Writing - Tortured

On the suggestion of a friend I'm posting a short (very short) story I wrote. Just a little something I came up with. Just to warn anyone reading it can be a bit graphic but I ask that you be patient and read all the way to the end of the story. Now I give you:

Tortured

I lie here unable to move, unable to defend my self. I am at the mercy of those who have no mercy and do not care. The truth of the matter is they do care but not for me but rather for what I represent, entertainment for them. They have fastened a hook to the back of my neck. I cannot see it so I don’t know how they have done it but I can feel it.

They begin their ritualistic torture and pass a heavy line through the hook in my neck. Slowly I feel my useless body lift from the ground. One by one the parts of my body leave the ground, head, shoulders, back, arms, legs and finally my feet. I am free floating now. My full weight is supported by this one hook and I feel it pull and tear at my back and neck. In this alone the pain should be enough to break anyone else down but I have not. Perhaps I am just too stupid to realize that no matter what, there will only be one outcome and that keeping anything from them is futile.

Slowly I start to spin. It is a slow and agonizing spinning. Not in true pain it self but with every rotation and then counter rotation I can see the long line of torturers waiting for there turn at me. Their leader works them into a frenzy. They salivate as they wait their turn. I try to close my eyes but I can not. That does not work either. No. I must watch as it happens, not only as the entertainment but as a spectator from a first person advantage. I would prefer a third person.

My first torturer approaches. They are wielding a stick while although does not appear very deadly will be akin to getting a bee sting. In it self one will not kill you but by the time they are done I will have fallen into the hive. The first swing comes and I prepare myself for the pain. It is more than I anticipated and I scream with agony. Nothing. In this I am not able to do anything either. I have no voice. Other than the sound of the stick coming into contact with my body and the merry laughter of my tormentors there will be no other sounds, especially not from me. Again they hit me and my body swings and sways helplessly. With each swing my body becomes tender and the pain ever increases. Soon there is another sound and that which is in me begins to break.

In continues. Swing after swing, tormentor after tormentor each seemingly better than their predecessor. I have come into the company of those that are craftsmen of their trade and worse they love it. Their laughter fills the air and with each successful blow there comes a round of cheers from their comrades. They are of one mind and it is sick and twisted. Their leader spurs them on, encouraging them to do more and to stay longer than the last person. He is the greatest monster of them all.

Now I hang battered and broken. My arms and legs although useless before hang awkwardly now. The number of joints in my appendages seem to have multiplied as bends in them appear when no joints were previously. But this is of no concern to my tormentors. They continue on in their happy little game. They do not ask me for information nor do they ask me to denounce anything. No they torture me solely for the purpose of getting my treasure. Oh yes I have a treasure but I wound not, no, I could not give it to them. If I did then surely that would be the end of me. But would that be so bad? Perhaps I should. Then this would all be over. Damn it! It wasn’t I who wanted the treasure! It was they who gave it to me! Just more of their sadistic little games I suppose. They knew my dilemma. Give them the treasure and it would be the end of me or protect the treasure and they would beat it out of me eventually. How can one make such a choice? But even in that, it was they who made me this way. Made me with a will to live. They made it so my will to survive was stronger than my urge to give up what would end my suffering. And so I hang here waiting for the pain to stop.

It has gone on now longer than I can remember. My left leg is in pitiful shape. The one consolation is the leg no longer hurts. Any pain receptors that were in my leg have long since stopped sending messages to my brain. I know it continues to be hit but there is no association with pain. It merely causes me to spin and sway in the open field. Then a new sensation and I look down upon my poor tattered leg. It now hangs from my torso by a thin sinewy fiber. The next swing severs it completely and it flies off to land a few feet away. Quickly they lower me to the ground and repair what they can to the stump where my leg had been. They don’t want the game to be over to fast. As they patch me up one of my tormentors snatches up my leg and holds it high over their head. A grotesque trophy of their gruesome work. Their repair of my leg is sufficient. They are saddened because they know it will not last much longer.

To their delight they were wrong. I have lasted. I am much stronger than they gave me credit for. Although truth be told I am not as strong as they think. My condition is much worse than before and I think freely about giving up my treasure to them. But I don’t. Even with the fear rising inside me I still refuse. They made me and my will well. They know me perhaps better than I know myself. I have lost the use of one of my eyes as it hangs from my socket by only a tiny thread. But from my one good eye I still see well. The line of tormentors has become smaller but there are still a few left. Those that remain are the meanest looking of them all. I know they will make it their special mission in life to end my miserable one. Then all at once there is a new level of pain at the base of my neck and the ground is rushing up at me. My face is in the ground and I see what I think might be part of my long lost leg. There is a cheer and the sound of running feet.

I’m not completely sure what happened as I may have lost consciousness for a short while. I sit on the cool grass supported by one of my tormentors. The line of hopefuls stand at a distance and stare at me. Perhaps there is some mercy in them after all and my will to survive has paid off in my favor. I find I am wrong. This was just a momentary pause in the action for them. I understood now. That horrid hook which was in the back of my neck failed or rather should I say my neck failed. There it hung still on the heavy line but from the hook hung only what could be part of me. During all the damage I had taken at some point that part of my body had given up and broke free of the hook. With no hook there was only one thing they could do. They fastened a noose tightly around my neck and hoisted me up. It was not tight enough to end me, we wouldn’t want that, but it was tight enough that with each jerk or blow it would cause new and undiscovered pain. My captors were sadistic beyond reproach. If their art was not grotesque you might actually appreciate their skill.

There isn’t much left now. I prayed for it to end. I prayed. What a joke. If there was a God was there one for someone such as me. And if so why had he forsaken me. Could a god, would a god create creatures such as my tormentors? Would he let someone like me suffer as much as I had? I think not. My eye had completely fallen off now, my right arm now threatened to go the same route as my leg, my neck was raw from the constant pulling of the noose around it and my head seemed, although I could not see it, dented somehow. I felt my other arm and leg on the verge of joining their siblings when something happened that told me this time the end really was near.

It started small, as all things do, but it had started. A small gash along the width of my torso began to open. I could feel this new sensation and felt that first burning and then freezing that only comes from something of this sort. I was not the only one to notice though. There was a roaring cheer from the tormentors and they found new vigor in their assault. Slowly, painfully the gash began to grow. I was reminded immediately of the story the ‘Pit and the Pendulum’ and how with each swing of the pendulum the blade would cut deeper and deeper into the victims belly. Much like that pendulum the stick cut deeper and deeper into me each time. The slow wait is the worse. There is no fear in me now of death only in how much more I can suffer before that release.

A wild swing and then another. The lead inquisitor spurs them on. I have lost all four limbs now and it is only moments away. I see their happy, smiling faces and cringe at their sadistic glee. I have done nothing wrong. I didn’t deserve this, no one does. Wider and wider it splits and then in one final blow from the strongest and most determined of my tormentors my torso is ripped in two. It all falls out. My treasure. Their reward. The children scramble over each other and try to get the most candy they can. And as the last Tootsie Roll falls from my body, I the Piñata die.

I hope you enjoyed. Let me know what you think.