Even the pleasure men and women that passed through here were a blend of featureless faces.
I hung onto nothing as I tried to survive this place.
At first I thought about my family to keep my mind sane and grounded.
But that quickly dissipated when I realized I would never leave this place alive.
So I did the only thing I could—I detached.
This wasn’t happening tome. It was happening to someone else.
But that only worked for so long.
Until something—like the dig of the blade against my ribs—pulled me back into my own mind.
I panted against the pain, desperate for, yet dreading, a reprieve.
Because, while this pain would end, it would only be temporary.
And tomorrow would only bring new horrors.
The man in the black robes lifted the knife from my skin and blood began to sluice down my side, mixing with the other rivulets from the hundreds of cuts that littered my torso and arms. The table beneath me was wet with it, and when I was finally released from my bonds, my back would be covered in a thick coating of my own blood, sticky and congealing.
The man gazed at my body, pressing various points and occasionally prying open a wound that was beginning to heal. That hurt arguably worse than the initial slice; it burned as he pulled each piece of skin apart, sometimes forcing the cut open further than its original length.
I focused my gaze on the light orb directly above my table, desperately willing my mind to disassociate again.
Just as the man found another space to slice open, the door opened with a bang, and the booming voice of Lord d’Refan broke through.
“Clean up and enter your observations into each subject’s journal. Bring them back to their cells. No further sessionstoday.” His voice was clipped, but there was a slight manic tinge of excitement beneath it all. “Once you are finished, you are to meet me in the study.”
The door slammed again, and a different soundtrack of noises began.
Instruments of torture were placed on metal trays and moved to the back, where they were cleaned and sanitized. Leather belts were released, and tables groaned as subjects shifted their weight to roll off and onto the floor—distinctthumpsaccompanied that part.
The tangy metallic smell of blood and nearly painful astringent scent of the disinfectants floated through the space, the smell nearly strong enough to make me gag.
The man in the black robes released my leather straps with a hurried efficiency, his paper-rough, cold hands pushing at my back until I unceremoniously rolled off the table and collapsed on the floor with a groan.
My warm and sticky back met the cool air of the room, and I shivered as I pushed up to my knees and, finally, to my feet.
“Come, come. We must move quick today,” he croaked as I pushed my sweat-soaked hair out of my eyes.
“Shower?” I rasped through my dry and abused throat.
“No,” he clipped, and I closed my eyes on a sigh.
Of course not.
I shuffled slowly behind the man, falling into line with the other subjects as we were led out of the torture room and through the door at the back, into the dimly lit space that functioned as our “home.”
It was really more like a prison.
We were kept in separate cells, unable to touch each other fully—only enough to grasp hands or arms through the metal squares of our cages.
None of us really wanted to touch, anyway.
In each cell was a bed of straw and a blanket in one corner, with a chamber pot in the other. It was primitive and barbaric.
