Pain.

People rarely felt that simply not being in pain was pleasure. Not being in pain, after all, was the state of one's normal existence. It was only when something went wrong... a headache or stubbing one's toe, for example... did they wish for that normality. They wished for the pain to go away, being consumed by it until it finally faded. For those who were in constant pain with only the stupor of sedation to look forward to, the memory of the days which were not spend in constant agony were dim indeed.

It did not have to be physical pain either which grabbed attention like a terrier, shaking a person around until they couldn't figure out which way was up. No... emotional, mental, or spiritual pain could hurt just as much, and in some cases worse. With physical pain, at least one could try to drug oneself with aspirin (or something stronger). They could take their medicine, sit back, and wait for the drug of choice to take effect. The other forms of pain only receded with certain remedies, some of which were easy to find but terrible in consequences... such as alcohol or drugs. Other remedies were hard to find, such as a sympathetic ear, day after day, talking through the same problem until even a soul-mate would tear his or her hair out in agony. Shared pain of this sort lessened it, and friends or family members who listened with sympathy should be treasured. But when a person was alone, either physically or socially? What refuge could they have then?

The more nebulous kind of pain could become such a part of one's life so that they never even notice it. The sort of pain which ate away a little piece of a person's soul being, every day... day after day after day... There were so many kinds of pain, each unique to the person hurting, and a thousand different remedies. It had been said once, and it will be said again: the absence of pain is pleasure, even if the person experiencing the blankness of neutrality does not realize it at the time. Some day, they will.

What was happening was so far beyond her, it nearly knocked her into a stupor. Strapped down, trapped, with... fuzzy recollections of something... perhaps it was... no... but maybe it... no... Who knew? All she knew is that her husband and her had gone on vacation, and ended up in a nightmare. Her head spinning, she tried to focus on James, her handsome (in her eyes at least, though he was a shade too fat with teeth too crooked to be considered attractive in today's society), wonderful husband, grimacing, writhing... something was happening to him. She could see it, but she couldn't hear him. That man... he was doing something, firing up some machine, doing some... experiment. It had to be that. It was so theatrical... patented mad scientist... it could be nothing else other than some crazed test.

Alison kept struggling, but the bonds held her tight. This whole last... however long it was... had been a long drugged stupor. The few times she had been conscious, she had felt fear but no pain, at least of the physical sort. Her fear had been razor sharp however, cutting her to the quick. Funny enough, but not in the ha-ha sort of way, all she could think about was that stupid movie she and James had watched, The Human Centipede, at her insistence. Oh, sure, laughs had been gotten at the poor production values, and the crazy German scientist trying to "train" his new monster (that and the joke 'you can never go ass to mouth' had been made more than a few times) had been fun. That'd been before... no, capitalize that. That had been Before, though. The irony she was living out a horror movie being a horror movie fanatic was not lost on her. If anything, it made her more desperate to get out. She knew what was coming.

In the other room, she could see that man (jeezum crow, she was never going to forget his face, never ever) was finished with whatever he was doing, and seemed to be waiting for a result. She thrashed again, and he glanced her direction casually, and made a 'now you hush' gesture towards her. Loathing welled up within, and she screamed at him, at the glass. He laughed. She could see it, and then she screamed again as she saw her husband, her loving, wonderful husband turn into a monster, bristling fangs and claws... she screamed and screamed, horror taking hold of her and not letting go.

The man seemed rather pleased at this, but wasn't done, not that she was tracking it with any sort of sane mind at the time it was happening. He fiddled around and hemmed and hawed, going this way and that as James thrashed for a moment, then lay still. A device was brought out, and more wires and whatnot. Alison had finished her scream, and while she lay there, looking at James, she felt her eyes water. Not much more of this she could take, not much more at all. Sounds chuffed out of her as she was forced to breathe through her mouth, her nose being stuffed up and running slightly as she wept. The man... what was he doing... what was he... electricity arced, and a device was jammed into her husband's chest, seeming to pierce it. James thrashed now, and she could almost hear him howling in pain. He's killing him, she thought, and she yelled for him to stop, to leave James alone, heedless that a moment ago her beloved husband had been a monster. When the power was shut off, James lay there, still.

Alison howled again, struggling against her bonds. She had to see if he was ok. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't be. She kicked and fought with all she had, but to no avail. She lay there, stuck. The door opened, and when she looked up first at the window separating the two rooms she saw the lights had been dimmed. Her gaze swiveled next to the door and the man... he sauntered through. She was panting. She wanted to scream again, but she had nothing left; her throat felt red and raw.

"And now, my precious poppet," he said in a mellow voice. "Now, it's your turn."

She found she had enough for one more, after all.