The Unwritten

The Unwritten Part 1 - Tom

The woman moved forward quickly in the dim light toward me. All I could see, was her. Thin, disheveled, dirty, her hair was wild, as were her eyes. Shivers ran their course from my neck to my bare feet. My back was cold and naked against a hard cold surface and my head hurt.

"I want to learn to love you best of all," she said, "and that's just easier..." she moved very close to my face, smiled an oddly polite smile, then added through her clenched teeth, "...if you're dead." 

I broke outright into a cold sweat, straining against my bonds. I could feel rough hemp rope holding fast, digging into my flesh. Though my head was swimming clarity was slowly returning.

'What did she say?' Delirium slowly faded as the room came better into focus.

"Hmmm..." she hummed deliciously as she laid her finger along my neck, lightly pulling it down to my shoulder to my arm. She tickled my ear in an irritating, almost loving manner.

I shivered again, involuntarily. Light from the kitchen window was too bright for my listless eyes.

Something sharp poked my ribs on my right side and I heard her giggle softly. I could smell...what? Something burning. Bacon? Agony exploded into my body from a spigot of sensation that had been turned wide open. Pain overwhelmed me, hurting in my shoulder as the agonizing pain passed from ribcage to and through that large junction of nerves on its way to my brain.

Why was she torturing me? Why, in God's name? Who the Hell is she? Where was I?

Excruciating pain silenced any questions I may have had, along with that of my deep resounding scream as a blade, heated to glowing, slipped its way between two ribs, cooling on my flesh as it entered, cooking it, sloughing off any fat cells it found along the way.

She pushed the tip of the knife in just far enough to cause pain; but hopefully not too far so as to damage any internal organs. I felt blood splashing out onto my torso. She might have nicked a vein, or worse.

Then, I passed out.

I woke hours later, most likely. The bleeding must have stopped, I was stuck to the surface I was laying on. The sun was going down. There was a moistness to the late afternoon room. The blade must have cauterized the wound as I hadn't yet bled to death. Otherwise, I wouldn't be alive to think about it. I seemed to be alive, anyway. I moved my hand and could feel the rope, the smooth table top beneath me.

I was on an old, cheap kitchen table. Its stability felt, tenuous, like the thread of life still within me. The room was something out of an old Americana tale of hillbillies and feuds, horrors untold and as yet unwritten.

Why was I here? How did I get here? I couldn't seem to remember. What was my name? The last thing I remembered. I searched my mind but there was nothing. My entire existence seemingly began in this room.

That wasn't true, surely. I heard a scuffling outside the door and froze. Someone was walking away.

Trying to pull my senses together, I looked around the room from my horizontal position there on the table. I was helpless, flat on my back, my shirt was off, my pants were on, shoes and socks gone. My feet were cold, hanging over the edge, my feet dangling, my flesh chilled.

There was an old fashioned wood cooking stove off to one side, but no fire. I could see through the kitchen window above the sink with what looked like cheap crinoline drapes that were too small for the window.

I couldn't see anything but sky and the tops of some trees, beyond. Sunset was approaching. There was a red glow to the horizon in the distance that I could just make out over the top of the curtains.