That’s only the start.
I smile. The sight of his silent struggle is a masterpiece of agony. Biological betrayal. Now for the final touch.
I pick up the heavy, noise-canceling headphones and the silk-lined, light-proof blindfold. Without another word. I slide the headphones over his ears. The external world vanishes for him. Replaced by a deafening, amplified thud of his own heart.
Then I secure the blindfold. Total darkness. Absolute isolation. He is trapped inside the fortress of his own skull now. He can’t see the blade I’m holding. He can’t hear my footsteps. He has no idea where the next touch will come from. Or how long the silence will last.
Inside this void, his mind will begin to invent terrors far worse than anything I could do.
I stand back, watching his chest heave in a frantic panic. Thanks to the stabilizers, his heart holds steady. He is now a prisoner of his own heightened biology.
I pick up a single crow feather from the tray. I don’t need anything sharp yet. In this state, even a feather will feel like a searing brand. The silence is absolute. Heavy. A suffocating blanket that swallows his frantic gasps. It’s fascinating to watch the transition. He’s no longer fighting the chair. He’s fighting the void.
His head falls back. Then jerks forward. Searching for a horizon that no longer exists. I’ve replaced his reality with a chemical cage.
I bring the feather to his throat. The moment the soft barbs graze his skin, he convulses. To a normal man, it’s a tickle. To him, with the substance running inside his veins, it’s a line of liquid fire.
He can’t even hear the sound of his own agony. The same way women aren’t heard when fuckers like him abuse them.
After a long while of tormenting him with the feather, I slide one headphone slightly back from his ear. I know my voice will explode like thunder in his ears when I finally choose to speak.
“Can you feel it?”
I whisper, watching his entire body flinch at the mere vibration of my breath.
“The way your own skin has turned against you? You’re a prisoner here, and I’m the only one who has the key.”
Then I slide the headphone back into place. Next I drag the ice cube down his sternum. He reacts as if I’m carving him open.
I test a few more objects. A Wartenberg wheel. A burst of high voltage. Hot wax from a candle.
His mind finally begins to fracture. This is the sensory crossover. Hallucinations born from a brain. Desperately trying to make sense of a lightless, soundless world of pain.
Inside the darkness of his skull, the boundaries of his body begin to dissolve. He can no longer feel the chair beneath him. He feels like he’s floating in a sea of static and broken glass.
Because he can’t see the ice, his brain interprets the cold as searing. Because he can’t hear his own gasps, he starts to hear things that aren’t real. The only sound covering the room is him choking on the blood still pouring from his mouth.
He starts to see “phosphenes.” Shattered geometric patterns of neon light exploding behind his eyelids with every touch I inflict. He’s no longer in my apartment. He’s lost in a kaleidoscope of agony.
I watch his lips move. A silent, desperate prayer to a world that no longer exists.
“Don’t leave me yet,” I whisper, even though I know he can’t hear me.
“We’ve only just begun to see what you’re made of.”
For me, it feels quick. For him, it feels endless. In reality, nearly five hours have passed.
The room is silent. I move with clinical precision. But then, the rhythm changes. His arching spine begins to sag. The frantic, jagged gasps that had been his only language, soften into a shallow, hollow rattle.
“Stay with me,” I growl.
His head lolls to the side. Unresponsive. He has lost a great amount of blood and the hallucinations are winning. In his mind, the darkness finally turns from a cage into a sanctuary. I see it in a way his jaw relaxes.
The Anchor is still pumping. Forcing his heart to keep its beat. Retreating. Artificial. He is drowning in the shallow end of his own consciousness.
I take the blade and press the cold steel against his cheek. He doesn’t flinch. The chemicals still make his skin scream. But there’s nobody left inside to hear it.
I watch his chest rise one last time. Then it settles into a terrifyingly slow cadence. The light under the blindfold has gone out. The end is a visceral collision of chemical force and cold finality.
