Hide

The sound of sawing echoed in his head, as he slowly regained consciousness. The noise was sickening. Grinding.Wet. A pinch in his arm sent a sharp pain through him, forcing his body to jerk. But he was stuck. He couldn’t move. He had nowhere to go. Pinned to a hard surface. No, strapped down. He tried opening his eyes. They were crusted over like a bad case of conjunctivitis. When he finally pried them apart, the light above him was too bright. It was blinding. Something thick, splashed onto his cheek. Metallic. It dripped into his mouth and it was salty and tasted like a liquid penny.

Blood.

He tried to move again but he couldn’t. That’s when he realized that he couldn’t feel anything. He began to blink frantically, trying to acclimate his eyes to the light and work off some of the crust clinging to his eyelashes. The sawing continued. Splashes of pain ripped through his body like bolts of lightning. Gone as fast as they came.

He opened his mouth to talk but nothing escaped. It was dry, his throat felt like he’d swallowed a dozen razor blades. The light was too bright for him to see anything. He tried to turn away but his head was locked into place, something pressing on his forehead kept him from looking somewhere else.

A nauseating whiff of sweat, excrement and dirt filled his nostrils. He heaved and bile leapt into his throat. He swallowed it back down but it wet his whistle just enough that he was able to croak out a few words.

“Help…m-m-me.”

Someone grunted. A throaty menacing growl, a man maybe. A monster, probably. Shivers shot up his spine as the room slowly started to come into view. His face stuck looking up at the bright LED light, twisted snugly into a stainless steel sleeve dangling from the ceiling. Something hard dragged across the floor, the clump of two heavy padded objects accompanied it.

But at least the sawing had stopped.

“Anyone there?” He asked, his eyes racing from side to side.

He caught a glimpse of something. A shoulder. An arm.

“Hey! Hey, you! Help me! Can you help me!”

Nasal breathing, heavy draws of air. Labored and intense.

He waited for a response. When it didn’t come, he tried to shift his body and talk about. “Hey, hey, what’s your name? Can you…”

CRACK, CRUNCH.

The most horrible pain he’d ever felt shot up his right arm into his torso. So excruciating he was unable to speak. His eyes popped from their sockets, his mouth agape and he tried to scream but his voice was gone again. This time from the searing pain. Ringing in his right ear and his vision in the same eye blurred with tears.

Something, off in the corner. Big. Huge. A man — a monster— covered in filthy clothes just outside of his peripherals holding up a forearm broken at the elbow, attaching it to a hook so it could drain into something below it. He could hear the splashing as the blood flowed then slowed to a trickle. He recognized the cross tattoo.

It was his arm.

He begged. “Oh, God, please! Jesus Christ please! Let me go! Let me go! Please! I didn’t do nothing to you!”

The thing worked quietly, efficiently, his back to him. Tinkering with the arm. He gasped. Beside the arm was another arm. And parts of legs, severed at the knee. Dangling from meat hooks like slabs in a butcher shop.

“Let me out of here! God, let me go! Please!”

The large thing stepped from view and he whimpered, trying to thrash his body.

“Get away from me! Get away from me!” Tears spilling from his eyes in rivers, bouncing off the table below him. “Get away…”

Something slammed into his chest, knocking the wind out of him. He gasped. He squealed as the restraint was removed from his head. He tried to look around but saw nothing, his face behind held by a powerful hand.

He was flipped over, slamming on his stomach and he felt surprisingly light. His cries muffled, his face pressed against the steel slab.

“GOD! What are you doing?! Please, let me go. I didn’t do…”

Something pierced his shoulder, he could feel that. It was cold and sharp but before he could scream he felt another enter his opposit shoulder.

“Ahhh! Please!” He cried out in agony.

The clanking of chains being drawn in through a pulley and slowly, he felt his body be lifted off the table. The skin on his back stretched too far, in danger of tearing but it held because of the fatty meat on his upper back. The cranking continued, his body lifted into the air. He cried, staring at his own limbs hanging beside him. How was he still alive? Why was he alive?

“Why? What are are you doing to me?!” He sniffled, feeling returning to his body, the pain setting in unlike anything he’d ever felt.

His head yanked back exposing his throat. The sound of nasal breathing and then a cold swipe across his throat. There wasn’t time to panic. When he tried to open his mouth again it was filled with blood, then he felt the warmth on his chest. His head flopped forward and he watched the blood drain from his throat, trickle down his chest and genitals splashing into a bucket below him. The back of the large man walking out of the room.

The room slowly went dark again.