Feral For Her Freedom

Food never tasted so good. It didn’t matter that I was eating a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. Never had anything tasted so divine.

Myrin watched me eat, his eyes fixated on my mouth. “See? Good behavior gets rewarded,” he purred.

Ignoring him was really the only thing I could do. I needed a few more minutes to allow for my shoulder to finally heal. This was the first time he had let me out of my chains and now that my arm wasn’t stretched and I had popped my shoulder back into place, I was hoping to recuperate promptly.

I was also standing as I ate so that I could get some blood circulating normally. If I had the chance to escape, I needed to be able to run, not trip over my feet as I tried to scramble away.

I finished my sandwich unable to stall any further. I looked up at Myrin, meeting his eyes. I don’t think I could ever like the color green again, which was really a shame as it had once been my favorite color.

“Your eyes belong on the floor, Beastie.”

“So does your head,” I snapped, unable to keep my tongue held as there was no food occupying my mouth anymore. “Right beneath my feet where I can easily crush it.” I knew my words were stupid. I was only inviting upon myself the pain that Myrin would bring, but I had to do this. I needed to play the long game if I hoped to escape from this nightmare since Myrin would need a much more convincing act than the sudden epiphany scene I had tried to fool him with before.

It would be a long and torturous wait up until that point but Myrin knew as well as I did that it would take a lot of pain to break me. My freedom, my resistance, meant everything to me and I would not give it up without a fight. I would fight him as long as I had to and then give in right before he truly triumphed over me and got me to crack but I had to wait until the last moment if I hoped to convince him I was ready to conform.

“You want to crush something?” Myrin growled, he grabbed the roots of my hair and yanked me towards him. “I am only more than happy to oblige.”

I kicked and screamed, latching my hands around his wrist that still tightly grasped my hair, pulling harshly at the strands as he dragged me away from my cell.

He released me abruptly, and I fell harshly on my shoulder that was thankfully not the one I had only just put back into place. A heavy clang had me looking behind me where I saw a thick iron door close by Myrin’s hand. We were plunged into absolute darkness and then a small click sounded, and a lone overhanging lamp illuminated the room.

My breath caught in my throat as I saw just where exactly I was.

Torture instruments lined the walls. Whips of every size and nature, some with sharp barbs and pins, other with lead balls that looked like they would break bones. Other monstrous devices that I never wanted to find out what they did were placed on tables. A various collection of knives and other blades gleamed as though they had been freshly cleaned. With every new device I saw, my breathing quickened until I was hyperventilating.

The male grabbed one of the contraptions from the table and brought it towards me. I scrambled away from him, trying desperately to activate my pure state, but it didn’t work.

“I drugged your sandwich, Beastie. We were going to come here regardless of what stupid thing came out of your mouth. Now you’ve added punishment to your day of learning.”

I was utterly helpless as he yanked me over to a chair with wrist and ankle clamps and locked me in. He splayed my fingers and with his other hand, brought out the thumbscrew he had taken from the table. The thumbscrew was made of two bars with spikes protruding down from the top bar and up from the bottom bar. He lifted the top bar and forced three of my fingers into the vice. The spikes penetrated my skin, but that pain was nothing when he started to twist the screw, pressing the top bar closer to the bottom bar.

The spikes further sank into my fingers as the pressure increased, my fingers acting as a barrier between the two bars that were trying to touch each other. Little by little I felt as the bone of my finger was crushed, the tiny fragments splintering from the main bone.

Myrin was forced to gag me just as he started, there was too much risk of me biting off my own tongue if he did not place something between my teeth. Still, the gag did little to muffle my shrieks of agony.

I dreaded to think of the lasting effects of this pain. The acceleration of my healing was lessened because I was in my human state. Normally, I would still be able to heal from a broken bone in just a week or so. Now, my fingers would take much longer to heal, the bone would need time to grow and reinforce itself as well as mend and set back into place. He hadn’t just broken my fingers but destroyed them.

Each of my digits received the same treatment and all I could do was scream through the pain. Sweat poured down from my face, the heat suffocating me and soon red was all I could see before a curtain of black descended.

When I came too, I desperately wished I never had.

I was strapped down to some sort of table and my dress was gone leaving me in my undergarments. Above me, Myrin was casually leaning against the edge of the table a gleaming knife in his hand. He twisted it back and forth before lowering and turning his attention to me. “Part one was just for your mouthing off.” He dragged a finger along the table, examining it as if inspecting for dust. “This is the lesson I had planned today. How long it takes for you to fully understand, well that’s your choice.” He moved around the table, slinking his way towards me like a cat who knew its prey had nowhere to go. “I like to move on to new material,” he stopped right behind me, his hands coming to rest on either side of my head. The male leaned down over me, “it keeps things interesting.” He made a mocking face of pity while brushing away a strand of my hair. “However, I am not opposed to revisiting old lessons until they will never be forgotten.”

He lifted the knife and laid the cool metal against my skin, drawing designs with it on my body, careful not to break the surface of my skin. “My lesson for you, Beastie, is obedience.”

With that he began his sick torture.

He’d ask me questions but no matter what I said, I always got punished for providing the wrong answer.

“Why is freedom so important to you?” he asked for what seemed the hundredth time.

I groaned, giving him the truth because my silence wasn’t working. “We aren’t meant to be caged. It’s in our DNA to crave the wildness, the independence. Once you’ve had a taste for it, you will always crave it.”

He slashed me again with the blade. No matter what I did, I was wrong.

My silence—earned me a cut.

The truth—earned me a cut.

A bullshit answer—earned me a cut.

The answer I knew he wanted—earned me a cut.

A sarcastic remark—earned me a cut.

Question after question, answer after answer.

I was in so much pain, the numerous lacerations all over my body paired with my mangled hands and the starvation was nearly too much to handle and I just wanted to break. It was only my first time in this horrid room and my soul was already threatening to shatter.

“I’m waiting,” the male drawled.

“What do you want from me?” I snarled but the words had no bite to them. My throat was raw from screaming and half of my words only came out as a whisper between my panting breaths. “You don’t want an answer, there is no right or wrong you’re just a sadistic bastard who gets off on hurting me.” None of this even had anything to do with obedience it was just some sick twisted game he found pleasure in.

Myrin stopped his light tracing of the blade over my stomach and set the knife down, peering deeply at me. He clicked off the only light and plunged us into darkness.

“The lesson here, is that you will never be right.” His voice came from one corner, but I couldn’t see him. “Not unless, I allow you to be.” His voice slithered across my skin, moving as he moved. “Because your mind doesn’t belong to you.” I closed my eyes trying to block him out. “Your mouth, your words, don’t belong to you,” he continued on, his voice taking on an eerie tone, “your entire being doesn’t belong to you.”

Then I felt his breath on my ear soon followed by the wet saliva from his slimy tongue. “You belong to me,” he whispered, letting his lips linger just close enough that I could feel their horrid presence. “You’ll conform. I’ll make you see the errors of your ways.”

And then his voice was gone, and I was alone in the dark.