Talia smiled softly as she looked over at her date in the driver's seat. Dressed in a flowy sundress and high heeled strappy sandals, it was the blonde’s 4th date with Griffin Tanner, who had been nothing short of a gentleman across every date and a handsome one at that. After a night out and dinner, he had offered to take her to his place to meet his parents and she had gleefully accepted. Meeting the parents meant that he was a lot more serious about the potential relationship, and she hoped she would make a good first impression on the parents.

He pulled the car into the driveway and turned it off, getting out and leading her up to the front door. As she stood beside him waiting for him to work the keys, she took a moment to admire his physique again. He stood a good four inches taller than her and was built like a football player, despite not having played football in his life. He opened the door and gestured for her to enter. “After you.”

There was something that Talia couldn’t explain once she entered the house. It seemed nice enough, modern, and brightly lit. But there was some sinister feeling that she just couldn’t shake. It reminded her almost like a haunted house but brightly lit, and she was a little creeped out by it. “You ok?” Griffin asked her, seemingly noticing her unease.

Talia shook it off, scolding herself for overthinking things. “Yup, no problem.”

He seemed to relax a bit before guiding her into the clean kitchen, her heels clicking on the polished floors. “Hi Mom, this is Talia.”

Mrs. Tanner stood up from the kitchen table and turned around. She was dressed like a businesswoman in pants, shirt, and blazer. She was a bit intimidating to Talia and seemed to just radiate confidence. “Pleasure to meet you Talia.” She said, “Oh you really are pretty.”

Talia blushed at the compliment. “Thank you ma’am.”

Mrs. Tanner waved it away. “No no, my son really did pick well. You’ll do wonderfully for our purposes.”

Talia blinked. “Huh?”

Her brain was still processing Mrs. Tanner’s words when she was grabbed from behind by Griffin and a cloth clamped down over her face. Her eyes went wide as she began inhaling fumes and struggled against his larger frame but he easily overpowered her while his mom watched with an evil grin on her face. “Don’t worry, we’ll take very good care of you.” She cooed as Talia’s eyes closed and she went limp in Griffin’s arms.

“Excellent, get her prepared.” Mrs. Tanner ordered before turning and walking upstairs.

- - -

Talia slowly came to, feeling aching in her arms and legs as she realized that her body was stretched out in an X and locked there as she tugged fruitlessly on the leather cuffs that were buckled around her wrists and ankles and chained to the corners of a large frame. Her mouth was filled with some kind of cloth and layers of black duct tape were plastered over her cheeks to keep her gagged. Taking stock of her current situation, she looked around the room and felt a chill run down her spine, partially because of what she saw and partially because she had been stripped naked while she was unconscious.

If she had gotten a sinister feeling entering the house originally, it was now that feeling times twenty. The room was dark, lit only by small torches lining the hall. The floor and walls were all stone, painted with symbols and glyphs that Talia could not recognize, but she did see that she was chained to the back of what seemed to be some kind of altar with food offerings to her left and right.

She couldn’t believe it. Griffin had seemed like such a nice polite guy when they had first met and his mom didn’t seem too bad either. That is until he had clamped a chloroform cloth over her face and probably stripped her naked and tied her up in his basement. She moaned behind her gag. Some of her friends had known she was seeing Griffin, but none of them knew where she was. Talia cursed herself for not taking more precautions and yanked on the chains holding her in place some more. With padlocks on the cuffs, she wasn’t going to be unbuckling those anytime soon either.

She got about 15 minutes to berate herself before she heard some chanting coming down the hall towards the room that she was held captive. The temperature seemed to drop another ten degrees and the torches dimmed as three robed figures entered. Talia guessed that it was Griffin and his parents as they stepped forward, hoods covering their faces as the chants continued and to her shock, some of the glyphs painted on the floor around the frame she was tied to began to glow with a sinister red light. This is not good. She thought to herself as they closed in on her.