in relief beneath the combined exhaustion and effort of being forced to keep her legs in one position for hours on end. The hot liquid oozed against her insides, eventually slipping out. It trickled downward and onto her leg, pooling beneath her.

"Aw, come on, man," Plaid scowled at Ratface, who wore a look of triumph. "I didn't wanna play sloppy fuckin' seconds again."

"Oh, quit bitching," Ratface leered at him as he leaned comfortably against the wall as if he were discussing the weather. "She's got other holes. Tell him for me, Hot Lips." He shot a filthy look at Patricia, who lay barely conscious on the concrete. When she only responded with a breathy twitch, his scowl deepened.

"… I said," Ratface took a couple of quick steps toward her and violently yanked her up by her blonde mane, eliciting another subdued whimper from her. "Tell. Him. About. Your. Holes. Hot Lips."

Patricia's only response was to exhale quaveringly as a bit of drool fell from beneath the gag.

Rolling his eyes, the gaunt and pale man carelessly unbuckled the gag around her muzzle, letting it drop to the floor.

The rat-faced man, still holding her head up uncomfortably from the floor, shook her a couple of times. "Fucking tell him!"

"H-hel-help m-me!" Patricia pleaded, gasping for air.

Ratface only resumed shaking her. "Say 'My name is Hot Lips' before I break your goddamned neck!"

"Please!" she shrieked, trying to free herself from the man's grasp. "Stop! Let me go!"

The quiet man sitting backwards in the wooden chair had a peculiar look in his eyes, and it was him that Patricia zoned in on. "I didn't do anything! Please, please! Let me-!"

Ratface slammed her face into the floor, and she tasted a coppery sting in her mouth. The bearded man seemed to find it chuckle worthy.

"Don't-fucking-make-me-tell-you-again!" Ratface seethed, punctuating each word through clenched teeth with a painful shove against the floor. Crying, Patricia fell silent as her head was finally released.

Hell. The lowest pit of Hell. Nobody could deserve this. What kind of person must I have been to deserve a punishment like this?

"What's your name, slut?" Ratface kneeled down in front of her, and spoke in a blatantly cheerful voice. When Patricia remained still, he made to harm her again. "Come on, you can tell me. After we've been so nice to you, giving you a warm home to stay in; what's your name, slut?"

Flinching, she tried to speak. "P-Lips."

"Again."

"Hot Lips."

"Again."

"Hot Lips."

"Tell me what your name is."

"My n-name is Hot Lips."

"Now, was that really so fucking hard?" the rat-faced man beamed at her, patting her softly on top of the head a couple of times.

Pat. Pat. Pat.

He immediately slapped her again.

Patricia cried out, dropping with the blow.

"Don't fucking talk back to someone who provides you with your meals, bitch!" Ratface cackled, and the gaunt man positioned himself behind her. Struggling against her slightly rusted bonds proved futile, although one of her back legs felt as though it might have been a little loose…

"Now, open wide, Hot Lips."

Cringing away from him, Patricia tried to keep her mouth closed – however, the bearded man was all too eager to pry her mouth open by pinching her muzzle shut so that she couldn't breathe.

Ratface swiftly stuffed himself inside her mouth.

At the same time, the pale and gaunt man behind her roughly jammed his entire length at once into her, hissing as he did so. Patricia tried to shake her head away or pull backwards, but the combined efforts of Plaid and Ratface, along with the sturdy ropes, kept her in place.

"… Bitch, you best start suckin' if you want any protein today."

Ratface pulled his manhood from her mouth, slapping her crudely a couple of times in the cheek with it with enough force to nearly blind her when it hit her eye.

"St-stop. Please. Please, stop." Patricia's voice came out weak, and battered. The quiet man in the chair still sat, watching silently. An odd pallor had settled over his features, giving him a haunted look. For the briefest moment, she almost felt a glimmer of hope that the odd look he wore was some indication that they would leave her alone. Maybe she was just so desperate that she was misreading signs.

It didn't matter.

Nobody was going to help her.

Nobody was coming to save her.

The torture would only continue. Maybe even death would be preferable to this senseless torment.

"Suck, Hot Lips," Plaid rumbled, holding her chin tightly in his hand. Trembling, Patricia complied before any more pain befell her. The bearded man was much larger and longer than Ratface, however – it didn't take much for his tip to excitedly poke the back of her throat.

Patricia gagged, and her eyes widened. This was insane.

With a bite downward on Plaid's sweaty member, Patricia thought that she had obtained the upper hand – at least, until the hairy hand of the bearded man clamped tightly down on her throat, cutting off possibility of breathing altogether.

"Go ahead, you dumb little slut," Ratface grinned, awaiting his comrade's reaction. "Go ahead. Bite it hard. We'll keep fuckin' you after you're cold."

And wouldn't it just be Patricia's luck that Plaid grew even harder from that statement.

Great. Necrophiliac. Right when I thought my day couldn't get any worse, too.

She felt the sudden inexplicable urge to giggle, but that could have been caused from the lack of oxygen to her brain. Plaid quickly erupted with a hot squirt inside her mouth and against the back of her throat.

Without warning, Patricia vomited onto the floor as Plaid pulled out.

"Oh-ho-ho!" Ratface laughed as she retched loudly, still being steadily ground into from behind by the gaunt man. "Looks like we get to train your gag reflex, too!"

Patricia threw up what little bile she had, and continued to retch until the heaves became dry and throaty. The blinding pain behind her eyes threatened to overwhelm her again, and the gaunt man slithered out from her before shooting a hot line of himself across her branded flank. He hissed satisfactorily, leaning against her before giving Patricia one last slap across the rear as he let her fall to the floor. Into her own vomit, unfortunately.

"Shit," Plaid rolled his neck, giving off a couple of cracking noises. "Gonna have our work cut out for us, eh?" he announced in a cheery voice. Too worn down to do anything else, Patricia weakly tried to shift her head out of the puddle without much success.

It didn't take them long to redress themselves. Drinks, cigarettes, jaunty laughs and conversation; it was like she wasn't even there.

Which was fine by Patricia – so long as they weren't harming her further. She was too tired, too fatigued and in too much pain to think properly. Even the feeling of disgust she felt at her own inability to move from the puddle of ick she lay in faded before long, only to be replaced with a dull, thrumming headache.

She wished that she could just pass out again, instead of lying miserably against the floor and staring at the red brick wall while the rest of them gradually filtered out of the basement. Laughing, joking – like it was some kind of casual party, and she was a piece of furniture.

Patricia barely even registered when she sank into blissful oblivion again.

Maybe she was dead after all, and she just didn't know it.

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Author's Note:

Now, I feel that there are a few issues that sorely deserve to be addressed here.

Please note that this story was written EXPRESSLY to be presented as a story. Not as smut or clop fiction, but if that's what the readers have decided it should be labeled, I'll leave it at that.

Also, if you collectively feel (by which I mean at LEAST ten people) strongly enough that this story needs to be tagged with a warning as 'Grim-Dark', then please let me know. I'm not completely certain if it's 100% Grim-Dark, but this story most definitely treads in that direction more than once.

Now.

Again, this story was meant to be written as a STORY, but also as an experiment. It is a work of fiction, a piece of art. Granted, a horrible, dark, gritty, foul and repulsive piece of art, but a piece of art nonetheless. It was designed that way. If it elicits a response - no matter WHAT that response may be, whether it's admiration, disgust, or even apathy - then let us know. Without proper feedback, it's just more mindless garbage.