Day #11, Next Morning – by Amber Averay
He wanted to surrender to the darkness calling for him, leaving all his pains and miseries behind. He’d already tried – God knew he had – but she wouldn’t let him. Every time he began to sink into oblivion she would wrench him back, singing that song as if it were as sweet and comforting as a lullaby.
He’d long ago quit chanting ‘this isn’t real’ – the bruises, lesions, swellings spangling his body assured him it most certainly was real; as did the blood trickling across the floor in gory, meandering ribbons.
It hurt to breathe. Every inch of his body was agony, even the rapid throbbing of his heart nothing but a torturous pulsing beat that only served to remind him he was still conscious.
Tears blurring his eyes left him blind, distorting shapes already manipulated by shadows and hurts.
All night he’d been at her mercy. From the moment he’d pushed open the door, inviting that sinisterly tinkling laughter to reveal its source, he had been her prisoner.
Pain lanced through his hips as the toe of her steel-capped boot connected with bones suddenly beneath flesh too shallow to offer any protective padding. ‘Please,’ he mumbled, bloodied saliva drooling from numb, immobile lips, ‘just kill me.’
That laugh – that damnable laugh! – crackled from somewhere behind him, and she must have crouched over him for her voice was now skin-crawlingly close. ‘Death is no fun,’ she whispered, giggling as the tip of her knife traced a lazy path over the discoloured skin of his shoulder. ‘This is to show you my way is more effective – and far more satisfying.’ She brushed fingers over his face, gently sweeping sweat-soaked hair from his puffy, swollen eyes. ‘A slow, beautifully prolonged punishment is far preferable to a brief lesson taught.’ Bony fingertips pressed into his skull, a wordless warning. ‘Do you see that now?’
He nodded. It wasn’t enough.
The pressure increased, and she pushed his head into the floor – the sweat-speckled, blood-soaked, saliva-streaked floor. ‘If I’d killed you the moment you walked through the door, where would be the satisfaction? The gratifying pay-off after a slow build-up comes with a protracted revenge. If it’s over too quickly, your readers will feel ripped-off. After making them part of the hunt, they want to share the pain inflicted upon the killer when he gets what’s coming to him.’
Pink saliva bubbled from Stu’s mouth, and he blubbered through numb lips, ‘But why me? I haven’t killed anyone.’
Lara – his character somehow come to life – hunkered down on hands and knees, heedless of the bodily fluids in which he stewed, and brushed her lips against his ear. It would have been intimate were it not so terrifying. ‘Liar,’ she whispered, teeth nipping his earlobe. He whimpered. ‘You killed my boyfriend.’
‘No,’ he moaned, snot and tears leaking from his battered face. ‘No, that was just a story.’
‘That was my life!’ she screamed, slamming the tip of the blade into the floorboards beside his head. He winced, unable to stop his pitiful sobbing – or the opening of his bladder. The acrid smell of urine churned his stomach, but it seemed to calm her somewhat. She gathered herself, wrenching the knife up and waving it in the air above him. When next she spoke it was calmly, sanely, as if they discussed last night’s events over a cup of tea. ‘Now do you see what I’ve been trying to tell you? Do you?’
He nodded, cheek sliding over the slick flooring.
‘Say it.’
‘I understand,’ he whispered.
‘Good boy,’ she crooned, her touch a feather-light caress upon his forehead. ‘Sometimes, Stu, you need to live something before you can write about it. And sometimes,’ and here her voice hardened, ‘circumstances are so wicked that nobody survives the pain.’
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