The mass amount of blood pouring from my body was what caused me to faint.
It only lasted for a moment, like blinking in slow motion while the world continued on in real time.
The heat welled up in my body and my eyes shot back open, realizing I was being dragged through the snow with my arms extended. My skin was red from the cold, my nerves feeling the burn that lit up my body like a Christmas tree.
Tears welled in my eyes, my skin burned so bad.
I barely managed to look down far enough to see his hand clenching what was left of my leg, the bony fingers pressing so hard it punctured my skin. I wasn't shocked nor scared, but the extra blood I figured didn't help my condition. The sight made me sick and my head fell back towards the ground, too weak to keep it lifted any longer.
My eyes drifted to the sky above me, which stayed an ocean blue despite all of the blood already shed. I could die before the night is over, and it would be blue again tomorrow.
The smooth surface of the snow he was dragging me over hit the rocks of our driveway, and suddenly the sky mattered much less. On a bittersweet note, the numbness from the cold had spared me the pain of being dragged over the sharp rocks, and although that was a relief to me I knew that it would only hurt once I could feel again.
With a heavy grunt the skeleton dragged me all the way back to the front entrance, where he pushed opened the doors with a heavy creak. He turned back to me and I quickly shut my eyes to pretend that I was asleep, only to feel a sharp pain through my arm as he yanked me in. I collapsed on the ground with a thud, and tried to hide the fact that I was in pain, keeping my eyes shut in hopes that he would walk away.
But I knew that he knew. This creature wasn't going to be fooled by me.
He was hovering over me, and I could feel the tense energy between the two of us while he waited for me to make a move, or do anything at all.
It was extremely difficult to keep character while fighting death. But part of me knew that he wouldn't hurt me anymore today whether I was asleep or awake.
So I opened my eyes. I looked into the red, and it glared back with a satisfied hunger. His smile grew, and even if I felt he wouldn't hurt me, it was still really unnerving.
His pupil flickered back and forth between the fireplace, like he was trying to figure out what to say and how to say it. Smiling like my fear brought him joy. Which it probably did.
Though only a fool would look a creature like that directly in the eye, I decided to anyways. I mean I guess he could kill me, but I'm already dying.
"Ya wanna know how to keep a bird around without it flying away?" He asked, grabbing a piece of wood by the fireplace.
I knew what he was doing. He was trying to scare me, but I figured I might as well speak up the if I already knew the answer to his question.
"That's simple." I replied faintly, not realizing until then how weak I actually was. "You clip its wings."
"Heh." His grin sent shivers down my spine as his the black in his pupil shrunk to almost nothing. "Guess you're right."
He clenched the slice of burning wood and shuffled over. And then I realized he wasn't going to let me die.
He was going to cauterize the wound. He was going to let me suffer.
Why was that not what I wanted? Wouldn't anyone be grateful to live?
I looked at the wood in a small panic, and tears started to well in my eyes.
"N-No. Please don't spare me." I pleaded. "Just end my misery here, I don't want to suffer like this, without legs."
The red eye gazed down at me, his smile seeming more menacing than it did a few seconds ago.
"Yeah? And what's the fun in that?" He tapped the burning wood repeatedly, looking down at the bloody mess of my legs.
It was then I realized he was sparing me because I was his prey, and that I would only suffer later on. Like a cat that teases its prey before it strikes, except a much longer and slower process. And I hated the thought of that.
If he wouldn't end my misery, I would.
The tapping stopped, and I looked up to see him frozen in place, the only thing moving being his pupil as they followed my eyes.
It was still like this for a moment, then suddenly he lunged downwards and pinned me to the ground and forced the wood onto the ends of my legs, the burning causing my nerves to scream back at me to tell me they were being fried, and I screamed out.
I screamed for him to stop, but he didn't pull the wood away until the blood stopped coming out.
It was even worse with the other leg, because I knew how much it would hurt before he even touched it. My legs felt like they were being boiled in hot oil and there wasn't anything I could do but scream and clench the sleeve of his jacket. I wasn't even trying to get away, but pleading that I either die or find a way to endure the pain.
When he pulled the firewood away it felt just as painful if not worse than before. I clenched his sleeve until it was wadding up in my fingers and I weakly tried to shake him with tears in my eyes.
"P-Please.. just let me die." I seemed to mouth the words but there was no sound, only shaky sobs. For the first time he seemed unamused by what I was saying and yanked me off of the ground. He tossed me over his shoulders and I beat my fists against his back, my screams getting louder.
I begged and screamed for him to kill me as he barreled up the stairs, searching each room until he found one to his liking. It was an empty storage room, just one of the rooms in our large house that had nothing but a single window and chair covered in a plastic sheet. He quickly tossed me to the ground, locked the windows and ripped the sheet away. It took me a few moments to realize he was trying to keep me from offing myself, and once he didn't see anything else that would be of use to me he slammed the door shut and a residual clicking noise followed, meaning he locked the doors.
I looked down at the burnt ends of my legs, around the empty room, and the tears began to pour out. I sobbed. I wanted to fly away, I wanted to to go where he wouldn't be able to hurt me.
Instead I ended up feeling just like the raven from earlier, wounded and pinned by the cleaver to the tree with no hope.
I knew then that like the raven, I wouldn't be able to fly away from this. I wouldn't be free for a very long time.
