Warning: This Chapter Contains Somewhat Graphic Scenes of Human Injury.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The heaves would not subside. No matter how hard the chained man tried, bile and saliva and blood violently expelled themselves out his esophagus and down the front of his chest. His stomach pumped non-stop, and with every contraction, fire shot from broken ribs through the rest of his body. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He couldn't move. His cries had stopped a lifetime ago.
Daniel Jackson knew he was dying. He couldn't try anymore. There was nothing left to give. His world was dark-his eyelids had swollen shut long ago. His tongue was swollen and stuck to the roof of his mouth. When he vomited, his mouth barely opened. Fluid just trickled from the corners of his mouth and over the rest of him to the floor. Blood seeped from a hundred wounds. His short brown hair was spiky with clotted blood and sweat. His shoulders burned from supporting his weight. His arms were suspended high over his head and his feet just barely touched the ground. Every breath threatened to be his last, as his entire body had to be lifted up from the force of his diaphragm alone in order for his lungs to inflate. The only sound that reached him was the dull pounding that was his own pulse, and the rush of his own blood in his ears. It seemed to him that the sounds were getting softer and softer every minute. He longed for them to stop entirely. He longed for release. Long before this point, he had tried to open his mind to the possibility of ascension again, but he knew something about that wasn't right. Somehow, he had known it wasn't his path this time. And now…now he was too tired. His mind would not cooperate. He was just so tired, and everything hurt so bad. He just wanted it to stop. He prayed, with whatever thought he had left, for it to just end.
The short human who had done this to him smiled one last time at his prey. He knew the end would be soon, and he was trying to decide what to do with this one. The guards did like their fun, but something about this one gave him great pleasure, and he wanted to be the one to deliver the blow that killed this man.
The guards were antsy and finally asked what was on their minds. "Master, may we have him? Are you finished? Or should we put him away again?"
The little man turned and grinned wickedly, his decision made. "No, my children. Take him down, but leave him here for me. I will be back shortly to finish him off. Leave him alone."
Disappointment was evident on the guard's faces, but they did as they were told as their master left the room.
The body that had once been Daniel Jackson fell to the floor like so much laundry.
XXX
Daniel thought he was dead. He drifted downwards…almost softly…but only for a second. Then, a hard jolt up through his feet and legs and then through the rest of his body told him he was still among the living, at least for now. His fall ended with a vicious blow to the head, and the archeologist mercifully lost consciousness.