Pain,Pain,Go Away

009

Chapter 9: Let There Be Love

My sister, with the pretext of having "ignored her" for not making eye contact when we passed in the hallway, dragged me by the hair to my room, opened the door, and shoved me in.

Enduring the pain in my elbow after being severely thrown into the hard floor, I looked up and saw the delinquents my sister brought along, joyfully shouting vulgar things at me.

The room had a sour smell, like a dump full of beer bottles and empty cans. I tried to run, but as I turned my heel, a droopy-eyed man missing front teeth kicked my shin, and I fell flat. They cackled.

Then began the usual festivities. I was to be their toy.

One filled a glass with whiskey to the brim and told me to drink it down straight. Naturally, I had no right to refuse, so I reluctantly reached for the glass.

Then a woman wearing so much perfume as to smell like a bug- infested plant proclaimed that time was up and winked at a man beside her. The man held my arms behind my back and forced my mouth open. The woman poured the whiskey in.

I knew from prior experience that if I stubbornly refused to drink this, a worse punishment would await. So I gave in, and gulped down the whiskey in my mouth.

I desperately tried to keep from howling from the burning sensation in my throat and the peculiar smell like mixing medicine, barrels, and wheat. The crowd jeered.

Somehow, I drank the entirety of the glass. Within ten seconds, I

felt severe nausea. Everything from my throat to my stomach burned, and my senses were muddled and spun, as if someone was grabbing hold of my head and shaking.

I was one step from acute alcohol poisoning. I heard an ominous noise nearby. "Okay, time for a second!" The woman pushed the glass in front of my face.

I already lacked the energy to run, and the hands binding me wouldn't be shaken off no matter how much I resisted. The whiskey was poured in, and I began coughing horribly in the midst of it.

"Disgusting," the man holding me said, releasing my arms and pushing me away. Having lost my sense of balance, I felt like I'd fly up to the ceiling and stick to it, but in reality only fell flat on the floor.

I crawled toward the door desperate to somehow escape, but someone grabbed my ankle and pulled me back.

My sister squatted next to me and said, "If you can last an hour without throwing up, I'll let you go." I was about to shake my head, knowing there was no possible way, but before I could, she punched me in the stomach. She hadn't even intended to give me the chance.

I found myself puking up on the spot, and the crowd cheered.

A short and stout woman announced that I would be punished for losing the game, took out a taser, and turned it on.

The firecracker-like sparking sound made me cower. I knew the amount of pain it could induce far better than she did.

Immediately, she put the electrode to my neck, and a shriek that I couldn't imagine was my own came out my throat.

Finding it funny, she applied it in many other places, aiming for areas with thin skin. Again. And again. And again. And again.

As if to fill the gaps between the pains being inflicted upon me, the alcohol brought back more nausea. When I threw up again, the crowd booed, and I suffered a particularly long tasering for it.

And yet I didn't feel any suffering. That kind of thing wasn't enough to "undo."

Familiarity is a scary thing; I had become able to make it through such agony.