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Whispers
Posted By: CoLd BlooDed<broken_lizard12@hotmail.com>
Date: 13 August 2005, 7:26 am
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White-hot pain tore through the Private's shoulder with the intensity of a sharp blade which inevitably triggered his stifled mix of sobbing and screaming. The pain didn't stop there, but instead continued to push forward through his veins, his body, his distressed soul—the flesh had undeniably begun to blister, crack and run, pushing his severe discomfort to dangerous heights. His eyeballs rotated wildly within their sockets, searching for any shred of light that so may guide his way out of wherever the hell he was; but it was of no use, for he knew that long before, when the torture had first started, that he had been blinded—temporarily or permanently—with a small blade that had undoubtedly rested in a fire for an indefinite amount of time. An abnormally long shudder passed through his body as the cruel thought passed through his mind. Or was that the effect of the bitter cold that the room seemed to possess? The Private didn't know, for the sense of touch had abandoned him along with his sight. If this loss of body functions was permanent, he could not tell. The funny thing, in a malicious, ironic way, however, happened to be the fact that he had not yet seen or heard his captors, for they had stayed hidden in the stationary shadows that seemed to overflow within the room when committing to his torture.
A parched whisper emanated from his cracked, trembling lips; nearly inaudible.
"Why are you… d-doing this to…" the last word was drowned out by an unexpected fit of raucous laughter—someone that the victim of torture had not detected beforehand. The cruel wheezing cackle depicted a crude sketch of the stranger in the Private's mind: an individual with several chipped teeth exposed beneath his deranged smile; flared nostrils that demonstrated his sick amusement along with his squinted, red eyes. It was to the broken soldiers silent dismay, however, that he may never come to realize what the stranger looked like.
Suddenly, after the laughter died and was replaced by an unusually loud ringing, a low, rasping growl emitted from beyond the Private's sightless eyes; a voice that clearly portrayed what this person enjoyed doing to people under his mercy. It's hard to believe I haven't seen them since I was captured, the victim managed to pull together an unbroken thought in spite of his weakened state of mind, I can't remember anything prior to the blackout.
The victim eagerly waited for his captor to speak, and, after what seemed like a severely painful eternity, a hoarse tone drifted towards his bleeding ears.
"Yer finally awake, ar' yeh?" the voice sent a shock through him, rendering him nearly incapable of thought or understandable speech—it was human; or, at least, as far as the Private could tell. "I thought yeh was gone aft'r the last… round." A terrible, wavering screech reverberated within the soldier's faltering ears; he winced. The noise was unfamiliar at first, until he realized that the screech was another roaring fit of seemingly insane laughter.
A confused grunt was all that escaped from the victim who had felt like he endured decades of torture. How could they do this to him? How could they've done this to anyone? Another uncontrolled burst of misery from the Private was cut short by the torturer's grating voice.
"Yeh prob'ly ar' still drugged, yeh know; I would n' move if I were yeh, yeh li'l fuck."
Feeling threatened, the Private tried to move, but found himself restrained against something hard, something made of a metallic alloy—a steel table, perhaps, with wrist- and ankle-manacles? In other circumstances, he would've laughed at the cliché; but not now, not anymore… he wondered if he'd ever laugh again, ever feel emotion other than depression, fear, and a horrible sense of anxiety.
Unfortunately for him, his frail struggle to free himself brought on another brutal case of abusive amusement that seemed to slither inside his skull and rip apart what was left of the contents. The pain was horrible. Kill me. Just kill me now.
"D' yeh have 'n' idea where yeh ar'?" the stranger asked, a tinge of merciless pleasure lined his thick accent. When the Private didn't answer, the man screamed at him, "Well, do yeh!"
The intensity of the shout happened to be all it took for the victim to cringe and sob, he shook his head fiercely, as if shaking his throbbing head faster would cease the stranger's yelling.
"Yeh don't? How could n' yeh? Yer ship was tak'n by the rebels¾boarded, tuh be precise. Yeh were one 'f the lucky ones tuh escape," the Private could feel the man's eyes boring into him, tearing him apart, cutting into his already lashed, seared, bleeding skin. A ship? No. He didn't come in on a… well, maybe-was it true? Nothing was certain anymore. And what was this about the rebels?
