Legends of Amacia Heart of Darkness
Chapter 10: Dungeon Reminiscence

An undetermined time later, Hannibal awoke in a dark cell lying chained to a straw bed with a dim light shining down on his naked female clone body. Once again, Hannibal’s clone legs and arms were chained spread eagle; this time to each corner of the bed, which was much softer than the mechanized raping electric chair that tortured him in Mirror Cell 28. After blinking a couple of times, Hannibal discovered that his male mind was still locked in the girl’s clone. A troubled sigh hissed from Hannibal’s clone lips as he remembered how the angels came to his assistance when he was about to give up on everything, including his life and soul. He trembled as the incident blossomed in his mind with uncanny clarity to such an extent that his clone flesh tingled from the voltage that had been set to inflict the maximum pain without doing serious damage to the body. The cycle of ten second electrocutions every fifty seconds while chair constantly violated his female clone body with its rubber piston flooded forth in his memories. Tears and soft sobs bubbled out as he slipped into his reminiscence.

On the verge of mental, spiritual, and physical collapse after nearly an hour sitting gagged in the diabolical raping electric chair that incessantly tormented his female clone body, Hannibal cried out in desperate prayer as a last resort, begging for the mercy of death from the Almighty. His prayer didn’t go unanswered as he passed out, but death didn’t come. In a flash, four angels appeared in the midst of his mind, which was slowly being paralyzed, eroded, and corrupted by the constant torment of being locked in a female body that was being violated and tortured beyond all belief. In this case, Hannibal’s mind exactly replicated the mirrored cell where he was being tortured with the only change being the gag missing from his mouth. A higher power mysteriously shielded the angels inside Hannibal’s mind from the hideous demoniac hordes that surrounded him in the depths of the Emperor’s dark domain. Through the terrible haze of torment, Hannibal recognized two of them as Gideon and Jarret: his guardian angels from Cambodia. However, he didn’t recognize the other two.

One was an auburn-haired female angel with brown eyes the same height as Gideon that was beautiful beyond Hannibal’s comprehension. In a way, she reminded him of Selina. The other angel caused Hannibal to wonder if he was going mad, whether the torture had finally driven him over the deep end into completely insanity. The fourth angel appeared to be a massive cloaked male, but stood a good twelve feet in height with his face covered so only his blazing ice-blue eyes showed. Terrible, ancient power emanated from the fourth angel as he stood back, surprising Gideon and Jarret with his appearance.

Taking a defensive position between Hannibal and the huge angel, Gideon demanded, “Who are you?”

An ominous chuckled echoed from the giant angel. “My name is not important right now, my friends,” he said. “But what is important is we help Hannibal immediately. He’s in way over his head and is in serious need of our immediate assistance. Isn’t that right, Bannon? If we don’t act quickly, we may lose him.”

“Indeed,” the female angel Bannon replied with a deeply concerned look on her face. “This atrocious abomination presently being perpetrated on Hannibal was something we didn’t anticipate, but the Lord knew would happen. He knew the Black Prince would utilize the Avatar technology from the 1st Age to commit this heinous travesty of His laws on Hannibal to destroy him. Now, we must help Hannibal or he’ll become lost again; maybe forever this time.”

A gurgling cry rose from Hannibal, getting their attention. Hannibal focused on Gideon and Jarret, begging hysterically, “Please; Gideon, Jarret; help me! Kill me! I’m done and can’t take any more. Kill me now! I’m overrun! I can’t stand anymore.”

The hooded angel stepped up and touched Hannibal on the head with one hand, touching his mind and subduing the paralyzing effects of being a man being perpetually raped and tortured while inside a woman’s body with no means of escape. Gideon and Jarret dared not interfere, feeling the awesome ancient power of the mysterious angel. The hooded angel looked down into Hannibal’s eyes as his screams subsided to whimpers. “We cannot kill you, brother,” the hooded angel declared. “This punishment is decreed from the Throne itself. It’s the price you must pay for your sins as a dark wizard. Even though you never physically participated in the orgies and sex magic rites as a dark wizard, you directed and controlled them. Your mind and soul raped and killed those women and girls just the same and with as much sadistic pleasure as those who actually did it, even draining them of their life force energies until they perished. Now, you get to feel the pain and helplessness of your victims by becoming one of them.”

