It All Came Falling Down

ten

    The teenage boy I saw sitting and bleeding on the chair: I knew him. Only moments before, I watched in horror as Dewa Valslian aimed her rifle at him in his own home. It was Hero’s brother. The trapdoor he went down earlier must have been a secret escape route, but he was captured before he could successfully flee.
    The kid’s brown eyes, although surrounded by dark circles and bruises, sparkled with recognition. He definitely remembered who I was.
    “I am so sorry,” I whispered to him. “I am so, so sorry. I do not want to do this.”
    I was biting my bottom lip in grief as Lieutenant Truxin spoke again. “The first thing we’re going to do is what I prefer to call ‘The Skinning.’ Think about a hunter removing the hide from his kill. Be gentle now, and slide the blade into his thigh to cut a small piece of his skin off. You get the idea.”
    Tears were flooding my eyes, waiting to pour over my eyelids like a dam was broken. Swallowing hard and finally finding the guts to do it, I lowered the combat knife to the boy’s exposed thigh. With the sharpened blade angled and ready to slice, I pushed diagonally, allowing the blade to dig into the epidermis. The kid held his breath and bit his lip in pain, more sweat dripping from his forehead.
    The lieutenant laughed and shook his head at the sight of the poor teenager. “Usually, I’d say go for the balls and slice his testicles out, but he’ll bleed out before long. Where’s the fun in that?” he joked. I glared at him, my hands shaking but not enough to disrupt the current position of the knife. “What are you looking at, Corporal?” he asked. “Make the bastard scream!”
    Trembling, I pushed the knife forward, cutting beneath the dermis and the sides of the surface, slicing off a large chunk of skin by disconnecting it with the flesh.
    “Arghhh!” Hero’s brother screamed.
    “Very good! Now, why don’t you tell me where there are Resistance fighters hiding? And this can all stop.” Truxin said obnoxiously.
    “Fuck... argh… you!” the kid muttered between deep breaths.
    “Oh! Fuck me? How hard huh?” the lieutenant mocked. “You know what? I got a little something for you. It’s hard, alright. You’ll love it;” Truxin hurried to a nearby carpentry table and picked up a handsaw. “Here, Corporal,” he shoved it into my hand. “What do you think? Should we do the toes or the fingers? No, no! Why don’t you do the whole foot?”
    Nodding reluctantly, I lowered myself into the floor with the saw. “God have mercy on you,” I whispered. “This won’t last forever. Please forgive me.”
    “Get. It. Over. With,” the boy said through gritted teeth. With that, I positioned the handsaw at his right ankle and began the push and pull cycle, sending the tool deep into skin and flesh until there was contact with the joint. I kept going, grinding the hard bones and cartilage and tendons.
    “Ahhh! Ughhh! Arghhh!” He let out ear-splitting cries, unable to bear the pain. But I kept sawing until I held his right foot completely isolated from the rest of his body with parts of bone protruding from the centre. Blood shot out without any chance of clotting. Puddles of crimson red quickly formed around him, and my uniform was doused with an excessive amount. 
    “I won’t... say anything. Tell... Hero I love her,” he spoke softly in groans, bearing as best as he can. 
    “What? What did he say? Something about a hero?”
    “He said he won’t say anything and die as a hero,” I covered for the kid. I was shaking and at that moment, I lost the will to live. I wanted this to all end. I had a knife; couldn’t I just end it all, with a swift blade to the throat? But I turned my attention to Hero’s brother who, by then, already had a fading pulse, increasingly shallow breaths, and a slowing heart. Then, he was dead from exsanguination. “He’s— he’s...” I gasped.
    “Give me my knife,” Lieutenant Truxin demanded in nonchalance. Before I could hand it to him, he had already gripped it by the bloody blade, likely cutting himself in the process. He readjusted it so that he could hold it by its handle. Sticking it into the teenager’s neck, he slit his throat open. At last, he stabbed the weapon into the victim’s abdomen and dragged to the sides aggressively, shoving his stomach open. With his bare hands, he tore the gash wider and allowed the intestines to tumble out and hit the floor. “You can go now, Corporal,” he finally said, waving me off.
    Ignoring the fact that my stomach churned and my head hurt, I took off running into the night. Blood was still dripping from my sloppy uniform— blood from that poor and innocent boy, who lost a bright future because of me. Who suffered immense pain instead of joy because of me! Who was loved and cared for, but I so cruelly took away his life! But the least I can say is that he died a martyr to his dear cause.
    Tears poured like rain in a thunderstorm, but I simply wiped them with my dirty sleeve, completely not caring nor slowing down. I ran and ran, my boots stomping loudly on the cobblestone street until I had reached the small house where I found only some happiness earlier.
    Pushing open the door that was broken from today’s breaching, I entered and shut it again behind me. “Hero! Hero!” I cried in tears and sniffles and sobbing. “Hero! Please!” My face wrinkled up in utter grief, and I fell to my knees. Blood from my soaked uniform dripped onto the house floor. 
    “Yes?” came an answer. Hero appeared at the top of the stairs. Appalled by the sight of me, she dashed down. “Oh my gosh! What happened? Kanston, what the hell happened?”
    “Something bad,” I cried through quick, uneven breaths. “Something really, really bad!”
    “What?” Hero asked worriedly. She bent down and stared me straight in the eyes. “Calm down, Kanston, and tell me what happened.”
    “Hero… Hero… your— your brother is gone. He’s— he’s dead!”