Short Stories

Hear the Pain

I walk into my house after a long day at work.  Life hasn't been easy lately.  No, it hasn't.

A couple of months ago, the king was captured.  No one knows what has happened to him.  All we know is that a woman, who wants everyone to call her the Empress, captured the king and has seized control of the kingdom.  No one knows for certain if these things are true.  The Empress told us these things.  She says that she will give the kingdom back to the king when she gets what she is looking for.  The Empress never specified what she is looking for.  All we know is that everyday she takes someone and tortures them to find what she is looking for.

Recently, the Empress has been taking people from near where I live.  Everyone is scared that they are going to be next.  I'm scared, too.  My best friend was taken last week.  I wasn't given the chance to say good bye to her.  We had been friends since we were toddlers.  She's the reason that o decided to not leave the city like the rest of my family.  Now that she is gone, I want to leave the city, but the Empress has forbidden anyone from leaving where they currently lived. 

I walk off to bed without eating dinner.  Ever since my friend's death, I haven't been able to eat.  If I didn't need the money, I wouldn't even show up to work in the mornings. 

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I groan. 

The moment that I open my eyes, I close them against the blinding light.  I move to sit up from my bed to find that I am already sat up straight.  That is not the only thing that I realize, though.  I realize that my arms are pulled up by chains and legs are being pulled down by some more chains.  My feet can't touch the cold, stone ground.  My body is being stretched to the point where it is almost painful. 

A shiver runs down my spine from the coolness of the cement against my back. 

Wait...cement?  Against my back?  That shouldn't be possible.  My shirt...my shirt!  It isn't on me!    There is no clothes on me!

How did I get here?  What is happening?

"No," I say, shaking my head.  "No, no, no, no, no!"

"Yes," says a woman's voice.  "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." 

My head snaps to where the sound is coming from.

In a comer of the room, a woman stands.  I hadn't noticed her yet.  She was so still that she made no noise. 

"Who who are you?"  I ask.

Smack!

My head moves so fast from the strength of her slap.  The side of my face begins to throb.  Even though I can't see it, I know that there is a red hand mark on my cheek.  I begin to move me hand to touch my cheek, but I am met with the chains keeping my hands in place.

"Idiot girl," says the woman.  "How do you not know who am ?"

I meet her question with silence.  I honestly don't know who she is, and I don't want to be slapped again.

"I am the Empress, stupid girl!" the woman says.

Oooooooooh, I say mentally. In reality, I just give the woman a blank face.

The woman growls and moves back to the corner that she can from. She bends down to grab a knife that was lying on the floor.  She then walks back to me.

The Empress screams as she swings her arm.  She stabs the knife into my right eye.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The pain is blinding.  For a moment, i don't feel anything.  Not my arms, my hands, my feel, my legs, my torso.  Nothing, just the pain in my eye.

I start to gain feeling in the other parts of my body, but they feel numb in comparison to what my eye is experiencing.

The Empress doesn't stop there. No, she doesn't. I wish that she did, though. Oh how much I wish that she did.

She pulls the knife out of my right eye and thrusts it into my left eye.

I scream. And I scream, and I scream, and I scream.

I scream until my throat is raw. Even when my voice is gone, I still scream. It is a little like being in a nightmare where I am trying to say something, but nothing will come out of my mouth. It is much worse than that. Much, much worse than that.

Even though I am not projecting any sound, it still sounds like I am screaming. I can hear the pain. I can hear it.

The Empress drags the knife out of my eye. I can taste the rustiness of the blood running from my broken eyes, down my face, and into my mouth.

"Maybe now you will behave," says the Empress.

I cry in response.

"Where is the map?" she whispers into my ear. "Where is it?"

I cry some more.

"If you don't tell me, I will cut off your hand," she says.

"I don't know where the map is," I say with tears streaming down my face.

"No? You won't tell me? Then I guess that I'll take your hand away."

"No!" I scream. "Please don't! I don't know what map you are talking about! Just please leave me be!"

"You tell lies," the Empress whispers in my ear.

She drives the knife through my left wrist. The knife cuts through skin, muscle, bone, bone marrow, more bone, more muscle, and more skin. My arm drops to my side and I hear my severed hand flop onto the floor.

The pain is too agonizing. I can't hear it when the Empress asks me again where the map is. I don't hear her when she threatens to chop off my other hand.

All I can experience is the pain as it becomes worse when she takes off my other hand. The pain as my weak body falls forward. The pain as both of my ankles break since they are still held in place by the chains. The pain of my nose breaking from hitting ground. The pain of my skull from the impact of my fall.

I slowly start to lose consciousness.

"I guess you won't need these anymore," says the Empress. She cuts off both of my feet. At this point, I can't even feel the pain. There is already so much pain that just adding some more doesn't seem to be doing anything off. She could probably cut off my head, and I wouldn't feel more pain.

The last thing that I hear is the Empress' cackle.

Darkness consumes me.

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A/N Hello humans! I'm back! Well, kind of. This is a one in four part thing-a-ma-bober, but I don't know when the other three will be put up. It may be a couple of hours, a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of months, or a couple of eternities. So no promises.

One thing that I got to say, I don't know if some of these things could actually happen. I don't know if a person can still produce tears after being stabbed in both eyes. I don't know, so don't believe that it is true.

I'm sorry that it isn't as long as the other two stories in this book. In all fairness, it a four part series.

Well, I hope that you all enjoyed reading this! Thanks for reading!

Until next time (if there is one.  There probably will be one)! ;)

~saaraisme