Tears dripped from Hannibal’s eyes as he felt his mind slowly transforming into a helpless impotent woman. “Why,” he moaned. “Why must I feel their pain now? I repented and turned away from those evil deeds long ago. At least I thought I did.”

“You feel it now because of your arrogance,” the hooded angel stated coldly. “You never thought the Emperor and Black Prince could replace out your secret sin and use it against you. Now, they have and you stand teetering on the edge of eternity. You hid those sins so deep that you forgot about them, along with many other things. However, the Emperor and Black Prince knew your unresolved sin was a weak point and exploited it. Repent of your arrogance and sin and purge this darkness from your soul.”

In a flash of divine revelation, Hannibal suddenly understood. In the midst of his own private hell, he realized he never really truly repented of his violation and killing of those men, women, girls, and boys in the unholy sacrifices to the Dark Powers. The guilt over what he did particularly to the women and girls weighed exceptionally heavy on him because of his present circumstances. “Oh, God; what have I done? I never let go of that darkness and now I’m undone by it. I finally get it, and I’m truly sorry,” he cried, broken before hooded angel and the other angels, tears flowing like rivers from his eyes. “I let my lust for power get the better of me. I didn’t repent of those mind rapes or of the energy vampirism as I should have, and now I’m paying the price by being physically raped and electrocuted by this demoniac machine while being trapped in a female body obviously not my own. Oh, Lord, please forgive me.” He wept bitterly at the revelation of his failure, wailing, “I’m getting what I deserve! The Lord is right in His judgment of me. Please forgive me Lord. I’m so sorry.”

The hooded angel nodded to the other angels and they all put their hands on Hannibal’s mind. “You’ve admitted your deepest darkest sin and repented,” the hooded angel said softly with great compassion. “The Lord forgives you, and now your soul can be healed and strengthened for what’s to come.”

A peace came over Hannibal as he felt his mind rising above the insidious mental and physical torture of the endless mechanized defilement and electrocutions. The pain lessened and a relieved sigh hissed through his lips. A feeling of freedom filled his soul. Looking up into the hooded angel’s ice-blue eyes, he said wearily, “Thank you and the Lord for showing me my sin. I seem to have been so stubborn the Lord had to use some very extreme measures to get me to let go of it.”

Gideon stroked Hannibal’s head gently. “That He did, brother. I didn’t even know about those sins until now because you buried them so deep.”

Tears flowed from Hannibal’s eyes. “I didn’t even know I was doing it until now,” he admitted softly. “God, I’m such an idiot.”

“Don’t dwell on it, brother,” the hooded angel stated, staring down into Hannibal’s bare soul. “You’re now being purified by this infernal fire. It’s a wonder you withstood it this long, which is a testament to the tenacity and strength the Lord gave you. But you must never give up hope and call for the Reaper to take you before your time.”

“Oh, no,” Hannibal replied, seeing another sin he had just committed, “I lost hope when I shouldn’t have. I was ready to die and leave Selina to the Emperor.” His face grimaced with extreme grief. Tears flooded his cheeks anew. “I gave up on everyone and myself, even Selina. What a stupid, selfish thing for me to do. How could I have wanted to leave Selina in the clutches of that demon? Oh, Lord, please forgive me for my weakness.”

“He does,” the hooded angel replied, placing a caring hand on Hannibal’s head. “And now so should you. You’re not going into this alone. You were never alone. We’re all with you.”

“I realize that now,” Hannibal whimpered as he glanced at his avatar in the mirrors around them. A shocked look came over him when he saw that his avatar body was a woman and not his own. Only his head remained male, though it too was slowly shifting in appearance. His gaze snapped to hooded angel as he asked with great concern, “Why am I still turning into a woman? Am I truly going to lose my mind and soul forever and become a woman permanently?”

The hooded angel put his hand on Hannibal’s shoulder. “No,” he said. “But if you hadn’t repented, you would have and been lost. The body you see here is the result of your arrogance. However, it was decreed this would happen to you. As long as the Emperor has your mind locked in this female clone, you’ll have this mental avatar. You must be strong now…stronger than you’ve ever thought possible. There’s more going on here than the Emperor trying to break you in this diabolically depraved fashion and it’ll require that you suffer even more as a woman.”