"A… a ship?" he whispered hoarsely; the taste of blood had long ago occupied his mouth and had yet to leave.
"Yeah, yeh moth'rfucker, a cruiser! One of 'em big ones. Eith'r ONI or the U-N-S-C…" the last letter was nothing short of being an obnoxious hiss; "The United Nation Scum-eatin' Cock-suckers is what I call 'em."
"What… what does this have to do with me?" another whisper that seemed completely disembodied, separate from his own tone.
"Well, that's not a very sens'ble quest'n, is it?" the stranger asked angrily; it appeared he hated the UNSC with a strong, cruel passion. "Yeh gotta ask yerself why yeh'd be in here, boy… there ain't much thinkin' tuh do 'bout that one. I mean, yer only aff'liat'd with the fuckin' enemy!"
"But the Covenant… what…of them?" this question which the Private had deemed sensible earned him a quick cuff to the middle of his face; there was muffled crack!, a jolt of blistering pain, and a trickle of blood—the bone within his nose was now another shattered casualty in his body.
"Don't taunt me, yeh son of a bitch. Yeh know fuckin' well why yeh're—"
There was a sudden, unanticipated pounding from beyond the rooms walls; a stern, yet alarmed, voice sounded immediately after the abnormally loud banging stopped.
"Hey, we've got trouble!"
The Private could hear the man accompanying him stand from wherever he was sitting, shuffle forcefully towards the origin of the banging, and presumably slide open a heavy, metal door.
"What the fuck do yeh want?"
"A whole bunch of the captives broke out of their cells and are raising hell down in the lower halls!"
There was stunned silence, where the restrained victim could only hear a slight buzzing sound and the heavy breathing of the two unseen men. The calm was broken by the stranger whom the Private had been best 'acquainted' to.
"I'm guessin' yeh want me down there?"
"Right away."
"Gotcha, lemme grab my gun."
There was a heavy abundance of footsteps, the clacking of a weapon, and, as the door was closing, the captor spoke in a playful tone.
"Don't yeh go anywhere! I ain't done with yeh."
The door shut loudly, and the last thing the Private remembered before slipping into a deep, nightmarish sleep was the wild laughter that seemed to make his body throb and ache with every second it rung hollowly in his ears.
This is not a wound that scabs, dries, flakes and heals,
The pain is innermost, the agony within!
Don't fear death, yours or theirs, don't be afraid to bleed,
Desire the pain of payment, be carried in all of your regrets!
Seize your chance when the time grows near,
When the chains are gone and the man has turned,
Express the twisted anguish, suffering, and sorrow,
That you've had to endure, had to bear insufferably.
Justice is swift, quick, and thorough;
Don't stop until the flesh no longer leaks the warm, flowing crimson,
Don't stop until the bone is splintered,
Don't stop until the screams die and the twitching begins.
The Private awoke with a start, shuddering at the impure images of disfigured corpses that flashed through his mind like a terrible, flickering slideshow; the words echoed in devilish whispers throughout his mind for several moments before lingering away into the depths of tarnished memory. The shock of the strange nightmare was quickly replaced by the fact that his eyes had somehow managed to pick up their intended purpose—they rolled aimlessly in the dark, but no longer in vain; his pupils replaced the steely green of his iris' in the attempt to absorb as much light as possible.
Monotonous, mechanical voices breathed muffled words over announcement speakers that were undoubtedly located somewhere outside the room he was restrained in, the room which he now did his best to survey in the darkness, the darkness which he now suddenly felt completely overwhelming. There had to be a light switch somewhere, something that would evaporate the sudden sensation of claustrophobia that seemed to be violently choking him. His head swiveled quickly on his shoulders, searching for any possible source of—
Vvvvzzzzzzzz…
The sound of electricity, of mechanical-whirring, suddenly became the majority of noise in the room. It slowly grew in pitch and force, ensuing in an electrical snap; the cell in which the Private was confined abruptly filled with a peculiarly vivid white light. He could now see his surroundings: the crude tiled walls stained with a combination of dried, cracking green mildew and thick, coagulated crimson blood; old, brown pipes that were inexorably covered in a bulk of flaking rust; and the gore-splattered metal table that he had been bounded against in two pairs of circular braces, each one connected to his awkwardly bent wrists and ankles. The Private suddenly found himself wishing that the darkness would envelope him once again so he wouldn't have to witness the horror that seemed to have revealed itself all too quickly.
