Treason

He gasped, eyes white, and staring up. Open all the way, and then some, and yet, unseeing. All he could see was what he felt. The pain. Red. Brands across his skin. Burning. Every time they tore off another piece, every time they took away another part of him, it was as if the pain of all of them was born anew. When he moved his hands, moved any limb, the cuts stretched and burned. The sewers smelled of rust and dust, and he could hear clanging in the corridors. They had not taken him to a different room, had not taken him far away. It had to be here, it had to be in front of the others. The pain did not occupy his day and night, and yet it did. He was not in pain all the time. But he was always thinking of it. He could smell the sewage, it had become a part of their existence. The smell, and seeing it surfing through on the small waves and currents that had become the rivers and tributaries of this place over time. Forgotten, abandoned. Until they got here.

Gasp. Eyes rolled up, another one. They were being extra cruel today. When they were done, he ran his fingers through the cracks on his arm, and the burn on his hand. He winced as he felt the ridges, he sighed as he felt the bump. It hurt when he felt them, but it had become a habit. Something that had started out as taking stock of his injuries as if the pain would let him forget them, had now turned into muscle memory, his fingers drawn towards the fresh victims on his skin, as his mind trembled in shock, and then burned with pain. The arm felt rough, like sandpaper, skin no longer smooth, but stretched, taunting his thirty two year old body, not with the signs of age, not yet, but with the signs of abuse. Some of the older ones had started to stop closing. This was where they would remain, wounds, tattoos on his skin. He guessed that was poetic justice. He had left marks on the necks of his victims, now his former compatriots would leave marks on his. The burn mark, where one of them had left a cigarette, just to add to the abuse, icing on the cake, felt like a mountain. He closed his eyes. He never looked at them. That was his rule. Never looked at them. To see his broken skin would break his spirit. It would escape through the cracks, haunted by the terror.

It had been three days since he had tried to rally the others against Adam. For leading him here. Adam had spoken to him on the first night, when it felt that the people were starting to listen. He said he would sleep on it. He woke the next day, and began anew. It had been two days since Adam’s lieutenants, a former guard and one former prisoner had grabbed him by the shoulders, tied him up, brought a chair, forced him on it, and began their work. It had been two days since his torture began, one in earnest as both men earnestly got into it. It felt like years. He felt like he had aged a decade. His body roughshod and raw, his legs asleep as the blood flow to them began to slow, his clothes drenched in his own sweat, piss, shit, blood, and pain.