“What do you mean?” Hannibal asked, feeling the clone girl’s avatar swallowing him a bit at a time.

“Your soul isn’t the only one on the line here,” Bannon answered. “The Emperor has many dozens of other women whom he has brutalized in this fashion to make them his slaves. When he sees that you’re not going to break here, he’ll take you into his inner sanctum, into the very heart of his darkness, where he’ll introduce you to every deviant and loathsome practice he has in order to destroy your mind, soul, and spirit. Many others are there being tormented the same as you and you’ll be able to give them strength and hope with your presence.”

“But how can I if they don’t know who I really am?” Hannibal asked bluntly. “They’ll never believe I’m a man when they see this body I’m trapped in.”

Bannon smiled. “Never fear…they’ll know who you are because the Emperor himself will confirm your identity,” she declared. “He won’t be able to resist telling the slaves he’s torturing around you who you really are, so you won’t have to do anything. All you have to do is survive and remain alive. The Emperor will do the rest and return hope to those he’s trying to destroy. It’s the perfect irony. The Lord has foreseen it.”

Hannibal noticed the hair on his head growing and his beard vanishing as he glanced into the mirrors. A troubled sigh escaped his lips. “Okay, so like Selina in the Harem, I’m going into this hell in this form to give hope to those he’s tried to strip of their souls. Is this why this clone’s avatar seems bent on swallowing me whole?”

“Yes,” the hooded angel said. “But if you remain true to your soul and essence, it’ll not harm you or steal away your male identity. What you feel is the soul fragment of this clone bonding to you because of your light. She’ll help you fight the evil that has engulfed you and so will Bannon here. Bannon will merge with you and help protect your male essence and identity. Do it now, Bannon.”

Bannon nodded and phased immaterial, stepping into Hannibal’s female clone body, merging with him and the soul fragment of the clone. When she did this, Hannibal again understood everything. The soul fragment of the clone was, in fact, part of Bannon herself. “Relax Hannibal, and let me be your shield and buckler in the Lord,” Bannon purred in a tone that reminded him of Selina. “Let my avatar encompass you and become the armor that’ll protect your true male identity from the gross darkness that threatens to corrode and destroy your soul.”

A strange peace about his situation fell over Hannibal as his male avatar vanished into the clone girl’s avatar. He still felt the pain and torment of the assault, but he no longer begged for death. “I understand now,” Hannibal murmured wearily. “Thank you, Bannon, and whoever you are in the hood. Gideon, Jarret…thank you for trying to protect me in this hell. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you and my actions weren’t making your jobs any easier. I only hope together we can withstand what the Black Prince has in store for us.”

“It’s okay,” Gideon stated, touching Hannibal on the arm. “It was a forgotten sin; forgotten like much of your past. When the time is right, you will see why you had to suffer this horrid fate; and it’ll make you that much stronger than you are now.”

“That it will now that you’ve repented of your arrogance and your deepest, most secret sin,” the hooded angel stated. “Now, I give you one last piece of advice. As long as you remain attached to a female form, you should adopt a female identity because of that form. If you don’t do this, the confusion of being a man trapped inside a woman’s body will rip your true male identity and soul apart just as the Emperor told you. Every soul has a male part and female part that are supposed to live in harmony with one another. Let the woman that’s buried in you out for now, and you’ll not succumb to the Emperor’s diabolical plan to destroy your soul. Ponder my words and the mystery the Lord now reveals to you in this terrible circumstance. Discover the power of a unified, completed soul and you will see a power unlike anything you’ve ever encountered...a power even the hordes of Hell cannot match and fear; a power the Lord gives to all his children who discover His truth: the power of a completed soul.”

“Whoa,” Hannibal whispered, awed by the words of the hooded angel. “I never thought of it like that. I certainly don’t want to lose what the Lord gave me. I’ll do it, even though I don’t fully understand it. I’ll do anything to get back to my real body and Selina.”

