Legends of Amacia Heart of Darkness
Chapter 21: The Breaking Point

Hannibal moaned softly as she slowly came to after passing out from the Emperor’s ultimate torment: the dollification and a visit to the infernal Hell’s Kitchen. Searing memories of being brutally violated by the Emperor himself and then having her arms and legs cut off simultaneously by the Emperor’s mechanized pet on the sex floor and mounted alive on a table in the dollification process brought tears and soft sobs of pain and horror. Hellish images of the ghastly unspeakable Hell’s Kitchen where humans were processed like cattle as food products kept flashing through her mind as the darkness lightened and her pain increased. In a flash, she snapped awake, replaceing herself without arms and legs mounted to a trophy table hanging on the wall over the infernal sex floor just like in the mutation nightmare with five other living trophy dolls. From her position, she could see the entire sex floor and its victims being violated and abused in every vile unspeakable way known and unknown to the human mind.

The pain of her dollification and the emotional trauma of seeing Hell’s Kitchen cause her to question her sanity. However, in midst of the blinding, paralyzing pain of her trophy status, Hannibal somehow remained firm in her belief in true identity. Despite being trapped in a clone woman and repeatedly abused to the point of death, her will to resist kept her clone heart beating; her angelic guardians barely keeping her soul from falling into the Abyss forever.

Tears dripped from her eyes as she eventually saw Selina hanging unconscious in front of her in a leather restraining cocoon resembling a full-body strait-jacket that completely immobilized her from her neck to her feet. Deep in her mind and soul, Hannibal wept. “What am I going to do now?” she moaned almost inaudibly, her voice raspy and cracking. “I’m finished. That infernal Kitchen has finished me. I don’t even have arms or legs that I can use to get away now. Why was I supposed to endure this? Why? Soon, I’ll literally be nothing but a piece of meat on some demon’s plate.” Her vision fluctuated wildly, blurring the heinous infernal reality of the sex floor around her as she bemoaned her terrible fate while she struggled to remain conscious.

Bannon’s sweet voiced echoed in Hannibal’s mind, “Oh, you of little faith, you must have patience and believe. You’re now where you need to be and have seen and experienced the depths of the Emperor’s deepest depravity. Now, you must release the remaining darkness within you.”

“How?” Hannibal wept bitterly as the world around her became meaningless in her agony. “I’m nothing more than a wall ornament now. And when the Emperor tires of me, I’ll be cooked and eaten like a pig or cow. I have no way to get back to my body and the only outlet I see is death. But I know the Emperor isn’t going to let me die; not for a very long time. I’m damned by my own stupidity and arrogance. And what’s worse is that Selina was forced to watch this fiendish nightmare firsthand. She was never supposed to see or experience this depth of evil.”

“But she did,” the hooded angel stated grimly, coming out of the shadows. “Look around you. This and the Kitchen is the very core of the Emperor’s evil. What he did to you and to those you saw in the Kitchen he’ll do to everyone everywhere if given the chance. You must fight, Hannibal. Use the weapons at your disposal and fight back against the darkness trying to destroy you even now.”

“What would that be?” Hannibal answered sullenly, her hope draining away like water draining out of a tub. “I stumbled into something that I had no idea about and now it’s killed me. What’s the point of praying when the Lord has abandoned me?”

The hooded angel slapped Hannibal, shocking her. “Are you saying the Lord was wrong in sending you here? Are you?” he asked angrily. “If that’s what you’re saying, then everything you have fought and bled for will be for nothing. The Black Prince will take Selina, corrupt and make her his queen, and then destroy this universe, plunging it into Darkness and Chaos. If that’s the case, then you’re already damned and in the right place.”

The hooded angel’s harsh rebuke stunned Hannibal and she repented, realizing her sin. “I’m so sorry I said that,” she wept. “I didn’t mean it. I’m so filled with anger, pain, and despair that I forgot the big picture. Please forgive me. I just don’t know how to deal with this depth of evil. It’s far worse than anything I ever did as a dark wizard.”

The hooded angel patted her gently on the cheek, smiling. “That’s better,” he replied compassionately. “The Lord forgives you. He knew you’d crack at this point. That’s why He sent me, Bannon, Gideon, and Jarret with you into this nightmare. Don’t give up. Your goose isn’t cooked yet in Hell’s Kitchen. The Lord will move and you’ll see your own body once again, but you’ll have to fight for your life and soul to keep it.”

“How will I do that?” Hannibal asked softly. “I don’t even know where my real body is. Worse yet, I’m beginning to forget what it’s like to be a man.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Bannon stated. “We’ll not let you forget your proper station, but you must understand something. The Emperor has gained a respect for your strength and power. He’ll let you hang here for a little while until he knows that he cannot break with a clone woman’s body, even as the doll he’s turned you into. Then he’ll return you to your real body and put you to the test. As long as your real body remains alive, he knows he cannot truly defeat you.”

“But what’s to keep him from destroying my body, marooning me in this body for the rest of my life?” Hannibal asked. “I know he’s capable of doing it.”

“The Lord’s will,” the hooded angel stated, “And his own arrogance and conceit. Remember when the Lord told you that the Emperor would tell his slaves here who you were?”

Hannibal managed a nod, suddenly remembering how the Emperor told everyone within earshot who she was when he first brought her onto the sex floor after she spoke to one of her fellow victims. With great delight, he bragged about how he’d break their savior in front of them while his mind was trapped in a female clone avatar. Immediately after remembering the incident, Hannibal also remembered how the hooded angel and Bannon told her what the Emperor would do when they first came to her assistance when the Emperor started torturing her in Mirror Cell 28. A soft gasp escaped her lips as she realized everything the hooded angel and Bannon told her had happened just as they said.