Footsteps—a heavy thudding din could be heard reverberating outside the only burnished object inside the room, the metal door, which lacked the common grime and anonymous filth that the rest of the walls apparently saturated in. The steps ceased beyond the shining sliding entranceway, and the only current occupant of the torturing room awaited the loud clamor that the door would undoubtedly make upon opening. However, the anticipation did not pay off immediately; there was an indirect pause where the victim strained to hear whatever was going on outside the doorway which lay several feet from the table he lay upon.
Voices—a silent reverberation that just seemed to fall short of his eardrums. He craned his neck into an inept position and held his breathe so the abundance of unwanted noise became momentarily diminished. Staring intently at the door in an obsessive gaze, he could finally hear whoever was beyond the exterior of the room.
"…right now as in at this moment, you idiot." an unheard voice could just barely be perceived.
"But—"
"And there's to be no arguing. He isn't your responsibility, you know; we're to listen to orders, and if you dare to disobey them, we'll both—"
Someone in a control room, far from the location in which the Private was situated, chose this exact moment to announce that all the crew members of 'Nine-Tails' were to wait because their deep-space flight had been postponed due to the undeniable fact that enemy forces were predicted to be within the sector; and thus drowned out the last pair of words. However, the response from the other conversationalist was indisputably clear.
"Yeh, yeh, I getcha, sir," the Private gulped, a tight knot appeared to have knit itself within his throat and began slowly descending towards his gut—he wasn't looking forward to meeting the captor again, the intentionally cruel interrogator. A string of confused, irresolute thoughts passed through his gradually recovering mind; should he feign unconsciousness? Should he somehow demonstrate that he was no longer afraid of death? Or should he just give in to the will of the heavily-accented stranger? In a frantic determination to select the wisest choice, the Private accepted the former and collapsed against the uncomfortable table, closing his eyes and choosing the most natural way for his body to become limp, to adapt to the slight slant of the worn metal slab without looking irregular.
"If you take up any more time, I'll do it myself and report you to Governor Jiles."
"I said that I'd do it!"
And with that, the mild screech that the Private familiarized with the sound of the door opening faded just as quickly as it had started. An unmeasured quantity of footsteps rebounded off the chipped tiles and through the restrained soldiers ears, encouraging him to lie as still as possible and attempt to observe the captor through squinted eyelids. Doing so slowly to ensure that his lifeless façade wasn't discovered by the deep-voiced drawling character.
Slightly obscured by a group of eyelashes, the man seemed to disappear for moments and then pop back into view. The heavy breathing brought on by the stranger, which the Private could now feel against his face, came to a wheezing halt as the dark, grating voice spoke to his allegedly comatose form.
"Still out, eh? Well, let's hope that yeh that way…" in a flurry of unexpected motion, the captor brought his knuckles down, and hard, on the Private's stomach; the taste of bile and blood suddenly welled up in his arid throat—it took all his innermost strength and nerve to not cry out or begin gasping for breath. Saliva began dripping from his lips as the harsh pain relentlessly swept through his abdominal area and chest. His breaths, against all concentration and hope, became short and staggered; but to his relief he saw that the mentally-tormented stranger had turned to inspect a transparent object with his back turned, smiling.
The soldier let out a gasp for breath, trying to conceal it from the other occupant as best as he could, and returned to focusing on what the man was up to. The thing in his hand happened to be cylindrical and as long as the palm of the interrogator, and on one end of the tube was a sharp, skinny—
A needle.
The Private's mind began to race, trying to whip up schemes which would free him from this torment, from these restraints, but his plagued mind could come up with nothing, and therefore he decided to lay still and wait for his opportunity. The man faced the tortured soldier once more, stepping closer towards the table and stooping down, examining him, boring into him with his cold, hard eyes. The frozen, breathless Private gulped, hoping that some kind of miracle would save him—and save him soon—when the horrible satanic whispers from his dreams impulsively erupted in his mind, flashing like a dark, vicious poem written by Lucifer himself. They spoke to him in a way that somehow calmed his very soul, his mind, and his body.