“I know you will,” the hooded angel replied soberly. “Now go, and be the hand of the Lord in the Darkness. Spread your light and give hope to those who have lost it.” The hooded angel started backing away into the shadows.

“Wait,” Hannibal called out urgently. “Can you do something for me?”

“What is it, my friend?” the hooded angel asked.

“Selina and I are fused telepathically,” Hannibal replied. “I’m sure she’s feeling everything I’m feeling, including this terrible incessant torture. Please shield her from what I’m experiencing. I’m begging you. She’s not capable of handling it. It’ll destroy her. Please!”

“Fear not,” the hooded angel stated. “She’ll not be overwhelmed with the pain of your torture like she was when Arabella cleaned the shrapnel from your back. Her telepathic link to you is primarily through your real body, not this clone avatar so the level of what she senses will be at a much-reduced level. However, she will feel and sense some of it. It’ll be in nightmarish sensations and dreams that she’ll feel your pain, but she has many friends around her to help her endure the trial.”

“Can’t she be disconnected from me so she doesn’t have to feel any of it?” Hannibal asked urgently. “She shouldn’t have to be exposed to this heinous depravity. Her pure innocent heart and mind cannot take it.”

“I’m afraid not,” the hooded angel stated. “It has to be this way. The Lord willed it. Your fusion to Selina must remain intact. Only together can you two survive the diabolical evil the Emperor has planned for you both. Together you’re strong. Separately, you’re weak and easy prey, but never fear. You underestimate Selina’s strength and power greatly, Hannibal. She’s far stronger than you realize. She’ll not be contaminated by what she senses from you. In fact, she’ll be able to give you the strength to endure through your unique connection.”

“Okay,” Hannibal conceded. “I must defer to the Lord on this. You promise what she’s going to feel from me will be vastly reduced so she can handle it?”

“The Lord has already willed it, Hannibal,” the hooded angel declared. “No matter how bad things get for you, the sensations she feels will not destroy her mind, but galvanize her will to help you and resist the Black Prince and Emperor. Remember, as soul mates, you and Selina are already one in ways you cannot fathom. Just believe and the Lord will show you His wonders. Now go and bring hope to the damned of this place. Be the damning witness against this corruption and bring them out of this infernal Darkness.” The hooded angel backed away and vanished with Gideon and Jarret. Hannibal found Bannon giving him the strength to endure the unique tortures he endured in addition to Gideon’s and Jarret’s assistance. He even sensed the strange hooded angel lurking with them in the background, watching and waiting patiently.

Hannibal slowly came to, feeling the clone girl’s body once again as the machine incessantly violated and electrocuted it. Exhaustion and excruciating pain still gripped him, but peace filled his soul. With weak eyes, he glanced down at the female clone body his mind now forcibly inhabited and sighed in resignation. The clone body squirmed and writhed reflexively as the machine assaulted it mercilessly. “For now, this is my body,” he whispered, panting softly with great fatigue and pain, “Male or female, it makes no difference. I must accept it and endure this reaping and punishment until I replace a way back to my own body. I’m a woman now and I must believe the Lord will rescue me from this cross-gendered nightmare hell. Help me, Bannon, to be strong and keep my mind and soul intact. Gideon, Jarret...help her to keep my identity intact. You too, my mysterious hooded defender; in the name of Jesus, help all of them keep me from losing myself and falling back into the Darkness.”

When Hannibal fully accepted his fate and female essence with Bannon, his peace tripled and the cries of anguish became merely pained exhausted grunts and moans. Furthermore, Hannibal shifted his gender identity from male to female as the hooded angel advised. With his mind forcibly locked inside a female clone avatar and no known way to return to his male form, Hannibal the man surrendered to Hannibal the clone woman as a means of keeping from going insane. Hannibal used his will and angelic help to secure his male identity the best they could and let the reality of his situation define his new status.

In a blink, Hannibal the clone woman took center stage as she embraced and protected Hannibal the man in the gross darkness that had engulfed both him and her with as much passion as Selina did when he and she were imprisoned in the downloads. Hannibal’s thoughts went to Selina imprisoned in the Harem and a sisterly kinship formed instantly.

