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th13rteen hours
UNDER THE SKIN
By Terryll Preston
I like to watch. It is…a small diversion of mine. To watch is to know. To know is to understand. And to understand is the key…the key to everything. You see; I like to watch people. All kinds of people, in truth. Mothers, fathers, their children, policemen, teachers, nurses, doctors; everyone has their own sense of self – their own…uniqueness. The smallest facets and quirks that lie buried in the depths of their minds they think no one notices. Those are the things that I see. Everything that no one else cares to perceive. Those are the wonderfully, intricate fixations that push me – drive me – to watch people until, that is, such observation is no longer enough. That is when the desire to touch, the desire to…taste what I have learned becomes too much for me to bear. Which is why you are here before me now...
As I watch you struggle in that chair.
I can feel your fear.
I can see the terror in your eyes.
Even now, the primal instinct for survival overcomes your senses.
An excellent response.
Now, let us see what happens when I introduce this knife into our little experiment.
Yes, the fear of seeing your own blood burns in your eyes.
You are terrified, are you not?
Good.
These first few hours have been marvelous, my dear.
But the last thirteen, those shall truly be the best.
And remember, I
will always be there…watching you…
The First Hour…
The bright, horrible illumination from the fixtures overhead burned into her eyes relentlessly. All around, there were voices. Ceaseless in their chatter, they faded in and out; screams and shouts, meandering banter, faceless conversation on cellphones, all of it was excruciatingly loud in her ears. She gripped the linen bedsheets tightly in her hands, knuckles taut and white on their backs. Her body shook nervously, each sound around her bringing a startled jump from her weary and drained form. The noise, all of that wonderful noise, she was grateful for. It brought an overwhelming sense of comfort to her. Even the light glaring over her head, harsh and sterile as it was, filled her with more joy than she thought she was capable of. A place so full of people, a place so full of life and light, was something she thought that she would never see again. Not after…him.
I can feel your fear.
Her heart leaped. Those words, those terrible words uttered to her by that demented maniac who had abducted her and held her prisoner. He had tortured her, teased her, hurt her in more ways than her body showed. Which was worse? The physical scars or the mental ones? His words. Those horrible, horrible words that he had used. They had…enticed her. They were so…calm, inviting…almost…seductive to her ears. Like secret whispers in the dark. They had been the only things that she could hear. He had made sure that they were the only things that she could hear. The dark room he had kept her in was sealed from all outside sound. His words, powerful and gentle, never forced or raised to a scream. Calm and always under his uncanny control. That was all that echoed in her ears. That was all that echoed in her mind. And they held such…power within them. Over and over. Day and night. She had been forced to listen to the sickness he spewed to her; words of twisted depravity that left deep gouges across the surface of her tormented mind. They had disgusted her. They had aroused her. Besides her own whimpering, her own muffled pleas that had been held back by a filthy gag, his words had been the only sounds allowed to touch her ears. Why could she not shake his cruel voice from her mind? Why did she long to hear them again?
An excellent response.
The knife. A flash of silver in the dark. A dull glint of a muted reflection that forced her to relive her unchained terror. He had hurt her with it. He had loved her with it. His words, they had bathed the pain with pleasure; blurred the line between rationality and insanity. The blade, that sharp and cold blade, had sunk deeply into her skin; slowly tracing a path of blood and neatly cleaved flesh as he whispered soothing words of passion into her ears. The pain had been unbearable. The pleasure had been indescribable. Bound and gagged, she feared for her life. Bound and gagged, she craved even more. As layers of her flesh were peeled meticulously from her body strip by agonizing strip, so was the lie that she had been living for most of her life. The truth of herself that she had tried for so very long to deny was grotesquely bared before her eyes in neat, bloody ribbons of expertly removed skin. From her body! How long had she screamed into that foul-smelling gag that blocked her mouth? How long did she moan in ecstasy afterward? She was sickened by what she had felt, but all the same wished to feel it again. She hated herself. She hated the people who had found her. She hated him for leaving her. He had lavished her with promises of pain, raped her completely of the dignity that someone of her position should never be robbed of and stripped the very flesh from her body. He had opened her eyes to a new world, someplace that she would never be able to find again; a world of ecstatic agony that she ached to dwell in for as long as she could. But she would never be able to reach it. Not without him.
But the last thirteen, those shall truly be the best…
Rachel Shelby screamed. And screamed and screamed. She did not allow herself to stop until the nurses and doctors ran to her bedside in an attempt to sedate her. But she did not make it easy for them, kicking and slapping at every hand that came near her. Yet somewhere deep inside of her, Rachel wanted them to be rough with her. She longed for them to pin her to the bed. The thought excited her. The thought called out to her. His voice called out to her. Finally, they managed to hold her down long enough to push the needle-full of clear liquid into the exposed vein on her arm. And even then, she could not stop herself. Her conscious mind, the center of her reason and logic, had snapped. She screamed until the twisted, euphoric feeling of whatever they had injected her with washed over her. The seconds stretched into minutes. The minutes…stopped. Everything dulled, and then swirled with blurry tracers whenever she shifted her eyes from one object to the next. Her voice faltered in her ears, the noises that had once caressed her so coarsely now hazy and half-remembered in her fading mind. The muscles in her hands relaxed and her death-grip on the clean hospital whites of one of the nurses surrounding her slackened, then slipped. She was floating away from all around her. She was drifting away to a place free of that nightmarish voice. She was drifting away to someplace where he could not touch her, where he could not torment her. A place that she did not want to go to.
And remember, I
will always be there…watching you...
12 : 01 : 35
This story will follow the journey of a single character thirteen hours removed from a horrifying, mind-bending abduction at the hands of a disturbed man ‘who likes to watch’. He tortures his victims, whispers words of poison to them and then…let’s them go. It’s all an experiment to him, something that allows him to ‘watch’ their reactions to the world around them now that they have been freed. Is that all, though? Or is there more to this madman than meets the eye?
Guess you will have to keep reading if you want to find out…
Thank you for your time,
Terryll Preston, still2twisted of FictionPress fame…