…This is not a wound that scabs, dries, flakes and heals,
The pain is innermost, the agony within…
The poetic stanza faded from within his skull, altering from a loud, fluid incantation to a soft, echoing murmur that caused the intact flesh on the rear of his neck to prickle. However, the words gave a rather supernatural impression upon his erratic thoughts and heart rate, causing each to pacify significantly.
Feeling the glint of light reflected from liquid within the syringe, the Private unknowingly smirked, his mind elsewhere. The verse continued in a concentrated fashion that thoughts could never fulfill, never be as clear or precise.
…Don't fear death, yours or theirs, don't be afraid to bleed,
Desire the pain of payment, be carried in all of your regrets…
The torturer was upon him, poking at his wrists confidently like a cat playing with a ball of yarn, searching for the correct vein to implant whatever poison or drug was within the small, glass vial.
There was a confused grunt, and then a string of barely audible curses. He spoke to the Private without the expectation of a response.
"Yeh're lucky, yeh know that? Ther' is only one vein that this shit can be d'posit'd in, 'n' it seems that that one is block'd off by 'em shackles…" he sighed sarcastically, then chuckled lightly, "Yeh'd prob'ly be wishin' yeh was awake right 'bout now."
Another blow to the stomach came, but this time the sting subsided quicker and the Private did not have to sum up his strength to avoid a painful outburst. Instead, he lay perfectly still and absorbed the punishment.
Then, without warning, the braces that his wrists were encased in suddenly unlocked themselves and burst open, leaving the circulation to return to his hands which had now begun to tingle in an oddly painful sensation.
…Seize your chance when the time grows near,
When the chains are gone and the man has turned,…
When the expected needle did not immediately surge into his bloodstream and pump the vile fluid into his veins, the Private opened his eyes, sat straight, looked up from where the bonds had been, and met the surprised gaze of the torturer, the interrogator, the captor, the subjugator, who had been preoccupied ridding the air bubbles of the syringe's contents. The victimized soldier breathed violently, speaking in a remarkable hiss; a fiendish whisper.
"I… am awake!"
The stranger, who now happened to be at the end of the table where the Private's legs were situated, looked rather stunned and bemused on what to do. The answer soon became clear, however, when the captives hands were tightly enclosed around the neck of the man who now attempted to fend him off with one fist and the needle.
The bright colorless illumination cast by the overhead lights shone boldly through the transparent glass syringe—as it was raised—and into the eye of the soldier who was still restrained to the table by the ankles. This sudden twinkle of light caught the Private's attention, who in turn released the deadly grip from the strangers neck and grabbed both fists of his opponent, attempting to get control of the needle at the same time he was trying to avoid getting a direct punch to his already broken nose.
…Express the twisted anguish, suffering, and sorrow,
That you've had to endure, had to bear insufferably…
These words fueled him, and, after several moments of frantic arm wrestling, the needle dropped to the table between his bounded legs. Both men scrambled for it, pushing each other away as far as possible in the hopes of retrieving the syringe for themselves, but in the end the torturer committed himself to perform the sucker punch that would send the Private reeling backwards and quickly thrust the needle into his wrist after hastily recovering it. The victim of severe affliction screamed, clutching at the punctured flesh that had now let a wide stream of blood course down his arm. The needle fell limply by his side.
Equally pleased and exhausted, the captor stumbled backwards into a section of wall that had previously been smashed with something capable of removing tiles, his face remained stationary and completely devoid of motion.
The Private winced as fire routed through his veins, his arteries, blazing with a pain so hot that it was a wonder how he was staying conscious… that was, until, the flames seemed to die down and fade away. At first, he stopped writhing, then began to wonder what the hell was happening; he sat back up, grinning mockingly at the man opposite of his form.
"It's not my time. Not yet," the Private breathed, making an effort to distract the interrogator as he grasped for the needle, "No, no, no, no. It's your time. Not mine!"
