A Pirate's Life For Me

Motive and Understanding

It doesn't seem to end.

Eventually, I figured out that the drug simply enhances all nerves and senses but dulls sight, clouds the mind and depth perception. It's all fear- and startle-based, really, which is much simpler than I'd expected, and along with simplicity it is extremely effective. It seems easy to beat, right? Just focus, and you'll get over it. Except that you can't focus, it's physically impossible, and everyone else in the room is working against you.

The whip screams through the air and snaps in front of me, probably quite a few feet ahead, but I flinch from the sudden movement happening directly in front of my nose.

Rosalette laughs, her shrill voice echoing throughout the room, snapping the whip again, and again, and again, following the same routine that she's done for the last day.

Has it been a day?

Another thing the drug does; disrupts sense of time and space.

"I think that's enough for now," Shorty says sharply, suddenly, scaring me half out of my wits as I snap my head to the side, finding him sitting quietly in the corner in a chair, legs crossed, trench-coat flung to each side, exposing his gray turtleneck for the first time. My vision blurs, but when it clears, his face is inches from mine.

I jerk back.

He smiles. "Are you enjoying yourself, Mr. Jewell?"

I scowl at him. "Sure, oh yes, I'm having so much fun."

His head tilts to the side, eyes roving up and down over my face, smile widening. "That makes two of us."

He stands before I can register his words.

"Mr. Jewell, I have come to tell you why you are here."

Everything in the room stops, except for Shorty himself. He starts to pace.

"My name is Dr. Icas Stone. Your name is Oliver Aramis Caspian Jewell. I am here to find information. You are here to give it to me. Do I make myself clear?"

Rosalette snaps the whip again to punctuate his statement.

"Yeah, yeah," I mutter, highly unsettled. "Crystal."

"Mr. Jewell, I have saved you from almost certain death in the hopes that you will cooperate with me in my quest. I hold much power in the king's court, and I can assure you that I will be able to spare you. All you have to do, and I'm sure you will, is tell me about Stimm."

I'm not quite sure I've heard him right.

"You said Stimm? As in, the island? As in, the small, insignificant little mound of rock and illegal activities?"

His jaw twitches, but he crouches down in front of me, eying my flinch hungrily. "Yes."

I swallow. This is a little bit strange. "Well, what about it?"

"Anything at all."

O...kay?

"Um, it's called Stimm, two 'm's. Named after some pirate who founded the place. The capital is called Glats, it's..." He's hanging onto my every word, eyes locking back and forth between mine. I shift slightly, clear my throat. "It's the biggest town on the island? It's one of the only towns on the island. The island itself is owned by you guys, last I checked. You don't really check up on it, though, um..."

He stares at me for a moment before realizing that I'm done. "That's it? That's all you've got? I save you from the government, and all you can tell me is the backstory of the island?"

He stands, angry. "Worthless."

Pain ignites in a blaze across my back.

The echoes of my screams have me flinching away from the walls, tears streaming down my cheeks from the fire of agony inside my skin, as my back throbs again and again and again as if she's raining the whip across my shoulders again and again and again and again and—

She's not.

It's just in my head.

It only feels like she's continuing her torment, only feels like my skin is being ripped from my body and tearing my muscles into thousands of scraps of paper igniting into flames as the pain grows and slowly, slowly, fades.

"Maybe I forgot to mention that this drug will amplify your pain," Shorty Dr. Stone growls, bending down in my face, winding his fingers through my hair to lift my head to his level. "I suggest you cooperate."

"What-what do you want to know?" I yelp, pain spiraling downward from his nails against my scalp to the nerves inside my brain. "I-I don't know what—"

Another thrash.

"I DON'T KNOW!" I cry out again, arching my back to escape the whip behind me, my skin stretching and tearing from the sudden movement and suddenly I'm crying again.

"I want to know about the treasure, Mr. Jewell," the doctor says through gritted teeth. "The treasure buried on Stimm Island."

"The-the treasure?" I pant, buying myself time as my mind swirls, lost in the pain. "I-I know...I know about the t-treasure."

"Do you," he muses, bending down again, the same hungry look entering his eyes as his leather clad fingers grip my chin. "Pray tell."

"I-It's not there anymore."

The room echoes with my screams.