—and then there is a human not from this world here. She is sleeping at first, wrapped up in a coarse blanket, but she and her blanket appear on the very edge of the road; after a precarious few seconds, the whole bundle slides into the ditch, and she awakens with a splash and a startled yelp.

There are some winged figures in the sky, in the distance. Just birds? Maybe.

...they don't move like birds.

She stares warily up at them for a moment, with ditchwater soaking through her blanket and sleeping pants. But - the air tastes like rain and the ground doesn't swim in the edges of her vision; she's not in the nightmare realm. Which means that wherever she is, she'd better be very sure of what she's doing before she unlocks her mara to draw on its power. She climbs out of the ditch unaided, dragging the sodden blanket behind her.

They get closer.

They are definitely not birds.

Five humanoid figures with bat wings fly closer, then seem to notice her and course-correct so that now they're flying toward her.

...ah, fuck.

There can't be five loose mara in the sky, can there? She reaches out tentatively with her dream-sense, and feels no boiling shadows. So they're at least approximately human. But to her knowledge there aren't any humans with bat wings. So something very strange is going on.

They land.

They don't look human. Their skin and hair is odd colors and they have wings and horns and claws and range from seven feet tall to eight and a half.

The one closes to her says something jeering in a language she doesn't understand.

"...You can't be serious," she says, more exasperated than afraid. She tries gesturing to her eyes, in case that reference crosses the language barrier. "I have a mara. Don't be idiots."

One of them grabs her by the hair and tips her head back to peer into her eyes. When he sees nothing unusual about them he slings her over his shoulder.

She is very tempted to unlock her mara and show the sparks, but - they haven't directly threatened her life yet. If all they're going to do is haul her off and rape her, that's not worth unlocking her mara under stress in an unfamiliar situation. Taking risks like that is how you end up possessed.

Still - "You're lucky I'm so responsible," she says, irritated, to the one carrying her.

They take off again.

It's uncomfortable. But she holds on tight, because if she dies her mara gets loose anyway. Arguably better that way because it won't have her mind and power to draw on; arguably worse because as long as she's possessed there's a chance she'll recapture it, whereas these people don't seem to have heard of the concept and will have no idea what to do with it if it escapes her in death.

They fly to some kind of portal thing several miles away. Beyond the portal is a dark hallway of solid grey stone.

...and neither of these places is the nightmare realm, and now she really doesn't have any idea what's going on.

The hallway opens out into a round room with several doors embedded in the curved walls. The creature carrying her opens one of the doors, revealing a room with a solid stone slab as the only furniture.

...uh-huh. She's not going to like this, is she.

"I know you don't understand me, but I'd just like to point out that if you kill me you're really going to end up regretting it."

He slings her onto the slab in a nonlethal fashion and tears her clothes off.

All right, now she's afraid.

She could kill him. Easily. But she'd have to unlock her mara to do it, and she's not confident enough in her ability to keep the mara suppressed afterward.

He pulls off his pants, strokes his cock to full--and alarmingly large--hardness, and then yanks her knees apart and sinks fully into her.

It hurts—

—she could kill him—

—she won't.

Another one of the strange not-mara not-humans comes in and yanks her head closer to the edge of the slab by her hair and shoves his cock in her mouth.

Tears run down her face as she fights for air.

If she was thinking in the long term she might try to deter them from doing this sort of thing in case they go too far and she chokes to death and they are all engulfed by her mara. If she was thinking more carefully than that she might decide to endure it because if she hurts them they could kill her in ignorant retaliation. But in fact neither of those considerations enters her head, and she is acting on pure impulse when she bites him. Very very hard.

He shrieks and yanks away hard enough to fall over onto the hard stone. Another demon makes a noise that's half sympathy, half laughing at him, helps him up, and then touches the corner of her jaw and sticks his cock in her mouth. If she tries to bite this time she will discover that it mysteriously does not succeed.

Fuck, what are they?

No answer to that question seems to be forthcoming.

She chokes and cries and doesn't fight back again.

When both of her rapists have finished with her another one sits on the edge of the slab, drags her into his lap and sinks his cock into her ass.

