I am the steel no enemy can shatter.
At first it doesn't quite sink in, the realization of just who has captured him once again. But the little man standing before him speaks as though they are old friends, as though they have met before. As his hands run across his skin, tracing the patchwork of scars littering his gray coat, a shiver of dawning horror and dread races down his spine.
Yet even now he is unable to move. No matter how he screams and rails inside his mind, telling his muscles to work, his legs to move - to run, to flee - he is unable to do anything.
Magic is the only explanation. In a second, the stoic resolve is replaced by a thunderous rage tinged by a terrible fear. But then his head is being pulled down by a supernatural force and a halter is slipped over his ears. With that halter comes a wave of unnatural calm, of complete apathy. Even though he knows this is not him, he cannot seem to bring himself to care.
In no time at all, he is being led down an aisle filled with stalls. He seems unable to prevent himself from following, unable to feel or show any concern. Whatever foul magic the little beast has used on him seems to work only too well. He walks along like a placid mule to the very end of the aisle, right through the doors that lead into another chamber. A chamber that reeks of blood and fear and defeat. He knows, without being told, that this is where all the others had been brought. To this torture chamber.
For a moment, the little man seems only interested in studying him, investigating him from chin to tail. Occasionally he touches him, a poke here, a prod there, all small, almost innocuous touches. But then he escalates from prodding to pinching, and from pinching to slicing - shallow cuts that split the skin, causing blood to trickle and revealing the flesh beneath. They sting and burn, but he has endured worse. So much worse. Amazingly enough, each cut heals quickly, sealing once again into smooth flesh moments after it is inflicted.
That is until the slices turn to gouges, deeper slashes that raze through muscle and tendon alike. The pain then is nearly unbearable, but he grits his teeth and endures. He would not give this creature the satisfaction of hearing his pain.
Little does he realize just how much worse it can get.
When he does not elicit the reaction apparently desired, Grumblesnakes changes tactics. As the damaged flash heals, Shan begins to feel a terrible pressure. His body burns briefly as the vise-like pressure increases, muscle and fat compressing against bone until that too finally gives way. The snapping of his first bone breaks the seal of silence, echoing in the still air even as it elicits an awful, agony-filled below from deep within his chest. In that moment, all rational thought flees and he becomes pure instinct. For the first time since that contraption (that dreadful halter) had been placed upon his head, he fights. It does not seem to matter that it is entirely fruitless, that his struggles will gain him nothing. His only thought is to escape the pain, the torment, by whatever means necessary.
But still that pressure squeezes in on him. More bones break, and still that crushing force continues. It continues until his bones crumble to dust and blood oozes through his bursting skin. It continues until he can no longer scream anymore, until the breath is pushed entirely from his body. It continues until he is covered in a disgusting soup of blood and sweat and waste.
Finally, when his vision goes blurry, black spots bursting in his eyes, when he can literally compress no further, it stops. And before he can completely lose consciousness, he is miraculously, magically, revived. His bones reknit as his muscles and skin expand and smooth.
Tears leak unbidden from his eyes, his breath ragged and heavy. The beastly little creature before him seems pleased. For a moment (for the briefest, heavenly moment) Shan thinks perhaps he might be done with him, but he soon discovers he is terribly mistaken.
With barely enough time to catch his breath, the next round starts. His screams are renewed as skin begins to peel away from flesh, exposing muscle and tendon and veins. He bellows until he goes hoarse, until his voice is little more than a whisper rasping from his lungs. This is a different agony, but one no less awful. He can feel the rip of skin, the sharp snap of sinew releasing flesh. The searing burn of skin peeling slowly away until only a monster of meat and bone is left.
When the screams finally fade, he finds he has nothing left to give. He cannot even muster the will to care. This seems to displease the little man, but he has lost nearly all sense of him from within his own personal hell of exhausted anguish.
In the next heartbeat, he finds himself suddenly whole again. But before he can pause to breath, before he can even blink, he is elsewhere. As he glances around, realization slowly dawns.
”No…” he whispers, his horror and despair genuine and heartbreaking.
He is back in the toy box.
He doesn't know how long he is there with Nerissa. For a while she plays with him, much like she had before, just as cruel and abusive. But when she grows tired of him, he is left inside the box. For weeks (months? years?) he is left to languish. Left with those mutilated Barbies and that monstrous princess doll who has developed an intense dislike for him (and a hellish glee in tormenting him). He is left until the days blur together and his mind turns to mush. Until he cannot seem to feel anything at all.
Then, as though none of it had ever happened, he is yanked back to that room, to that torture chamber reeking of blood and sweat and other unnameable things. His blood and sweat.
As his mind churns sluggishly, trying to comprehend what is happening, it slowly occurs to him that perhaps none of that had been real. That it is simply another terribly brilliant way to torment him.
The little man is still there, though he appears to be frowning now. He cannot even muster the will to wonder why he might be frowning. And then it doesn't matter anymore as suddenly, unexpectedly, he is back in his stall.
For days, he simply lays there, unable to find the strength to move. Somehow he does not hunger or thirst, nor does he pause to wonder why that might be. He seems to have simply gone numb, a numbness brought on by the need for preservation.
After days have passed, he finally begins to stir. More days and he is beginning to feel almost normal again. His body no longer aches in remembered pain and the fuzz surrounding his mind begins to clear.
All too soon however, boredom sets in.
So he begins kicking his door again, more from sheer boredom than any true belief that it will free him. He cannot even hear the stallmates that had surrounded him previously. He is left in silence, with only his own thoughts for company.
And such terrible thoughts they are.
Before long, even the kicking cannot stave off his boredom or those horrifying thoughts. He loses track of time soon thereafter, unable to follow the days as they crawl by. For a time, he begins talking to himself to help alleviate the loneliness, but all too soon he is talking to the walls. To figments of his imagination.
That is when the screams start again. For a while, he flinches every time he hears a fresh, bloodcurdling scream. And then he starts talking to drown out the sounds, the memories. He talks and talks and talks some more, talks until the words turn to babbling, until he is huddled in the furthest corner, making only an odd keening noise to drown out those hideous sounds.
Finally, after months and months (or is it only days? weeks?), the door swings open once more. With a horrible, gut-wrenching wail, Shan stumbles forward before falling desperately to the ground, shudders wracking his body as tears trickle from his eyes.
”Please,” he whispers in a garbled, almost incomprehensible tone. It is the only word he can manage after all this time. ”Please.”
Between one blink and the next, he is back in that chamber of horrors. This time no comprehension sinks in; there is simply no reaction to the sudden change of venue. Instead he stares blankly at the ceiling as he feels his very soul start to fracture at the seams, as though his entire being is breaking into a thousand unmendable pieces.
Shannisoran