"What is your name?"

No one knows his name. Not the name he was born with, anyway.

Candy. Babe. Doll. Whore. Trash. Whatever name they deign to give him, he wears proudly on his shoulders, a mantle of who he is in that moment. Every moan, every gasp, every crack is just another reminder of that name etched into his skin, scarring his flesh, tearing his asunder.

"What is your name?"

He quivers in the dark, his breathing coming out in shaky gasps, his body trembling for another hit. He reaches out his hands, begging, aching, and they strike him. He repents for his sins, bows his head in shame and mumbles his apologies. He cries out for their attention, their vigour, their lust, and they reject him. Fresk. Druggie. Useless trash.

Just one more for the night. Then he can sleep. Another lays in his bed, their carnal grunts, their sweaty faces and heaving chests a consistent reminder of what he was born to do, what he was born to give. He claws at them, fingers digging into flesh as he cries out for release from this life and the next. When all is said and done, he still lays alone.

Just one for hit for the road, and then he's done. He offers them whatever they need, and when they are satisfied, they cast him aside. They beat him down. What good is money for a pathetic, useless whore? Sluts don't need money, they do it for free. One by one, they betray him. Little by little, he dies inside.

An alliance formed with the best intentions will inevitably go sour. That's how the saying goes, but he didn't listen. Being alone wasn't enough. Someone else was needed, and it brought him to the front door of the devil himself.

Broken dreams, corner pocket, sunk down into the depths below. There he buried it, hiding it from the world. Gone were the days of dreaming to be an astronaut on the moon, or a superhero saving the damsel in distress. The real world was a harsh reality for his simple dreams and his simpler mind.

Just make a little, and he can have all the money he wants. It was a job with less glamour, a way to make ends meet that left a sour and bitter taste in his mouth, but it was a job nonetheless. What else was he to do? The couches he had used had long since grown worn, the friends he still had even wearier. Once the devil loomed over his shadow, no-one wanted to see him, and no-one wanted to talk to him. Signing his name in the book of evil didn't just give away his soul, but his very reason for existence.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. The country bumpkin closet boy wasn't enough. He didn't pay enough. He needed more, not only for himself, but to appease those who watched him. The devil called his greater demons, big and small, and all of them basked in the pleasures of his supple flesh. They marked his skin, branded him for all time.

Until it became too much.

One strike too many, one whip too hard, one knife too jagged. They didn't want to pay. He didn't want to leave empty handed. No back-up. No hope. A flash of metal, and it was over.

Crawling inch by inch, his fingers crack against the concrete. Crawling inch by inch, his skin tears against the floor. His blood thickens, his heart quickens, and with a sigh, he breaths no more.