Death’s New Pet: Love after Life

I don’t tremble when I watch Prey Three’s whole body snap in half and convulse as his mind is tortured, nor does my breathing change its tempo. I also don’t react as Prey Eight snaps her own neck by forcing her head unnaturally to the left. I simply watch with an inscrutable expression, waiting for my turn.

Two deaths and there have only been three fucking attempts at the trial.

This whole trial is not too dissimilar to what I’m used to. Watching my husband and his brother torture other people— criminals, crooks, thieves, whatever it is that they did to him to warrant such wickedness — before he turned his knife on me. Even then, when I watched Prey Three, gargling on his sobs, my eyes did not water and my lips remained tight. Never show fear, never give the monster what he is looking for.

And then the name rang out around the room “Carolina,” and the screen panned to the little girl with large blue eyes and a smiley face. She looks nothing like me nor are our auras similar. She’s sweet and innocent, whereas I’m stained and murderous. Yet, Prey Three has unknowingly revealed a significant weakness in the game that can be used against him if needs be. He sees me as his little sister.

Fuck sake.

Now that the other Prey is dead, Misery steps closer and those beady eyes settle on me. She quietly decides her next victim. Her lips pull downwards into a scowl but the way her head cocks to the side and her cheeks move upwards has me thinking she might be smiling. Her fingers drum over her stomach. For a long moment, I hold her gaze and she doesn’t release me. Her head cocks to the left and her eyebrow twitches. It’s as though somebody is whispering into her ear and she’s listening intently. Then, the spell breaks.

“Prey Six, you’re up,” she declares, much to the young girl’s horror. The thin thing trembles as she slowly stands up from her seat. Her nails sink into her boyfriend’s arm and her eyes widen in horror.

She shakes her head slowly at first before it turns more frantic. “No, please!” she sobs, “Not yet not yet!”

Misery revels in the young girl’s fear and with a click of her fingers has the girl in the arena. Horrified, the petite blonde throws herself to the floor. She curls up in a ball and protects her head with her arms as though that will help anything. A sharp laugh escapes Misery but she doesn’t say anything.

The trial begins within a blink of an eye. Just like the last three times, the contestant ends up shrieking and howling in pain as the screen reveals everything they’ve ever longed for and then strips it from them. And then Prey Seven goes up, and then Eight, and then Two, and One. Misery calls upon everyone except me. Each time she selects, her eyes glisten with delight and it doesn’t take long to realise she’s stringing me out. There is a certain torture to waiting, and she revels in it.

Finally, she says those horrific four words, “Prey Ten. You’re up.”

Without so much as a peep, I rise from the seat and brush off the dust from yesterday’s clothes. Misery flashes me into the arena but this time, I make a scene of not stumbling or being disorientated. Instead, I keep my head high, and my expression blank. Her head cocks to the side as she watches me. Then, she looks at her mother, and they exchange frightening smiles.

“Are you ready, dear?” Longing coos. Her velvety words seem to float across the room and into my ear. It feels as though they then seep into my brain and unravel every nerve. The physical pain is blinding, sharp and sore, and it goes on for ages until a high-pitched noise joins it. And then, I feel it. Like somebody’s ripping my brain open, the agonising memories are torn from me.

Instantly, Leonardo’s head launches at me, pounding me straight in the nose. Just as suddenly, the blood gushes out down my face and slips into my mouth, the disgusting and familiar metallic taste filling my mouth.

With an astounding crack, my nose breaks under the pressure, and the pain pours through me. He shrieks like a murderous bird circling its prey and the sound is deafening, reverberating around my brain louder and louder until it almost bursts my eardrums.

Suddenly, he moves with such speed that I don’t have time to react. The icy coldness of his disgusting gaze has me wanting to run away in fear, but instinct knows better than to give the monster a reason to chase. He has that crazed look in his eyes, the one he used to support after he killed someone.

Blood stains his blonde mohawk and that bitter stench tells me everything I need to know about what he’s just done. Without hesitation, his hands leap around my neck, and on cue, the choking begins. His relentless grip stains my throat in different shades of bruises until my head feels hot, weak, and weightless as the oxygen starves itself from the rest of my body, but my legs never give out. I refuse to fall in front of him ever again.

I can smell him too. That disgusting whisky, cigar mixed with bitter decay and piss. The hot stench smacks me across the face and my eyes water. He is screaming things at me, vile insults, disgusting threats, horrifying promises, but I stare back into my brother-in-law’s eyes unwaveringly.

Silently, I watch as his lips curl with every cuss word he spits, the way his hand flexes into a fist before he flies it into my stomach, snatching the air from me. I look at everything, inspect everything, analyse everything, a trick I learnt on how to endure the punishment. Focus on everything but the pain.

His fist pummels into me until I feel as though my intestines are nothing more than mush, but yet again, my lips stay firmly pressed together. Not a single squeak escapes me even though my entire body shakes in pain.

And then suddenly, the world changes around me. I am no longer in the arena with an audience, but I’m locked back inside my old bedroom. It stinks of bleach in here from where I had to clean up my own blood from my husband’s attack, it sits in the yellow bucket at my feet.

My entire body pulses with bruises as if I’ve only just endured the attack and the overwhelming urge to sit down takes hold of me. I long for rest, for a break to recover. I don’t give it to myself, though, because I know exactly what tortured memory this is.

My wedding day.

Horrified, my gaze tears around the familiar concrete floor, brick walls and single sheet of bin liner on the cold floor. My prison was simply a shed in the beginning. However, that isn’t what snatches my attention.

I’m here.

