Chapter 1: The Broken Pop Star: Callie’s Submission
The air in the throne room wasn’t just thick, it was solid. It hummed, a physical pressure against the skin, a bassline you felt in your molars. Neon signs, stolen and repurposed, buzzed and flickered, painting the slick, cavernous walls in cancerous pinks and vomitous greens. Condensation dripped from pipes overhead, falling into shallow puddles of iridescent ink that shivered with every thump of the massive speakers flanking the obsidian throne.
Callie knelt on the cold, damp metal grate before it.
The vibrant yellow of her tentacles seemed leached of color, muted under the pulsing, sickly light of the Hypno Shades clamped over her eyes. Their persistent, circular glow whirred softly, a sound felt more in the back of the skull than heard by the ears. Her hands rested palms-up on her thighs, a posture of empty submission. Her signature energetic poise, the slight, ready-to-pounce tilt of her head she was known for, was gone. Erased. Her spine was straight, but unnaturally so, like a doll propped up.
From the shadows behind the throne, DJ Octavio watched. His form was a hulking silhouette against the backdrop of writhing, ink-slicked Octarian thralls. They moved in perfect, disturbing unison on a lower platform, their limbs twisting to the brutal, synthesized rhythm he conducted with a lazy flick of a tentacle. The music wasn’t for entertainment. It was a weapon. A leash.
He shifted, the hydraulic servos of his mechanical suit whining as he loomed over her. The faint violet light from his throne illuminated the satisfied, cruel curve of his beak.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice a distorted growl filtered through his DJ rig.
Callie’s head lifted obediently. The shades whirred, their light intensifying for a moment. Her own eyes, behind the glass, were glazed. Distant. Like smudged ink.
“Good.” Octavio reached down, a thick, gloved finger tracing the line of her jaw. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t lean into it. She was simply… present. A canvas waiting for a command. “You remember the words? The new lyrics I wrote for you?”
Her lips, still painted with her signature