Griffin's Hell
He hurt.
The thought kept spinning round and round his head. He hurt. He ached. He was breaking. His flesh was burning and freezing. He was being ripped apart molecule by molecule. He was being compressed and slowly pulled through the eye of a needle.
He ached.
Time had lost all sense and reason ages ago. He'd lost the ability to think about anything but the pain after the first few days. His mind was cloudy and fuzzy. Thoughts repeating, disappearing, disjointed, and always punctuated by the jagged pain that spiked through him constantly.
He hurt.
Blinking, he turned his blurry eyes from the wretched gray sky to the explosion and war torn muddy ground that he could see beneath him. Immobilized by his metal and wire prison, he could not turn to look at anything else. Before, there had been brilliant explosions of yellow and orange lighting up his vision, but they had stopped at some point. Leaving only the gray sky, the mud, and the blue pain that sparked and crisscrossed his sight.
He ached.
With the explosions gone there was nothing he could hear except the crackling of the electricity as it shot through him and a long and ragged screaming.
He hurt.
Sometime later he blinked again and was able to recognize the colored blurs moving on the ground below him as people. His tired and half blind eyes were caught by the shiny metal of a handgun that one of the larger blurs was holding.
He ached.
A loud gunshot split the air and he felt something move through his chest. His eyes refocused on the faint wisp of smoke that was drifting from the barrel of the gun. Splintered thoughts connected it to the bullet that had just passed through him as if he was nothing more than air. For some reason he found this funny and the scream that he had been hearing for so long became a horrible mockery of a laugh. Another shattered thought connected and he realized that the screaming had been coming from him.
He hurt.
The blurry figures were moving around now, making indistinct noises and pointing at the electricity that was leaping around and through him. After a minute or an hour his laughter died away and he turned his tired eyes back to the gray sky. The only sound was the energy snapping through his body.
He ached.
Distantly he realized the sky had darkened and was rumbling angrily. His tired eyes blinked at the heavens as his battered body slowly recognized the rain falling on it and the amplifying affect it had on the electricity's surges.
He hurt.
The sharp increase in pain had his muscles spasming again, making his head fall forward as his body twitched. The group watching him was still there and the gun was once again pointing at him.
He ached.
A bang rang out, but instead of hitting him, the bullet severed one of the power cables that was keeping his prison electrified. Another bang and another cable fell still as it was cut off from its power source. Shot after shot sounded, slowly severing the ties that were binding him to his cage. They were trying to free him.
He hurt.
Only a single cable was left, the electricity still holding him, but the pain had lessened. The sky rumbled and an ear-shattering crack split the air. He lifted his head to the sky as a bolt of lightning struck the twisted tower that held him captive.
He was breaking.
Despite being immobilized, his back arched and his head snapped backward. His body twisted violently into itself as much as it could with his limbs being tangled in metal and dead power cables.
He was breaking.
The lightning that had surged through his body and prison had disappeared into the ground but the ache it had caused was still there. Vaguely he knew he was screaming again, though he couldn't really hear anything over the pain.
He was breaking.
Over the hurt and the screaming he heard someone shout. The gun went off again and the final electrical cable lost its power.
He was free.
In the blink of an eye he was gone. Escaping from his cage. His hell. In the same blink he reappeared on the other side of the planet.
He hurt.
He was lying on his back in the middle of a dessert behind a rock with splatters of faded paint on it. The sun was high above his head in a brilliantly blue sky. He was still screaming.
He hurt.
Time was meaningless, but eventually the sun had set and his screams had died into unsteady whimpers. His body had stopped spasming so violently, though the twitching continued.
He hurt so much.
It was slowly, oh so slowly, dying from a burning inferno into a dull ache. He blinked and the moon was gently shinning on him.
He hurt and he was so tired.
His eyes slid shut and he slipped into his first real sleep in days.