The smell in the air was putrid and dead. It smelt like vomit and faeces, with an overwhelming throat-stinging taste of bleach. Scarred with overuse, a large titanium table dominated the dark room. Annabel glanced towards the captive in the room, his chest rose and fell despite the blood soaked restraints pulling his life down. She then turned her head and stared into the darkest corner of the room. A vacuole of a man stood in the corner, silence surrounded him. The darkness seemed like a desperate cover, like the devil hiding behind a facade of a monster. The darkness seemed like paradise compared to what lurked within it.
The Devil stepped out from the darkness. It's claw was disguised by a cracked leather glove and stroked the lapel of a navy Givenchy suit and it buried it's other in it's heavy wool coat, pocket. Heavy steps pounded towards the captive and the four dead eyes met. The captive felt an emotion that was not fear and it was not anger it was merely the wish to disappear, not to survive or to die, just to simply to have never existed.
"Hannibal, can I take this one?"
The captive felt the Devil's knuckles whiten as gripped the handle of a knife. He quickly shifted towards Annabel and pressed the cool blade into her throat and breathed heavily into her neck, his cold breath twisted round the hairs on her neck, practically freezing the warm droplets of sweat on her white skin. The Darkness whispered in her ear.
The Devil left and the room suddenly felt a little warmer.
Annabel hoisted herself onto the large titanium table, staring at her captive and twisting an old scalpel in her hands. Beads of sweat ran down the bridge of his nose. Cracks formed in the leather straps holding him down and only muffled screeches came from the saliva soaked gag. She sauntered over to him calmly; her eyes were glacial and emotionless.
"I need to speak to you. If you scream I will pour bleach down your throat and rip out your eyes. Do you understand?"
He nodded his head frantically and she pulled down the soaking gag from his mouth.
"Tell me where Hans Landa is."
"I don't know." He mumbled in a thick Serbian accent.
The light bulb swung like a pendulum in the moss ridden basement and streams of light cascaded through the dingy room, briefly illuminating the damp damaged walls. They were dominated by thousands of photos of a small lean man, with large eyes and a strong scarred chin.
"You two are his fucking stalkers, you and your fucking weird fuck buddy. Why the hell do you need to ask me where he is? He growled loudly, his voice cracking at the end.
"We're in love." She replied in a daze of delusion.
He choked back in response, "You're a schizoid, erotomaniac ..."
She interrupted him, demonically hissing "Do not try and confuse us! We know what those terms mean. I am not a fucking fantasist!"
She gritted her teeth as she breathed wrathfully in his face, the veins in her neck standing on edge, like an addict starved of their drug of choice. Turning to the sides of the room, she tore down the perverted shrine. She was in a trance like state, giggling menacingly.
"Well, if you can't tell me where his... Oh God Hannibal will not be happy about this... I will make him a present, a beautiful present , a living statue of him. Yes that sounds wonderful"
Annabel picked up a bottle marked 'Industrial Bleach' and slammed it down on the tainted table beside him. She then glided round the back of him, pulling her dyed red hair into a bun. Her serenity made the actions seem even more sadistic.
He wriggled and pulled violently at the gag with his teeth. His breath was so hysterical and heavy it cut through the frosty air, slashing it with illusions of life.
As she poured the bleach on his head, drops of puss and blood trickled down, leaving a trail of debris down his burning face. Blisters and pustules formed quickly over the exposed flesh of his scalp but as quickly as they were formed they were burnt away by the next drip of torture. The skin of his cheeks had burnt away and left vast gauges from his flesh, which by now were fizzing in the bleach. His eye sockets were swollen and bloody. They oozed a putrid yellow puss which trickled slowly down the side of his mouth, which at this point was being held open by Annabel.
She paused and mused upon the face in her mind and began to draw lines on his exposed flesh, like a surgeon. She licked her lips and rolled them together, blinking heavily as she finished a line just above his cheek bones.
"Those need to come back up my sweet, just like my love" She indicated with the pen, pressing hard on the cavern of the once fleshy cheek. He writhed in pain as the plastic scraped against his bare cheekbone. Holding a pair of pliers to his quivering hands, she slid his index finger into the clamp. A slight of hand produced a bone-shattering crunch that poisoned the silent atmosphere.
She turned back to the table, shifting the row of surgical implements away from her and wiped her hand against her lips. She kissed the picture, leaving a grotesque stain of obsession and lust. Leaning into the defaced, unrecognisable man with a scalpel poised delicately against the blueprint lines she pressed her tool once again into the putrid flesh. She pushed the amputated finger into the gouge and stretched the rotten skin over it. As she sewed the cheek implant into place she grinned as her sick vision was taking form.
He felt the last flickers of life leave him like moths flitting towards the light, hoping to find a sanctuary however he saw no light he only saw Darkness.