Seeing Hannibal’s reaction to his words, the hooded angel said, “You remember now, don’t you? We told you what the Emperor would do before he did it.”

“Yes,” Hannibal whispered in awe, “It happened just as you told me it would.”

That’s right,” the hooded angel replied. “Just as I told you before, I now tell you what the Emperor will do. The same thing applies here. The Emperor now knows he cannot destroy you in this fashion. When you and Selina mated mentally and spiritually before him while being forcibly abused in that depraved lesbian fashion after your crucifixion rape, he realized then that you couldn’t be conquered in this manner. He doesn’t just want to beat you physically, but spiritually and mentally. He wants to see you reduced to a shell with nothing left inside before he crushes that shell. Your physical death means nothing to him. It’s your complete destruction he wants, and he can’t do it if he merely kills your body while you are in this clone, or if he kill you while in this clone. This is why he made you a trophy doll. He wants to rip your mind and soul apart before destroying your body, but he now realizes that to destroy you, he must do it while you are in your own vessel. Only then he can glory in the kill.”

“How long,” Hannibal asked, extreme fatigue wearing on her mind.

“Sooner than you realize,” Bannon stated knowingly. She touched Hannibal on the cheek with her hand. “You did very well in the face of such deep abominable darkness. Most souls would have crumbled after the first session in that diabolical torture chair, but you and your stubbornness saved you. For once, your stubbornness was a good thing. However, I’m very grieved that you had to endure such excruciating pain and abuse, and see such hellish inhuman sights. You need to take your memories of this event with you when you return to your body and when you finally return to this place, be sure to save these poor souls he’s trapped in this hell.”

“If I survive, escape, and come back, I will do it, Lord willing,” Hannibal moaned, exhaustion taking her as the pain subsided. “Besides, it wasn’t my stubbornness that kept me alive through that hell. It was you and the Lord’s strength that kept me from falling forever into the Darkness again. I had nothing to do with it. Even now, I have no strength left of my own. It’s long since spent. Only the Lord’s grace and strength keeps me sane and alive. Thank you and thank the Lord for saving me from myself.”

“Spoken like a true child of the King,” the hooded angel praised with delight. “You’re finally learning, Hannibal. Yes, you’ve been subjected to the most heinous tortures a soul can endure, but the Lord has carried you through it and continues to hold you up. You’re now the damning witness against the Emperor and the Black Prince. Don’t faint yet because the fight is just beginning. Be strengthened in the Lord and press on for the prize, my friend.” The hooded angel and Bannon touched Hannibal, giving her strength in her spirit and in her clone body before vanishing from her mind. Peace came to Hannibal as she sighed. Even breathing was painful for her as the real world once again solidified around her.

A cracked raspy voice rose from the woman beside Hannibal on the wall; another limbless trophy doll for the Emperor’s amusement. “Who are you,” she mumbled, “...to have survived the crucifixion and doll process like I did?”

“Just another lost soul like you,” Hannibal whispered weakly, “...who apparently so infuriated the Emperor that he did this to me.”

“You’re different,” the girl answered with a hoarse whisper. “You’re not one of us. You shine of light and life, even in your present state, unlike the rest of us. We dolls are preserved for his amusement, given just enough nourishment to keep us alive. When it suits his whim, the Emperor comes and violates us mercilessly as I saw him do to you to whet his vile appetites. But you sent him into an incendiary rage everyone here saw. What gives you such power over the Emperor that he submits you to the most horrible, heinous torture that can be inflicted on a soul in this hell?”

Hannibal then truly understood everything, even the mutation dream that now was a terrible brutal reality. As in the dream, Hannibal hung as a living limbless trophy over a diabolical sex hell filled with hapless victims being cruelly violated and abused in countless unthinkable mechanized ways; ways best not described by any sane person or being. “Believe it or not, I’m not a woman, but a man,” she said softly. “I’m Hannibal Smith from the surface world. The Emperor captured me and somehow trapped my mind in this clone girl’s body in an effort to destroy me. However, he was unable to overpower my will and love for my wife. She hangs there like a sausage in that leather casing before us. I don’t know why he did it or why he does these horrible things to you girls, but I can say this. Even if I don’t survive, his days are definitely numbered, and you’ll be delivered from this hellish existence.” She sighed deeply, her deep exhaustion sapping what was left of her mental and physical strength.

“I believe you,” the girl whispered hoarsely. “The Beast often does that to those whom he hates worst. All of us have heard the prophecy of the Warrior from the outer world...the Last Caverias. It was my stubborn belief in that myth that placed me here on this wall. But now, I know it’s no myth. Now, I can die in peace knowing that you have come. I can’t say whether you’ll escape this hell or not, but if you do, please don’t forget us, my friend.”

“After everything I’ve endured at that beast’s hand, perish the thought,” Hannibal replied wearily. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t anything left. I’m so tired I can’t stay awake.”

“Sleep on then while you can, my friend,” the girl murmured. “I pray that Fate will see it in her heart to free you and us one way or another.”

Hannibal’s head shifted slightly as she fell dead asleep. The girl heard her breathing and grunted softly, looking down at Selina in her leather prison. “Maybe at long last our torment will be coming to an end,” the girl whispered with a slight smile, feeling a spark of hope rising in her ruined heart and soul.