Warnings: torture, death, insanity, references to shonen-ai

Disclaimer: not mine.

Note: tentatively set in a pre-french revolution area.

The gaoler comes again, his keys jingling like a death chime. "So, spy, feel talkative today?" He asks, smiling gruesomely.

I smile detachedly. "From what you know of what I've said in the past, can you predict how I'll answer you today?"

I growls, frowning, and yells, "Damn it! You'll talk, you little Scortum1!" He opens the barred door to my cell, grabs my hand and drags me down the hall. It's a familiar route. Down the hall, last turn on the right. Down that hall, then take the second door to the left. One more hall, and then into the third door on the right: the door with the plaque that reads "Tormentis Quaerere2" in a jagged script.

He thrusts me into the room, following quickly and slamming the door, throwing the bolt quickly, as though he thinks I'd try to escape. He begins his tortures on me, putting me on the rack, using the thumbscrews, beating me till I couldn't see straight using various objects (including, but not limited to, fists, whips, strips of wood and metal, blunt weapons of many varieties, etc, etc.)

The whole time I can't stop laughing, even as I scream in pain. But I don't beg for mercy. I just laugh and laugh, and my eyes are unfocused, especially when he bashes me on the head. I laugh and scream till I'm crying, choking, and still huffing choked laughter. I'm smiling and stumbling and falling to the ground.

And, just like usual, the gaoler looks at me, stunned the whole time, wondering why I'm not begging him to stop, wondering why I'm not saying I'll tell him whatever he wants...

But I'll tell you why. It's because he left me. I'd been dead, in a sense, my whole life, and he woke me, made me warm, made me feel... and he left me, chasing after some hare-brained, pretty girl. Not even a backward glance... So I took this mission, knowing it amounted to suicide in the slowest, most painful way possible, because nothing mattered.

The gaoler can hurt me all he wants; it doesn't matter. The people will rise, and I suppose I'll be a martyr. The cause is important to me, no doubt that. But not as important since I met him. But since he left, I might as well be a martyr of the people. The gaoler can tear me apart, if he likes – nothing could rend me deeper, nor could it rend me more truly, then the way he left.

So I keep laughing, as the gaoler half leads, half carries my battered body to the cell, where I collapse in hysterical laughter. And for the first time in two weeks, I think – I haven't really kept up with time since arriving- for the first time, the gaoler shows me a bit of mercy. He draws his sword, and runs it straight through my neck.

I see him unsheathe the blade, and I keep laughing, and bare my neck to its fullest extent. And he just runs it clean through me, and the laughter cuts off, and the pain cuts off, and everything is mercifully dark.

And I float away, and come to the place they call heaven, and I'm still laughing, but more softly now. And the angels shake their heads and bring before their Lord. And even he's a bit confused – they say he's never sure what to do with the mad ones: the angels do that is. And he talks while I laugh, and some angels give me wings and they take me away and give me something to drink, and then I sigh, and I stop laughing, and I'm listless.

But I start laughing again after a while, and they whisper to each other, and mostly they just leave me alone, to laugh and laugh and laugh at myself. I suppose I'll laugh for all eternity. And I'll laugh even more when I see him fall into Hell. I suppose then I really will lose my last vestige of control. So I just keep laughing.

1Whore

2To question under torture, according to my Latin dictionary