Harvest Bible Penitentiary

Torchlight Terror

As they were herded into the church a spotlight flared to life above the stage illuminating a man chained to a steel beam hung above a pile of old wood. He took his seat and waited for the demonstration to begin. The man on stage was named Jaden Kirby, not that his name mattered anymore. Jaden's crime, it was said, was that of excessive pride and infidelity. Whether that was true or not did not matter for even here he was hated by all around him and it gave every attendant joy to see the wounds in his flesh and bruises on his face.

All at once the room grew silent as three men in crimson red suits of armor carrying metal staves walked on stage. The men formed a triangle around the post and touched their staves to the tinder setting it ablaze. The dry timber was instantly enveloped and fed upon by the holy flame in all her destructive majesty. As she gorged herself upon the splintered arboreal corpses she turned her attention towards the poor fool suspended from the iron slab above her. Now her majesty had laid herself out in a way as to not directly harm her helpless captive but merely torture him with her heat. Such was her way, the holy flame preferring to drag out the suffering of her sinners rather than mercifully reduce them to ash. She would leave that to the burn unit.

The men in their protective suits stepped right through the flames, metal rods glowing in their hands. The first man raised his stick and brought it down on the knees of Jaden Kirby and he let out a cry so shrill and piercing that even the prison overseers flinched, all except Behnken who's grin only widened. With each strike of the iron rod the flames appeared to grow even higher, their soft crackle rising to a deafening roar. The event broke many men that night, some broke down in tears, some begged for their absent mothers, some went mad and began dancing around the pyre. A chant arose from the crowd "Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood!" The madmen cried the last of their sanity stripped away by the burning queen and her holy wrath. For nearly two hours the beatings would continue until Jaden finally lay there broken, beaten, and unconscious, but sadly for him not dead.