Oh the night I wrote this I was feeling rather raw. I wonder if it shows. A short story to be sure, but something of importance that I feel should have its own place. Maybe it's simply because my own emotions are invested in this.
My apologies are not only for my writing, but for the issues and hidden meaning contained here. I am a bitter youth.
The stench of fear was in his nostrils, cloying with its mix of tears, sweat and blood. He didn't even remember why he was here anymore. It was all so pointless. He was tired and wanted to sleep, but the pain kept him awake, as did the dispenser nearby. Kept him alive moment by agonising moment. Red swam in his vision, reminded why he was so tired; the blood loss. Pints of it over the wall he was chained to, the floor, himself, the arrows, the knives...
A shadow passed on the floor nearby. His tormentor. His demon, his devil.
His lover.
He lifted his head, fuzzy and leaden thing that it was, looked up at the face that once had held only love. Tears slowly seeped down his face. He didn't have the energy to cry any more. He was dehydrated, but the blood from his broken nose helped lubricate it. He croaked through an almost crushed windpipe.
"Wh... Why ... are you...?" A clenched fist smashed into the side of his face, stinging pain blossomed. His head was wrenched painfully back by his hair. Before it had been with desire. Now... now it was cruel.
"You want to know why I am doing this?" Another arrow was rammed though his shoulder, joined dozens of its brethren already imbedded in his body.
"You want to know why you are in pain?" A hot score across his right wrist cut tendons. Blood gushed for a moment before petered off into a thin dribble. Healing vapours seeped into his skin.
"You want to know why you are crying?" A knife stabbed him in the chest, a gaping hole that widened when the knife was dragged down, blade sliced through flesh like butter. That too gushed until it was dealt to by the dispenser.
"You want to know why you are suffering?" The blade, slick with his own blood, scored a shallow shaky line across his throat.
"You are really asking me WHY?" The voice was so raw, so pained, so wroth that he didn't want to know. His head was dropped, and the figure stalked away. They hissed in rage and nostrils were flared. They came back in a moment, one cigarette cradled in clenched fingers.
"Why? Because I was in pain, I have cried, I have suffered! Because you broke my heart so badly I thought my chest was going to cave in, that I was going to die! That is why, you clueless, ignorant, idiotic fucking asshole!" The words were punctuated with punches, flashing eyes and cold anger. The cigarette was extinguished over his heart, and he cried out hoarsely. He thought he had been too tired to even whimper. They slapped him one more before the footsteps receded. He worked the blood over his tongue, swallowed the hot coppery tang and swallowed his urge to gag.
"I... love you..." The footsteps came running back and he got kneed in the groin. The pain was excruciating but he could only cough weakly.
"You love me? You love me?" The arrows clustered in his chest were wrenched out in a giant group. The pain of his flesh healing around the arrows was nothing compared with them being torn out.
"You ignore me, lust after others, wish you could have the one person you couldn't, chase after them and leave me behind, and you LOVE ME?" They screamed an incoherent cry of intense emotion. His ears rang with the force of it, and a new wave of tears just fell down his cheeks.
"I love you... Never... stopped..." They backhanded him and a dark shadow passed over his vision. Unconsciousness threatened to take him but he fought. Had to make this right.
"But it wasn't enough. Not to keep you with me. Not to keep me from dying inside. Not to save me." He didn't have enough strength to lift his head, but he didn't have to. Fingers dug under his chin and tipped his head back, so he could look into eyes swimming in pain. A tortured soul. He looked in and couldn't break way. Those eyes compelled him, made him feel what they have. He cried anew.
"I wasn't enough for you. And now your dubious love isn't enough for me."
His lover, the one he had so deeply wounded, kept a tight grip on his chin. Forced him to watch the quaking gun they held to their temple and primed. Those eyes bored into his; don't flinch when the trigger was pulled. They even stared at him when his dead love was sprawled on the floor, blood mingled with his own. The dispenser hummed, but it couldn't bring back the dead.
Alone in the carnage, he cried. Alone in his darkness, his wounds were healed. Alone in his pain his love was dead.
Broken hearts can't be healed.