Mara the Wicked (A "Dead Seed" story)

Ten: It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses an Eye

Not long after Aimeric told Mara to pick one, a man was screaming. The sound echoed off the walls of the dungeon as she broke every one of his fingers. The girl that Aimeric had taken from the cage was screaming and crying along with him, yelling "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

While Mara tortured the man Aimeric held the sobbing woman, stroking her hair and cooing softly in her ear as if to calm her down — as if he cared, as if to comfort her. His words, however, weren't so reassuring.

"This is your fault," he was saying in a soothing tone. "You shouldn't have tried to escape. This poor man's blood is on your hands, my darling."

"No, I didn't mean to—"

"Tell that to him." Aimeric nodded at Mara and she placed her hands on either side of the man's face, pushing her thumbs into his eyes and gouging them. The man screamed louder than when she broke his fingers. Blood pooled over his eyes and dribbled down his cheeks.

"Please," the girl gasped, "let him go. H- ... h-hurt me instead." Her arms shook as she said the words, clearly hesitant about what she was asking.

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't do that. We can't go scarring this beautiful skin of yours." Aimeric ran his finger along the woman's arms and kissed her shoulder. She tried to jerk away from him, but he pulled her back against his chest.

The man that Mara played with was hanging from the wall in chains next to the surviving woman from before. The dead man before him had been removed from the same chains and thrown to the side of the room to be cleaned up later.

Eyes gouged and fingers broken, the man moaned in pain now instead of screaming. His body shook, his breaths came in the form of painful shudders. A puddle of urine was between his feet on the floor. He was completely blind now and so didn't see the horror that waited for him next.

Mara picked up a medieval tool that had a metal claw gripper on one end.

"Please, he's had enough, I'll never run again!"

Mara looked over her shoulder at Aimeric. "I don't believe her."

"Nor do I." Aimeric grinned down at the woman.

Placing the claw over the right side of the man's chest, Mara clamped it down over his nipple, the sharp ends of the claws piercing through his flesh. He cried out again, shaking his head violently.

"Please! No! Just kill me, please—" His words were cut off, taken over by the shrillest scream yet when Mara pulled on the device, ripping part of his chest off. Blood splattered to the floor. Dripping flesh hung from the claws.

Mara picked a piece off and licked the blood from it as if it were chocolate on a candy wrapper.

Looking around the room, she saw the prisoners covering their eyes and ears, trying to drown out the sounds of the screaming. The woman still chained to the wall from earlier had thrown up on herself and was squeezing her eyes shut and crying softly. The man on the table was doing the same.

"Do you see what you've done?" Aimeric was saying to the woman in his arms. He walked her over to stand in front of the blind, bleeding, and broken man. He was groaning and crying, his fingers were swollen, his eyes still bleeding, and now the patch of missing skin on his chest, blood painting his body. Mara tossed the claw to the ground and then stood beside the man, running her finger up his torso, scooping up some of the blood that was pouring from his wound and licking it off her finger while Aimeric scolded the woman.

"This poor man is suffering because of you."

"No." The woman shook her head. "I didn't do this to him!"