A traumatizing event could be a little kid going to the water park and falling under the water for a couple seconds and getting scared. Thus, the kid would be too scared to ever return to the water park, because of that short moment when he couldn't breathe and got completely terrified.
A traumatizing event could be when a girl fell in love with a boy and then dated for three years and then she found out that he had been cheating on her for two of those three years. She would never be able to trust a boy again. She would think that she wasn't enough for any boy. She wouldn't love the same. She would be fragile.
A traumatizing event could be when a man is in war and watching his best friend get shot and bleed to death. He would never want to pick up a gun again. He would never want to fight again, because he wouldn't to risk bleeding to death because of gunshot wounds.
A traumatizing event could be a young boy singing for the talent show. A young boy that was a bully. A bad kid. No one would ever think that he might sing. Then he does bad because he loses his voice the night before because he practiced too much. He would be made fun of. He would never sing again. He would be terrified of messing up again.
A traumatizing event could also be Cal getting tortured. Not just tortured, but tortured in a uniquely special way. Tortured for no reason other then to send a message. Torture was never a good thing. It was painful and traumatizing. But this torturing. It was obviously the work of Shaughn Stanley. Shaughn Stanley didn't just torture people because he was bored. He wanted to send a message. He wanted people to see what he was trying to say or do.
Cal had been his unfortunate victim.
Three hours of vicious burning pain. Pain that didn't stop or let up or calm down or cool off. Pain that went from his head to his toes. Pain that left physical and mental scars. Pain that no person could just live with. Pain that would still be there, long after the actual event.
Cal didn't even know exactly what Shaughn did. He just knows the pain. He can still feel the pain, a month after getting out of the hospital, which means a month and three weeks since the event. The terrifying event.
The event that would change Cal's life forever.
Why did Shaughn do it? There were theories. Mostly Eli's.
Some consisted of Shaughn losing someone close to him because The Lightman Group sent them away with a case. But then Cal said that nobody could be close to Shaughn Stanley. That wasn't possible. Not even the devil could be close to Shaughn Stanley. And that's when everyone saw the real effect that Shaughn had made on Cal.
Shaughn Stanley had a reputation. A reputation of the worst and most vicious murderer in the world. But no one knew why he was called a murderer, because he had never been guilty of a murder. Not once. Not in anything that he ever did.
He didn't kill people. He put them through the worst pain anyone could ever imagine. He could make an Atheist cry as they prayed to the one and only God.
He had a reputation for his unique way of torture. You could tell if scars were the work of Shaughn's. He had some sort way of ruining anyone's innocence. Even though Cal was a strong man. It wasn't easy to shake him. It wasn't easy to scare him. Cal only got scared if Gillian or Emily were in trouble. You couldn't say that anymore, though. Shaughn had ruined any piece of strength that Cal had built up.
It was also obvious if Shaugh Stanley did it, because he branded an 'SS' on his victim's back. A big, messy, 'SS' on their back. Burned into their flesh. Like a horse. To mark them for the rest of their life. Another small one on their chest. Right over their heart.
Why on their back? Because eventually they might forget about it, but then other people could see it and ask what it meant, and then his victim is sucked into the pain again.
Another one on their heart to show that Shaughn's actions would always be stuck in their heart, and not in a good way.
Cal had it. A big 'SS' scarred on his back. Another small one on his chest.
He would never forget. He never could.
.:.
He was sitting in the house, on his couch. His feet were up on the table.
If anyone other than his close friends, or aquaintances - being Loker - walked in, they would never have known that he had been tortured.
There were no scars on his face, which Cal was happy about, but it was difficult to be happy because whenever he closed his eyes he saw Shaughn Stanely's face.
Having seen Shaughn's face didn't help Cal in anyway. It didn't help them find him. The FBI has been searching for Shaughn for years. At least eight if not more. Shaughn has never gotten sloppy. He's never gotten too cocky and messed up a little.