With a final torrent of energy, the soldier hastily readied the needle in a throwing position as he would with a combat knife, basking in the mans perplexed expression, and, as the enemy dashed towards him, he let the syringe—which was considerably larger up-close—soar from his trembling fingers and penetrate the jugular of the stranger.
Whether it was the Private's lucky day, or the man had terrible vision and could not tell where or what he was aiming for, the impact of the glass needle created unbalance in the captors stature; he staggered backwards in a rapid pace and fell back against a series of black buttons that lined the wall near the door.
It took a heartbeat to realize what had happened—the soldier glanced down at his ankles which had now, against all odds, been miraculously freed from their metal binds.
"Shit!" the stranger bellowed after comprehending what he had just done.
Without a moments delay, the Private jumped to his feet, laughing as he approached the fallen body of his captor; blood splotches lined his cracked teeth.
"No… no!"
But it was too late, the recently victimized soldier grabbed the syringe from his collapsed enemies throat with the devilish whispers ringing brashly within his mind.
…Justice is swift, quick, and thorough;
Don't stop until the flesh no longer leaks the warm, flowing crimson,
Don't stop until the bone is splintered,
Don't stop until the screams die and the twitching begins.
Following the orders given by his own personal mentality, he brought the needle down on all aspects of his opponents face; he successfully ripped away at the pasty-white flesh, punctured the bloodshot eyes, tore the wheezing throat and covered his quivering hands in the blood that reeked of sweet, delicious vengeance. A cruel laugh sounded off somewhere in the midst of the room, and it was some time before the Private found out it, to some degree of satisfaction, that it was his own.
Sometime later, whether it was seconds, minutes, or hours—he wasn't sure, all time had been lost after he escaped the cell which he had been confined in for God knows how long—the Private found himself stumbling down access halls and empty corridors, thinking to himself; or, at least, trying to think… his thoughts had become progressively muddled and slurred.
Jolting awake powerfully as his shoulder slammed into a concrete wall, the dazed soldier wondered if the sudden decline in both mental and physical stability was contributed by the adrenaline-crash or the dark, cobalt liquid from the syringe. Muttering a silent prayer that it wasn't the former, he quickly ducked into another corridor at the sound of nearby footsteps, nearly tripping himself.
"Security Teammmmal pha, please report to detain eea rea, cell eighteen… eighteen… eighteeeeeeen—there's bee nan outbreak," the unexpected announcement seemed to swirl around in his mind, the words smearing together beyond his ears, "Alloth er guards… guards, beon thel ookout foran escaped prisonerrrrr, believed to be in corridors C-3 to C-12; use force if necessARY!"
The Private clutched at his skull, screaming and writhing, contorting his body with sudden twists and turns, as the voice erupted ferociously in his mind; he fell to his knees and slumped, nearly unconscious, onto a cold, rough wall.
It's the drug! It's the drug! It's the drug! his mind shrieked wildly, completely out of his control, Do something! Quick! Do something! Run away! Hide! Blend in with your surroundingggggggsssss…
The footsteps had returned again, cutting off his string of irrational thoughts, but he was too fatigued to stand again—all feeling to his legs had been abruptly halted. The sound steadily grew closer, and closer, and closer…
"Well, well, well—look whooooo we got…got… here… here!" another voice—or thought, he could no longer distinguish between the two—echoed unnaturally, inhumanly, in his ears. The Private's directed his gaze upwards, which seemed to take an eternity as colors and sounds and smells whirled around his body, and came face to face, eye to eye, with a man clad in an unrecognizable uniform, brandishing some sort of sharp, metal baton that formed a current of electricity on the tip.
"Help… help me!" the runaway captive pleaded, falling flat on his nose.
"No can do, buddy; I got my orders."
A pain that felt as if it came from very far away ebbed its route through his collapsed form, a pain that, in other circumstances, would've been very real indeed. It repeated itself, and a warm sensation washed over him and his mind, calming him. A cruel laughter slashed through his mind as the guard's club persistently came down upon his skull, his arms, his spine, and his legs.
Blackness engulfed the Private, and it was after the uniformed sentry extracted his knife and thrust it between his eyes when he felt true, meaningful bliss.
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