Hannibal’s vision fluctuated wildly as she sat helplessly in the chair being tortured by the insidious device. “How I’ve failed you, my precious Selina,” she moaned. “Please forgive me.” Through the haze of her machine-induced torment, Hannibal saw the Emperor storming forward with a look of incandescent fury on his face. “Sorry highness, but you can’t have my soul; not today,” Hannibal moaned, falling unconscious before the Emperor reached her.

A moan escaped Hannibal’s lips as the reminiscence ended. He could not deny the reality of his present situation. His mind remained locked inside a female clone body with no way to escape it. Therefore, seeing no choice, he relinquished his male identity to the female reality of the situation, allowing his female counterpart to take over. Upon readopting the female identity, Hannibal felt a strange peace fall over her that helped her to relax. She then started noticing other things about her body and surroundings.

A pleasant wet coolness on the clone’s groin caused Hannibal to look, trying to see past the breasts on the clone’s chest, but it was futile. The girl’s clone body didn’t have the strength to pull against the fetters, which kept her down on the bed. Furthermore, her lower arms felt completely numb short of a deep throbbing ache. At that moment, she noticed what appeared to be tight elastic wraps around her forearms where the Emperor had broken them early in her torture after being confined to the torture chair. Her hands and fingers tingled, on the verge of being numb too. She couldn’t move a single finger. Her chest ached badly from the beating and electrocutions while her head throbbed from the hits she took.

Dropping her head back on the straw mattress with a gloomy sigh, she noticed her pain level was tolerable. Looking around at the cell, she saw chains on the walls next to her and a door in the shadows on the far side of the room. However, the rest of the room sat in deep shadow that prevented her clone eyes from seeing into it.

“So,” Hannibal muttered. “I’m being given a brief respite to heal before the next round. I hate to think what he’s got planned next for this body.” Her spirit sank at the thought of being ravished and electrocuted by a machine again. However, she didn’t let it get her down. After a few minutes, it finally registered on Hannibal that the Emperor had treated the injuries he’d inflicted on her clone body in Mirror Cell 28. The coolness she felt on her groin and the elastic wraps around her forearms seemed to buttress this fact. Both grateful and puzzled by the Emperor’s strange treatment, Hannibal wondered why he would do such a thing. It didn’t make any sense to Hannibal’s tortured mind. When she couldn’t figure out why the Emperor would do such a thing, she turned to prayer again, searching every corner of her being, trying to make completely sure she had no more unrepented sin as a male or female. Her melodious voice whimpered in the dark cell as she prayed aloud. Suddenly, the light went out and the darkness became absolute, shaking her faith again and pushing her deeper into her soul.

Hannibal cried out to the Lord in repentance and for Selina, her friends, and the peoples she was supposed to be helping. Yet, in all of her pleading for help, no apparent answer came from the Almighty. All was quiet. Even the angelic help that brought her back from the brink of damnation when she was in the torture chair seemed to remain eerily silent. Finally, she quieted herself, murmuring sorrowfully, “I don’t know where you are, Lord, or where you went. You seem to have forsaken and abandoned me, leaving me trapped in a body not my own that’s subject to pains and pleasures unknown to us men. But I know you’re righteous and true. Even though I cannot replace you, you know where I am so I’ll trust in you, and just lay here waiting for your justice and mercy since I can’t do anything else. You may have abandoned me in this pit, Lord, but please, in the name of Jesus, don’t abandon Selina or those you put in my charge. Don’t let them perish at the hands of the Emperor. Don’t let them endure what I’m enduring. I know that my life is a vapor, soon to be driven away. Please don’t let them die, not like this. My life is nothing. Save them, Father. Save them! Have mercy and save them from this insidious evil, in the name of Jesus!”

Hannibal’s heart melted again in the darkness as she thought she heard the mocking laughter of demons she was once so intimate with as a man and dark wizard. It made her clone flesh crawl. Hannibal wept not for herself, but for those whom she loved as family and friends, finally crying herself to sleep in exhaustion.

Unknown to her, a shadowy figure listened intently to her prayers from just outside the cell door, fascinated by Hannibal’s confessions in prayer and her repentance, even when trapped in a cross-gendered clone body. The figure slipped away after hearing Hannibal cease her cry and lamenting because of sleep.