She sobs raggedly.

Another demon steps up between her legs and starts raping her cunt.

This one appears to have spikes on his cock.

It's the worst thing she's ever experienced outside a nightmare, and this is her own very real body they're doing it to -

- but she is not going to risk loosing her mara on them, she's not, no matter what they do to her as long as she is not actually genuinely about to die.

Another demon climbs up onto the slab and kneels so his cock is level with her mouth and shoves it in.

She doesn't even try biting this one.

This one comes in her mouth instead of far enough down her throat she can't taste it. It tastes foul, acrid and burnt.

She coughs and gags and spits, trying to get rid of that awful taste.

She will have time to spit out some but not all of it before another cock is shoved down her throat.

And then she can't even cry properly. There's a particular kind of awfulness in not being able to cry.

The demon raping her cunt comes, and it feels like salted lemon juice in the cuts the barbs left in her.

She makes a choked noise of pain and horror.

He steps away, and another one promptly shoves his cock in her. It's large enough to split the cuts open wider.

This elicits more choked sobbing.

The one fucking her ass comes, and she is briefly lifted so he can slide out from under her and be replaced by someone with spikes.

It wouldn't be worth it to unlock her mara at this point even if they were about to kill her; she's not lucid enough to do anything with it except get possessed.

The demon raping her mouth comes, and the one who replaces him shoves his cock down her throat and doesn't withdraw enough to let her breathe. But no matter how desperately her lungs clamor for air, she doesn't get dizzy and she doesn't pass out.

—that's a good sign, even if it doesn't feel very much like one in the moment. It means they're probably not going to kill her this way.

She almost wishes they would. Except then her mara would be loose, and nobody deserves that.

Eventually someone heals her bleeding cunt and ass so they can start over on fucking them up.

By this point she is a helpless weeping mess not even coherent enough to muster an opinion about whether that is better than the alternative.

Someone grabs her hand and wraps it around his cock and starts thrusting into it.

It doesn't hurt and therefore doesn't command much of her attention.

A demon decides to fuck her with a cock that is both far too large and spiked.

That hurts.

The demon fucking her hand breaks her wrist when he comes.

She lets out a shriek of pain, muffled by the cock down her throat.

Another demon heals it and also starts using her hand to jerk off. Another demon does the same with the other hand.

It's so much worse than she would have thought possible. She can barely hold her thoughts together. Even the healing is unpleasant, a sudden wrenching inversion of pain...

The cock currently violating her cunt starts growing.

no, why

If it gets large enough to break her pelvis will that qualify as an answer.

She tries and fails to scream.

He comes and someone heals her before he is replaced by someone of a more reasonable size.

It's almost a relief, except that she's still being raped by sadistic shapeshifters and any touch might suddenly begin to cut or bruise or break.

The next one to start fucking her throat has tiny barbs on his cock.

She can taste her own blood, feel it filling her mouth and throat. It's like a nightmare, except that nightmares end.

Someone stabs her in the side and starts fucking that.

She does not succeed in screaming this time either. All that comes out is choked gurgling and a few bubbles of blood.

The demon fucking her throat comes. This is considerably less pleasant than normal because now she has to deal with the salted lemon juice sensation as well as the choking.

She coughs and gags, trying desperately to clear blood and semen from her throat - but at least she can breathe at all -

Well, until the next demon starts fucking her throat.

Yeah.

She really acutely misses unobstructed breathing.

Someone heals her, so at least her throat isn't producing more blood.

And it's clear they're not going to let her die for lack of air, but she doesn't really have it in her to be grateful for that right now.

The demon fucking her in the side comes. Having stinging demon seed squirted directly into her insides is not fun, but he promptly heals her and it oozes out instead of being trapped inside.

Choked sobbing is her only response.

Someone else stabs her somewhere else and starts fucking that.

This time she doesn't even try to scream.

Eventually someone tries to give her a waterskin.

She does not appear to notice.

Well, does she notice she can breathe?

Unclear. She's coughing and gagging and sobbing and her eyes are closed.

(She can tell this is a longer break from choking on cock than she's had so far, but she can't collect her fragmented thoughts well enough to draw any conclusions about that, and the ongoing pain and violation are very thoroughly distracting.)

