Pain, indescribable pain. It coursed through every fiber of her being, blinding her, bringing her to her knees. She tried so hard to cry out, to make it stop, to end it, but she couldn't. Instead she fell backwards onto the cold, unforgiving, stone floor. She was certain that she was staring death in the face, but the devils eyes weren't red, they were brown.

She lay on her back, bleeding and broken. Silently, she prayed for the end to come. Her prayer became a litany. Over and over in her mind she repeated it, but the pain and agony of the torture increased and obliterated all coherent thought from her mind. Soon she was screaming, but the torture never ceased.

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Sam blinked as she awoke in the bright light of thesarcophagus. She groaned as she was pulled from it and thrown into her cell once more. She didn't know how long she had been a prisoner, or how many times she had been revived in the sarcophagus after her answers failed to satisfy her captor. The days began to blur together until she wasn't sure if it was day or night anymore. All she knew was that her body hurt from the endless torture and that she was exhausted and hungry.

Lying on a pile of straw in the corner she curled up into a tight ball. She found herself thinking of Asim, of how kind he had been. She actually found herself missing him. She even missed that stupid goat that she had to share her bed with. He was smelly, but at least he was company. Alone in her tiny prison Sam felt completely empty. Empty and alone. It wasn't a good feeling, and it wasn't something that she wanted to dwell on for very long. She closed her eyes and dreamed of home.

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"The iris code!"

"No," she said hoarsely.

Sam closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable, but the pain never came. She opened her eyes to see the system lord standing in front of her.

"Why must you put yourself through this? Why not just tell me what I want to know and end the suffering, because eventually my patience will run out, and when that happens I have another means of extracting the information from you."

"What," said Sam, "make me a host?"

Ba'al smiled. "You would make a lovely queen." He ran a hand over her face and down her body. "Perhaps…" He turned away and picked up the pain stick.

"The iris codes," he repeated.

Sam closed her eyes again but did not answer. The pain immediately followed.

The torture seemed to go on forever, but it was momentarily interrupted by a harassed looking Jaffa.

After awhile Sam heard him whisper to the Jaffa, "Fine, bring him."

"We'll have to continue this later," he said with a final touch of the pain stick. "Hopefully, you will be more talkative then."

Sam was unchained from the wall and walked to the door. On her way out she spotted the person that Ba'al and the Jaffa had been whispering about. His face was cold, and his eyes were filled with hatred at the sight of her.

Somehow, things had just gone from bad to worse.