Faithless

The time has come...

Her breath comes out in small clouds in the frigid air. What little light that exists in the small, dark room reflects off of her warm vaporous breath enough to see that. She doesn't know how long she's been in here, but it's felt like hours. She doesn't know how she got here's either. When she woke up it was just as cold and dark. She is lying on the ground with her hands bound behind he back and her ankles tied together. Screaming was a task she gave up quite a while ago; same goes for struggling. She came to the assumption that the room was soundproofed due to the fact that she hadn't heard so much as a footstep outside the whole time she's been awake. The door clicks and her eyes shoot wide open. She hears the door unlock with the turn of a key. Slowly it opens. The sound of metal on metal makes her shudder. It seems the door is very heavy. Light pours into the dark room, blinding her unprepared eyes. Once her eyes adjust, she sees two men. Both of them wear worn-out burlap masks. One man, obviously the brawn of the duo, picks her up and slings her over his shoulder. They walk down corridor after corridor. They all look the same; old, damp concrete with a door every so often. Then they turn down a corridor with lots of doors on each side. Some are open, and she can see inside them as they walk past the doors. She wants to close her eyes, but she's too scared to. In one room she sees someone strapped a chair. Another person, with a mask similar to the two men with her, is cutting off pieces of their skin, putting salt in the wound, and slapping the skin back on. This is only one of the many gruesome things she sees. Suddenly they stop in front of a door. There is no doubt in her mind that this door is for her. In the room there is a very large variety of tools and weapons galore. They strap her down in the chair forcefully. Once she is secured, they leave. Unlike in her previous room, she can faintly hear scream of people being tortured. She tries to get out of the chair, but fails miserably. Her head slumps over in defeat. More dead time passes. More screams ring through the corridor. She stares at the locked door, waiting to hear the fatal click of a key unlocking it. Her expression is blank and distant. Finally, with a click no doubt, the door opens and in walks another man with the mask on. She stiffens as he saunters by the table. He picks up a jar of assorted hooks. He tilts his head up a bit. She follows his gaze to the area above her head. Lots of chains hang from the ceiling. Not little necklace chains, but thick, heavy duty chains. She looks back to him, her eyes wide. He strolls over towards her and begins connecting larger hooks to the chains - one industrial hook per chain. He doesn't rush this task; instead he seems to do it a little extra slow. Nervous sweat beads up on her forehead. Finally, he finishes his task and runs his hands through the chains. The man wheels over a small surgical table and sets the jar on it. The remaining hook sin the jar make small metallic noises as they bump together. Then he grabs a hooked chain and slowly pulls it down towards her. She follows the hook with her eyes. Her breath quickens with every bit closer it gets. He brings it low enough to touch her and slowly drags it across her skin. The cold metal makes her shiver a bit. The hook is lifted off her skin. The man is just standing over her with the hook in his hand. He steps behind her, and his breathing gets heavy. She tries to look behind her to see what me might do, but she can't turn enough to see anything. He quickly grabs a chunk of her shoulder skin in his hand and shoves the hook through it. She screams out from the sudden rush of pain. At this point he starts moving at a normal pace. Grabbing skin then shoving in another hook. It is now her screams that echo through the corridor for new victims to hear. He has put a total of ten hooks through her when he finishes; one in each shoulder, each upper arm, each forearm, one through the palm of each hand, and one each side of her mid back - for support. Tears stream down her face. The man walks over to a panel of buttons on the wall and presses one. Gears creak and grind into motion above her. The man walks over and unstraps her from the chair. She tries to flail, but any movement proves excruciating. The chains start pulling her up, causing a new melody of screams. Small streams of blood flow down her body. Once she is completely hoisted and not touching the ground, the man presses the button to stop the machine. He then walks back to the big table and collects a couple of things. Returning to his small table, he places his new possessions down for her to see. A fresh wave of fear rushes over her when she sees him set down a scalpel and a jar of cockroaches. She tries to beg for mercy, but she is so out of breath she can barely get out two or three words. The man, still in total silence, picks up the scalpel and slowly waves it in front of her face. Tears continue to stream down her face. He gently drags the blunt side of the scalpel's blade down from her cheek to the center of her blouse collar and give it a little pressure - not enough to cut her. Then he lets up on the pressure and drags the scalpel down to the next button under her bosom. From there he begins the cut every button off down to the last button on the blouse. He pushes the two sides away from her midsection. Her breath quickens as he places the blade jus below her sternum. With great precision, that man makes an incision from that point to a bit below her belly button. She tries not to scream out, but this attempt is in vain. The incision is only skin deep; there was no penetration into the muscle tissue. He pulls over the jar of hooks, takes out some smaller hooks, and lays them nearly in a line. One at a time, he puts the hooks in her skin along each side of the incision. He then pulls the hooks away from the incision, so as to open the wound more. Her screams are bloodcurdling. There the woman hangs with ten industrial hooks holding her up and eight small hooks prying open her skin. Her face is stained with tears and her throat is sore from screaming. The man opens the jar of cockroaches. He leans into her and whispers softly with a thick German tone, "Tell me my dear. Have you any faith left?" After a moment of silence, he puts the opening of the jar against her exposed muscle. It's an odd, tickling pain. Then the man pulls out a lighter. A flick of the thumb and a small flame sprouts from the top. He hovers it under the glass jar of cockroaches. The heat causes them to become restless. To escape it the insects burrow into the woman. The pain this causes cannot be explained in words. Her screams overpower any sound you will ever hear. For a moment the rest of the corridor was silent. In all the time any of them had been there, they'd never heard agony like this. Although it only lasts about five minutes, it seems like an eternity to her. In the end, she graciously grasps the hand of death.