Someone helpfully removes the remaining blood and semen from her throat.

She cries. Helpless all-consuming sobs, so close-spaced and convulsive that her breathing is barely any less impaired than before.

They give her a few minutes with only moderate rape.

The sobbing trails off until she's breathing more or less normally.

They try to get her to drink again.

She at least tries this time! She is not super successful, but she tries!

They are persistent enough to get a respectable amount of water into her this way, and then they attempt to feed her.

She gets better at drinking over time, but then is even less successful at eating than she was at drinking to start with.

Is she successful enough that persistence will eventually get a respectable amount of calories into her?

After a few more minutes, she eventually musters the coordination and presence of mind to chew, and it goes much more smoothly from there.

And once she is fed to their satisfaction someone shoves his cock down her throat again.

Yes of course that happens.

Someone stabs her again.

And she is back to not being able to properly cry.

The one raping her cunt starts growing spikes.

It hurts, and it's going to keep hurting, and - for a while there before they gave her that break to eat and drink, she was too far gone to even remember that her mara was an option, and probably also too far gone to have succeeded in unlocking it if she'd tried - but she remembers now, and she could do it now, and she is horribly, horribly tempted -

No. She'd have no chance of controlling it if she unlocked it now, and not even these people deserve a loose mara on their hands, and even if they did, presumably there is at least one innocent person somewhere in this world. She will not.

Someone not currently fucking her gropes her breasts roughly, leaving bruises.

It's sort of incredible how little that seems to matter. Not so long ago, she would have been horrified, and now she has so many more important problems than someone touching her breasts in a way that doesn't even hurt that much.

The one fucking her in the side comes and heals her.

Like that. That is an example of a more important problem she has.

And also the fact that someone else starts over in a different location, that is probably also a more important problem.

Yes. Yes, exactly.

She's losing coherency again, her thoughts falling apart into a whirlwind scatter of pain and trauma.

They keep it up for a very long time. Hours, at least, if she has any ability to process time.

Eventually someone withdraws from her throat and is not immediately replaced.

She coughs and gags and sobs and doesn't yet try to do anything as difficult as think.

They clear various effluvia from her throat.

Okay. Breathing. She is breathing now. She tries to focus her eyes.

They attempt to give her water.

She is somewhat better at it this time around but it is still a solid five minutes before she can drink properly.

She can have the five minutes, then. And then she is given food again.

She is likewise better-than-last-time-but-still-not-great with food, and likewise improves somewhat faster.

"Faster" is probably not something she has cause to be thrilled about, considering that it leads to a swifter re-escalation of rape.

If she were strategizing better she might delay herself deliberately, but that would require more presence of mind than she has available.

Someone slides a knife between her tibia and fibula.

That's a new kind of awful and as such elicits an attempt at a scream.

Her attempt fails. Someone's cock follows the path of the knife, snapping bone around it.

When that one finishes, he heals her, and another fails to immediately follow. They keep stabbing her sides, but her leg is not re-molested yet.

Stabbing her sides and fucking her there is plenty awful all by itself, but she's - almost starting to get used to it; it hurts and it's awful and violating and makes her want to cry, but it's not an unpleasant surprise anymore, just - unpleasant.

It continues.

She's probably getting tired.

Exhausted. But not yet exhausted enough to fall asleep while being raped and tortured.

Eventually she gets another food and water break.

She has drinking water under these conditions down pretty well by now, but she's tired enough that chewing is kind of beyond her.

They can paste the food.

In which case they will succeed in feeding it to her.

It's at least an hour later when someone does the leg thing again.

She tries to scream, again, and fails, again, and struggles feebly, and fails at that too.

And then for several hours there is "just" the usual.

By that point she is - not usefully asleep, but not entirely awake either. Maybe 'delirious' is the word.

They proffer water in case a "break" causes an increase in lucidity.

As soon as she can breathe and isn't in more than incidental amounts of pain, she succumbs to exhaustion.

They decide to let her keep breathing until she wakes up.

She sleeps for about three hours, and then wakes with an unhappy whimper.