Cal being a victim is the closest that they have ever gotten to Shaughn. And it didn't help. Cal didn't help. He didn't want to be reminded. And lately, everyone had been doing good with being extra nice, even if he was a jerk to them.
Emily walked in and flopped down beside her father. She handed him a cup of tea and laid her head on his shoulder.
He was staring at the wall. He wasn't moving. He was somewhere else. He wasn't himself. He hadn't been himself since before the work of Shaughn Stanley.
She bit her lip and said, "Want to watch a movie?"
He blinked a couple times and looked down at her big brown eyes. He forced himself to smile and said, "Sure. What movie?"
His voice was hoarse. He was tired. He was always tired. He hadn't been sleeping very well lately.
"Um. I don't know." She was a little surprised that he had talked.
For the past week she had done the same thing.
Sit beside him and bring tea.
Ask if he wanted to watch a movie.
But every other time he said nothing. He would just sit there like she hadn't said anything. He was coming along. He was getting stronger. He was slowly coming back together.
"Funny or romantic?" She asked with a smile.
"Funny." He said.
"Ok... Hmm..." She stood up and started to walk towards the TV.
He got up and walked over with her.
He'd been doing that a lot. He didn't like being alone. Even if it was just on the other side of the room. He had been sticking with Emily alot. Emily and Gillian. He was almost always with one of them. He'd been sleeping in the guest room because it was closer to Emily's room.
She slipped into bed with him most nights. She would sleep with him like she used to sleep with he and Zoe when she had had a bad dream. But now it was him who had the bad dream. He needed to comfort, so she gave it to him. She'd snuggle up close to her father and fall asleep with him.
He didn't always sleep. She knew it, although if she woke up he would be quiet and try to make it seem like he was sleeping. He was restless. He still had images of Shaughn and she could tell. She couldn't point it out though. He needed to take care of this in his own way. That's what Gillian told her.
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail." He said over her shoulder.
She pulled it out and stood up, "Let's do it."
.:.
He wasn't worried. He never got worried, because the FBI always failed with their searches.
He was confident in himself. He moved locations all the time. He moved all over the United States. He had lived in every state at least twice. He moved a lot.
He had a lot of victims.
It wasn't exactly a job. It was more of a hobby.
He had discovered that he could do torture when he was fifteen.
He enjoyed seeing pain on people's paces.
He enjoyed watching people suffer.
He had been a freshman in highschool, skateboarding with friends. His best friend, Michael, had a vicious crash and fell off the ramp.
It was crazy disgusting and half of the other guys there ran away because they didn't want to see.
The bone in Michael's arm had pierced right through the skin.
Shaughn knelt down beside him and watched as his best friend cried in pain. And he liked it! He was a complete sicko. He didn't help Michael, he watched him cry and bleed.
Michael never talked to him again, but Shaughn didn't care. He dropped out of school and became a bad kid. He didn't have any guilt. He could kill somebody just to get food.
He became a sick and scary person that even adults knew to stay away from him, and he was only sixteen by then.
Life went on like that. He continued to hurt people.
Eventually, he figured it out that he could get away with it.
His father was a cop. He had told Shaughn about how criminals hid, and why they were so good at it. Shaughn was sure that when he told him these techniques, that he wasn't intending them to help Shaughn hide. He was wanting him to know how to catch criminals. But that would never happen.
It was too late now.
Life got harder when his sister died.
She didn't know about his sicko problem.
He didn't want her to.
She was his best friend.
She died from a criminal, much like he was.
She was tortured to death, because of their father.
Their father, Mr. Stanley, was the first one to be Shaughn's victim.
It was HIS fault that Susan had died. He would suffer.
But he wouldn't die. Shaughn had decided that quite easily. He wouldn't die.
He would suffer and live with the pain for the rest of his life.
That's how he started. That's when his life turned him into the 'pro-torturer' that he was.
Then he started branding people with the 'SS'. Then people would know if it was the work of Shaughn Stanley.
A/N: I have so much planned for this story. Let me know what you think. ^.^