Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, etc. etc.
It was the start of a beautiful day in Washington, D.C. The bright morning sun was slowly climbing in the sky, and its light was just beginning to filter through Diana Fowley's windows.
As the sunlight hit her eyes, Diana sat up in bed and threw back the covers. She opened her curtains and slipped on a light robe before heading to the kitchen to make coffee.
"I wonder what Fox is doing today. Maybe I'll go visit him," she thought. With that in mind, she went into her bathroom to take a shower.
As the warm water flowed down her back, Diana reached for her weird-scented herbal shampoo. She poured some onto her head, intending to work it into a lather. But she never got that far.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHGGG!!!" She screamed. Her head felt like it was on fire. Instinctively, she grabbed her head. Bad move, Fowl One. When she pulled her hands away, she was shocked to see that her skin was raw and eaten away. She reached up to touch her head again (will she ever learn?) and realized that her hair was gone. Gone?! How could shampoo burn her skin away and melt away her hair? If she was still fully conscious, she would have wondered what happened to her shampoo. If she was still aware of her surroundings, she would have been aware of the acid dissolving her flesh layer by layer. First eating through her scalp. Then burning through her skull like tongues of fire consuming a sheet of paper. Then dissolving the protective membranes around her brain. Then beginning to consume the brain itself. But Diana Fowley was not aware of any of this, because she was in a world of pain, and consciousness- and life itself- had become nothing more than a quickly fading memory.
**********
An hour or so later, Mulder and Scully stood on Diana's doorstep, Mulder ringing her doorbell over and over.
"Mulder, let's go; she's not home," Scully said, not sounding too disappointed.
"I need her to look at this case," Mulder insisted. He walked around to the back porch and Scully followed.
"Mulder, what are you doing?" She asked.
"Looking for, uh, oh, here it is," he said as he tipped over a flowerpot and pulled out a key.
"Mulder, you cannot break into her house."
"Sure I can. I'm not breaking in; I've got a key." He unlocked and opened the door.
"Diana?" No answer. "Diana? Anybody home?" Mulder wandered through the house, ignoring Scully's dirty looks.
**********
"What the…" Mulder stood in the bathroom doorway, staring at Diana in amazement. Or more accurately, he stared at what was left of Diana. Her hands were twisted lumps of burned flesh. Her body was marred by strips of raw flesh where the acid had dripped down her body. But it was her face that left Mulder speechless. In fact, her face was almost non-existent, having been burned and twisted into a grotesque lump. Her skin and most of her skull was completely obliterated, but Mulder could just make out her her eye sockets, burned and stretched to twice their normal size, and her skeletal mouth, open in a macabre expression of fear. On top of her head, where she had poured the acid "shampoo", he could see straight through to what was left of her brain.
After several minutes, Mulder finally found his voice.
"Sc-Scully!" He cried, panic in his voice. Scully had been standing near the front door waiting for her partner, but upon hearing his frightened scream, she hurried to the bathroom.
"Scully!' He called again, just as she was entering in the bathroom.
"Oh, Mulder! What happened?" She asked. Mulder pointed to the shampoo bottle, which on closer inspection appeared to be made of an acid-resistent polymer with a plastic coating.
"Mulder, who could have done this."
**********
Many miles away, a distinguished-looking older gentlemen lit another cigarette and smiled.
I haven't decided if this is going to be a one-shot or a series of short stories. If anyone has some other great torture devices, let me know and maybe I'll add some more chapters.