Someone shoves his cock down her throat.

She bites. And when this girl bites, she is not fucking around.

She will not recognize the word he says. She will still be able to identify it as a swear word.

The knowledge of where she is and what is happening comes back in fuzzy-edged pieces. It's another few seconds before she catches up with herself enough to relax her jaw and let him go.

It occurs to her that this isn't - personal. It's not about her in any meaningful way. In fact, if they had any sense, they would have noticed something unusual about her in the first place and would not now be relying on her good judgment to save them from being consumed by an unchecked mara. She's just - a convenient victim. A very scarce convenient victim, judging by how eager they all are to get their cocks into her by any means necessary. So is this some sort of... otherworldly enclave of sadistic shapeshifting rapists who are too deprived of easy prey to look closely at the first person who happens to cross their path? What is the point of this thing they are doing?

Somehow she suspects she's not going to get an answer to that one.

Not any time soon, for sure.

He pulls out as soon as she relaxes her jaw enough, still cursing. Someone paralyzes her jaw again and then someone else shoves his cock down her throat.

She's so tired. Maybe she should find the taste of that man's blood satisfying, but she really doesn't. She just wishes it would all go away.

But she's still not going to loose her mara on them.

It does not all go away. Someone stabs her.

She cries, insofar as it is possible to cry.

Well, nobody's fucking her tear ducts.

Breathing turns out to be kind of integral to the process of having a proper cry!

She can have a proper cry when her next water break comes up, then.

She does in fact cry, at her next water break, but she doesn't give it the kind of time she really needs. Five minutes, and then she can drink as much water as they want to give her. She's getting better at drinking while being raped.

And then food, and then they stab her leg again.

She really wishes they wouldn't do that.

It's probably pretty obvious by this point that they don't really give a damn about her wishes.

It really, really is.

Two people stab her at once, on opposite sides.

It almost hurts too much to experience properly. It's like someone painted the world of her senses onto a glass bowl and then smashed it on the wall and the shards are raining past her, each a glimpse of something horrible that's happening to her right now. The spiked cock tearing into her ass, the endless fruitless straining of her lungs, the fresh sharp pain of being stabbed and the blunt ripping agony that follows, the crack of breaking bone and the bright flashes when movement jars the pieces... she can't hold onto all of it at once.

Someone stabs her in the leg.

That's - there is already - no -

She can't talk, and they don't share a language, but they don't seem inclined to listen to a no if she could communicate one.

no

Sadly, yes.

Eventually it does end. The ones using her legs finish and heal her, and are not immediately replaced.

why won't they all just go away

They do not all just go away. She can have a food and water break, though.

She drinks, and eats, and cries, and doesn't kill anyone.

Eventually she can have another "break" to sleep.

She goes to sleep still being raped, and wakes up still being raped some blurry number of hours later, and it is mildly insane that this qualifies as a break of any kind but here we are.

This time they wait a while after she wakes up before starting to rape her mouth again.

And as a result no one gets bitten.

They keep this up for a long time. Sometimes it's dramatically worse than "normal;" sometimes it's almost better.

She spends most of her time as a heap of awful violated misery, crying in choked helpless sobs around somebody's cock. When they let her breathe so she can eat or drink, she cries. When they let her breathe so she can sleep she is usually too exhausted to cry much. The first time they let her breathe without either agenda, just being able to cry uninterrupted for more than a few minutes is an intense relief. But of course it doesn't last.

In her more lucid moments, she's more frustrated than anything. Is she going to have to wait until she's so inured to rape and torture that she can safely call up her mara while being fucked in a stab wound? That day is going to be a long time coming. She might bounce back fast, but she still suffers intensely.

Eventually--after a very long while--things abruptly ease off. There are suddenly less of her attackers around at once. Any stabbing whatsoever becomes an exception rather than the norm. They actually stop raping her entirely to let her sleep.

A real full night's sleep without anyone raping her qualifies as unparalleled luxury by this point.

And she can have it on a regular basis, now, for some reason.

If this is the new normal, there might be a chance that someday she can pull herself together well enough to safely call up her mara and demand an explanation.

But it doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon.