Trigger Warnings: Vivisection, sleep deprivation, shock collar, restraints, constant blindfolding, anonymous whumper/unknown whumper, drugging (nonconsensual of course), needles, pills, loss of voice.
He laid on his side, despite how the wound ached and searing pain rushed to his head. He was facing the wall, hoping to appear asleep. Hoping that would delay more pain a little longer.
Tears streamed from the corner of his eyes, down his nose and to the gritty concrete beneath him. Each heaving breath seemed like a chore, excruciating, but he breathed through the tears.
He didn't dare let himself sob. He didn't know what noise would come out, but he knew when he let it, he'd never be able to stop. He was tired, so tired. Laying down like this, he just wanted to give in and--
He held his breath as footsteps approached, taking a shaky breath when they passed his cell. Hiccupping, he sniffled as the pain sliced just as the scalpel had hours and hours before. Slicing through his skin cruelly. Without hesitation. Paying no mind to his screams from behind the cloth stuffed roughly between his jaws.
He began to cry silently, eyes stinging as he covered his face with his hands. Briefly he remembered the shadowy shape of a hand approaching, muddled by the cloth bound tightly over his eyes. Had he even the slightest chance he would have pled for mercy, please, anything but this.
He felt himself drifting off for just a minute before jolting, shaking violently until the collar mercifully stopped dispensing its shocks to his body. His breath hitched and he began to cry again. Exhaustion clouded his mind like smoke in a building. How long had it been? Days? He could never tell with how often he was blindfolded. He never even knew why he couldn't sleep. The guards slapped him without comment and the collar shocked him without thought or feeling.
Gagging, he tried to drag his mind away. Involuntarily, it began to replay the sensation of the man's hands digging inside him, rifling through his organs like it was just another drawer of junk. His heart felt separate from him, beating too fast and too slow and too hard and not at all, all at the same time. He had desperately tried to thrash, but the bitter pills had left him open and helpless, feeling everything yet doing nothing.
He remembered, briefly, his mother reading him stories. Telling him of people years and years ago in lands far away that used to weep just as bitterly as he was now, tearing at their clothes. He remembered asking why they did that. His tiny, innocent voice telling her it didn't make sense to ruin their clothes because they were sad.
His mother's kind eyes-- he barely remembered them, or her, anymore-- looked down at him with love. That was the only thing he remembered about her. She was gentle and loving and kind. "Sometimes when a person is very, very sad, they can't contain it inside and they have to let it out," she had explained. "Their grief... is like sadness that aches over and over and over."
He hadn't understood then, but he understood now. Oh, how he understood.
Involuntarily, his nails dug into the thin shirt that hung loose around his shoulders, and with one final shaky breath he finally stopped trying to stop himself from crying. He just wanted to go home, to be safe in his mother’s arms once more.
He managed one desperate sob as keys inserted themselves into the lock on the metal grates of his cell.
The guard stepped in, avoiding his eyes.
And true to his earlier thoughts, once he cried he was unable to stop, wailing screams piercing the walls as he was blindfolded, then half-carried, half-dragged through the tunnels and up the stairs, barely managing to kick out and wriggle in the guard's tight grip.
Placed on a metal table once more. Only then could he catch his breath, feeling his fingers trembling under the tight restraints over both of his arms and wrists.
His breath caught when a small ribbon of cold metal pressed itself onto him once more. He opened his mouth to scream, and was gagged yet again.
He wasn't foolish this time. He fought the restraints harder than he had ever done before, ripping through his clothes, through his skin, through his nails, anything to try and escape. Shaky arms and legs trying to drag his body up and away from this nightmare.
A needle shoved itself into his arm despite his wild thrashing, and gradually, his shrieks and cries devolved into moans and whimpers. Hazily, he could make out the silhouette of his anonymous torture, watching him.
The cold metal once more laid itself casually on his chest.
He shuddered, and the man took it as a cue to start.
The man didn't stop cutting and shocking until the last strains of his voice were gone.
And yet there he lay, powerless, in agony, and torturously awake.
