The pain brings me back, and I blink, opening my eyes. Agony has long since seeped into my body, my bones, my very being. Every torn piece of flesh, burn mark or carefully carved wound inflicted upon me throbs unceasingly, radiating an aura of suffering.

  It's a good thing I'm numb to it by now. Numb to everything.

  "She was out 2 minutes flat this time. Tenacious bitch is finally starting to break down. Bit like my old piece of shit Lada. Abuse anything enough and the cracks start showing." Frank mumbles. The psychotic bastard keeps a journal, often speaking into a little recording device then chuckling darkly, especially when he's playing, as he calls it.

  I stare up at the ceiling. It's blood red, hazy and swirling. My vision swims and my eyes fog over. To me the ceiling is red. Crimson. Scarlet. Even though I know it's not, to me it is. It's a hellish red pit of pulsating scarlet, a small chamber of hell, with Frank playing the part of the devil.

  Even were my hands not bound to the bedpost with a length of coarse old rope biting into my bloodied wrists, I wouldn't have been able to move much in my current state. The dried, caked blood is everywhere, on the bed and on the ropes around my wrists. If I was not in such a sorry state, I'd have tried to kill him, maybe bite his neck. Can't do that now though, the ropes are too tight and my body is too weak. I'm fading...

  I swear to God, if I ever get a chance Frank. You're a dead man.

  In one filthy corner of the small dark room, a very old nearly antediluvian, gunked up square television blares loudly, taunting me with its pale blue light flickering into the black gloom. The news anchors haven't stopped reporting on the missing 33 year old woman. Every single day for a fucking month the useless idiots blabbered on about me, sensationalism at it's finest. All talk and no action, but hey, I'm bringing up ratings!

  You'd think there were more important matters to discuss in the world than my case. It disgusts me that they talk and talk, and nothing happens. Nothing ever happens. I'm still here, still being poked and prodded and tortured by Frank, although I have a feeling that the end of my trials are near.

  Today, the news anchor taunts me with yet another fucking lie, telling the masses that police uncovered further clues to the whereabouts of... yeah piss off. Not, going, to, happen.

  I feel his hands close around my throat again. My vision swims. I'm too dizzy to stay conscious for much longer. I just want it to end. I want to die. I don't care any more, just do it! A last hurrah of my failing sense of humor replays that thought in the voice of Shia Lebouff.

  Of course, I don't smile. Can't do that with my face taped over, now can I? What's left of my face anyway.

  Yesterday Frank made me watch as he cooked and ate one of my cheeks right infront of me, I think it was the left one? It didn't hurt then, and it doesn't hurt now. It hurts but doesn't hurt... am I truly broken? All I feel is the seeping cold, nothing else. No other sensations, just cold. And hate, too. My hate is especially cold. I don't feel human any longer. Haven't felt human for a long time now.

  "I'm tired of you... the torture doesn't make you scream and cry like it used to. It's like you've stopped working... maybe I finally broke you?” Frank says. Then he chuckles to himself and shakes his head.

  ”I think tonights the night babe. I found a real good piece of work. She's only 13, but damn she's hot. Shame you can't see her, oh how I will enjoy torturing her and ruining her appearance bit by bit like I did yours. Yup, tonights definitely the night, your big night! Have to take out the trash to make space for the princess I'm bringing in next." Frank remarks, a cig hanging loosely from his cracked lips. Although those cracked lips are curled into a smile, his voice is flat.

  He doesn't care.

  "Of course, shit like that don't matter to a corpse like you." Frank chuckles. "Was gonna say woman, but can't really call you that now can I?"

  I was sick of this, sick of him. I wanted him to die. I wanted to die.

  The fucker was not a rapist, oh no. There was something profoundly wrong with him though. Something that made the bastard kidnap and torture women. Perhaps he had a bad experience with a bitch in the past, but just because of that, he decides to take it out on everyone else? It doesn't make any sense! But then again, psychotic insane murdering bastards rarely make much sense, do they?

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  "I think it was around the time where I cut off your tits.” Frank muses to himself. I don't know whether he fancies himself a morbid shakespeare or what, but he's been leveling up his monologue skills for quite some time now, always clutching that shitty little cylindrical recording device in his hand like it's a spare penis.

  I've seen him go for days on end just rambling to himself while he mutilates me and sips whiskey with a cig hanging from his mouth. A grotesque parody of a man working over his car in his garage, perhaps?

  ”Was that a week ago? Yes, that was when you ceased to be a woman! Hahah!" Frank chuckles.

  I feel the grip tighten around my throat, constricting, choking. My head feels like it's going to pop.

  The last thing I see before the darkness takes me, is a pair of empty black eyes staring down at me dispassionately as if to say, just die you useless whore, you waste of resources, you impersonation of a human, you fake bitch.

  -

  -

  -

  About damn time he got around to killing me. Wait, why can I still think?

  "Wh-what?" Is the only thing I can say in my mind before everything blinks out of existence and I know no more.