Chapter 10

The door creaked open and the switch was thrown. Light filled the underground room. Another soft click and the tape was stopped, the voices disappearing. The figure on the table blinked in surprise at the light and lack of noise, the quiet was more disturbing now than the voices. They had become friendly and familiar, even if the words were evil and bloody. The voices meant that she was alone and that no one would hurt her. She was safe with them. When they stopped was when she felt terror.

She no longer hurt. Her body had gotten to the point where the pain felt... right. The absence of pain would be strange now and absurdly unwelcome. Her feet and hands had turned black days ago from the circulation being cut off, she could no longer walk. Her body had been used in every way that her captor could possibly think of, horrible ways that would have been degrading and shameful if she still felt those things.

She no longer remembered what outside felt like, what the sun looked like. Those words were foreign to her now. Day and night were terms that were distant memories. She knew light or darkness, no shades of dusk or tints of dawn. She couldn't think of what the wind was or how it felt against her skin. The only air she got was the stale air that was thinly circulated by fans. Trees, flowers, animals, those things were gone to her, gone like her innocence. Gone like her belief of heaven because she survived in hell.

She wasn't concerned with her nudity any longer. Any femininity had been stripped of her, any beauty she had once possessed taken violently. She was skin and bones, breasts flattened by starvation and deprivation. She was glad for it, ugliness would mean lack of desire on the part of her captor.

She probably wouldn't be able to recognize her own face. She doubted anyone else would either. She had been beaten terribly, bones broken and never set, starting to heal in ways that were grotesque and disfiguring. She had only three whole teeth left in her mouth, the rest were either completely gone or broken, her lips shredded against the ruined, fractured stubs. Punishment and abuse were the constants in her life. That and terror.

Her body had been viciously torn by objects used to rape her in ways too horrible to remember. She had been sodomized so violently that she had been sick for days afterwards. Any defiance or will had long since been taken from her by means too foul to think of without completely losing what little was left of her mind.

She still knew her name. He called her by it in saccharine tones, expecting her to do as she was told, even when it was physically impossible. The other didn't use her name. He only called her bitch, or whore, or other words that hurt as much as blows, cuts and burns did. She had lost one nipple to the other, the Knife, as he called himself. He had pulled her hair out in rage, spittle flying in her face from his screams and threats. He had lost himself to that fury, his fists flying in blows that broke bones and tore flesh.

She had thought that she would die that day and had faced disappointment greater than anything she had ever felt when she hadn't. She had tried to push him into killing her that day, had tried to fuel the rage that the knife brought despite the immense amount of pain. She just wanted it over, the battle of wills had been won, she had been defeated. But he had left her, returning later, once more in control of himself, to wash her wounds with care and kind words that only made losing worse.

She looked at her captor dully now, not caring what he thought or what he wanted, only remembering in a way that was strangely detached that she was the victim in this. Tonight he looked different, tonight he was dressed in black from head to toe. Her abused mind processed the fact and she knew it was almost over. If there had been any moisture left in her broken, dehydrated body, she would have wept for joy.

He was speaking to her but she had long ago forgotten how to hear or to care if she did. She felt him hit her hard enough to turn her head, felt her lip split again and she left it there, not interested in looking at him. She longed for the feel of the blade against her skin, puncturing, driving deep into a heart that no longer wanted to beat. She was defeated.

He cut through her ties, she couldn't feel it. He sat her up and she slumped bonelessly, only staying in that position because he held her there. Her head was bowed, chin hanging against her chest. What little was left of her stringy hair fell into her face and around her shoulders. He propped her up, holding her with one hand against her malnourished body. With the other he took the picture. The picture that he would label when he got back. The picture that would have only one word on it.

AFTER.