On the black bin liner, eight-year-old me is chained down at the wrists and ankles to stakes in the bricks. She is wearing a ripped and dirty wedding gown, stained with blood and sweat where I was beaten for screaming the altar down. The most horrifying shrieks of pain leave her lips and her whole body shakes in fear.

For the first time in months, my heart shatters and some sort of emotion pulls through me. Absolute and utter agony. Then something awful happens, and the world glitches again. I seem to flicker between being the tortured, tied-up girl and being me, observing in the corner. The pain worsens each time I fall between each person and only grows when the sound of seven locks unlocking rings through the room.

Terrified, I spin around, and I involuntarily stumble backwards as Leonardo strides into the room.

Without hesitation, I lurch towards the younger me and desperately tug at the restraints around her ankles. She doesn’t budge, nor does she see me. The chains rattle when I tug but they make no impact on her. The overwhelming urge to protect and fight for her consumes me.

Knowing what is coming next, my head snaps between little me and the door.

Fuck! Pull, Scarlet! Get us out of here!

On cue, a huge shadow casts across the room and the surroundings drop several degrees in temperature. The hairs on the back of my neck leap to attention and the sweat pools at the nape of my neck.

He’s here.

“Hello, little deer.” The words haunt my mind as he coos them to us. When my husband takes a step inside the room, my actions get more frantic. I yank at the chains harder but it’s completely futile.

A glisten of light bounces off the object in his hand and as my eyes dart down towards it, a whimper escapes my lips. The first sound of pain, and undoubtedly not the last.

He holds that god-awful dagger as though his life depends on it. The same dagger he used to slice my thighs with; A crimson colour already drips from it, no doubt someone else’s blood.

With a cocky grin, he takes a step into the room and sucks all the oxygen out. I freeze in fear as he wipes the dagger against his trousers. It stains the material but barely moves from the weapon. I fail miserably at swallowing the lump in my throat.

“Deer-coloured skin,” he begins, reciting the haunting poem as he strides further into the room. His cold touch lingers on my skin as he runs his fingers along younger me’s legs.

In absolute terror, I lunge for his hand to push him away, but I fall straight through him and younger me. His touch is everywhere and all at once. My skin crawls at his wretched fingertips and I resort to scratching at my own body as if it will remove the touch. It doesn’t work.

“Raven locks of hair, lips redder than fire,” he croaks, lost in his own world. That intense gaze admires every inch of my sobbing face, before trailing down my body, following his horrific touch. Then, his hands jump to his zipper. “Cheekbones sharper than stone.”

In the background, Leonardo touches himself through his suit trousers. I hear his god-awful groan as he gets off on his brother about to rape his new wife.

“A body carved from sin’s wet dreams…” Maximo fists his erection. The absolute terror of that day washes through me until I can’t see straight. A high-pitched screaming fills my ears and I almost long for him to stab me instead. I want him to actually physically torture me. Anything is better than him taking me. Another whimper leaves my lips as I fall to my knees next to the younger me. I try to grab her hand, but my attempts are futile as I fall through her again. The absolute despair destroys me inside.

It isn’t real. This isn’t real. He isn’t real.

But holy fuck does it feel real. It feels like I’m there again, trapped, strapped down, absolutely terrified of what these men are going to do to me. And then, the vision distorts.

In quick succession, short clips of Leonardo and Maximo beating, torturing, and raping me. I live through each and every one, getting more bruised as time goes on. The only thing that changes in the beatings is that I grow older and weaker and number under their control.

My shrieking and fighting disappear as soon as he introduces his friends to his pretty little wife. Almost in every clip I’m unconscious. Contrary to popular belief, not every rapist wants to see a struggle. My husband’s friends clearly did not. It was easier to keep me unconscious than my ‘sad little eyes stare at them’ as Leonardo used to put it. The clips go on for what feels like hours and absolute horror fills me. A single tear slips down my face.

Every time he touched me, used me, sold me… were years of utter torture. He stole my childhood from me. He stole my innocence. He tried to steal my life. My agony and pain turn to rage.

A new clip appears, show casting him plunging the dagger into my thigh, twisting it, and laughing as I howl in agony.

Curling into fists, my fingers now tremble and my lip wobbles.

New clip. Leonardo shoves his fingers down my throat and tugs at my tongue until I feel it tear.

My head pumps with overpowering emotions and my jaw throbs as I grind my teeth together.

New clip. There are five men, one me. They take turns, high-fiving each other, and cheering each other with their sickening whisky glasses as they go.

Slowly, I rise to my feet and blink back the furious tears. I feel the clips get more and more intense and they start to throb in tune with my racing heartbeat.

I can see him in the corner of the room, beating me. He is only an illusion, he doesn’t exist right now, but the fury in my body doesn’t let me register this. Without warning, I find myself lurching across the room, fists curled, eyes set on the monster who ruined me, and the most agonising war cry leaves me.

My fists pound into him— not through him— into him! The pain is blinding as I break every finger, but it throws him to the floor as I take him by complete surprise.

Before I can register what has happened, the room vanishes, the smells disappear. More importantly, Maximo is gone. The blinding lights of the arena return into view just as quickly. Furiously, I charge around the room, searching for him, as though he is still here. I can still feel his evilness leering around the shadows. I look insane, I must do, but I don’t care. The anger vibrates through me, my absolute need for revenge controls every fibre of my being.

“Where is he?” The strangled cry doesn’t sound like mine. “Where is he!”

Absolute horrified looks from the contestants greet me, so I spin back around to Misery and Longing. However, I’m startled by their expressions. I almost expect to see them grin and look smug at my torture like they had for everybody else. Instead, Misery’s eyes gloss over and she’s frozen to the ground. Longing is exactly the same. They both stare at me as though I have just committed the most atrocious sin, and I can’t tell if they are terrified or furious about it.