Tevun-Krus #92 - MusePunk

The Program - A Short Story by @sleepingdraco

The Program

By sleepingdraco

I awake from unconsciousness hearing screams coming from all directions, disturbingly intermingled with the sounds of fornication. My all-white chamber is empty save the chair I sit in and a desk in front of me. I struggle to regain my senses. The searing pain in my bandaged wrists and fingers brings back snippets of dreadful memories. I panic realizing the cycle is about to begin again. Why, why me? I wonder. I start to cry, but it is no use. My cell door slams open. I try to struggle to my feet, but I'm too weak to fight.

I'm in hell.

The amazonian woman who enters wears a tight flight suit over her shapely figure and six-inch stilettos. She must have just arrived. It seems this 'retreat' is located conveniently in a far uninhabited corner of the galaxy. Ships can be heard docking day and night as the purveyors of this mad scheme come and go, renewing their personal supplies of champagne, caviar, and instruments of torture.

A needle pierces my arm and she injects a golden liquid into my vein, so beautiful I cannot help but watch it leave the syringe. Despite the mesmerizing nature of the nectar, hatred wells within me towards its power, towards her, towards them. I feel the poison crawl serpentine up my arm until it reaches my brain and clashes with my ire. Fire erupts, a heady sensation overwhelms me.

She laughs, "I can tell from your anger this will be a good one." She ruffles my hair like a schoolboy and then roughly pushes me forward, pressing my chin to a stand on the desk and securing it with a strap. She places a microphone in front of me and flips it on. Then she leans over me, her large bosom close to my face. Her red glistening lips form an 'O.' Her voice is sultry.

"Go."

Thoughts begin to surge in my head and though my body hurts everywhere, my brain feels alive with an electric impulse that under any other circumstance would have caused me to dance in the streets. But this time I'll refuse. Ideas race through my head. Brilliant ideas. I brace myself against the urge, press my lips together to prevent myself from blurting them out.

I can do this. I tell myself. They have to let me go if they think they have used up my brain.

In contrast to the silence I maintain, the man in the next cell is rambling on and on, occasionally sobbing with exhaustion. I hear the crack of the whip. He continues on for another minute. I hear a scream, then nothing. Evil laughter erupts. Another one has been tortured until he produced what will likely be read by millions, possibly billions within a day. He likely passed out with the last sentence he either wrote or dictated if, like me, his hands had long since worn out, unable to hold a pen at first and finally too weak to strike a keyboard.

The hatred I feel towards my captors cannot be expressed in words, though words are what are streaming through my consciousness now in full force. I suppress the urge to dictate. Resisting hurts worse than my abused body but I remain silent.

I can hear them discussing me at the end of the hall. The lovely virile gorgeous monsters.

They are strategizing. How can they force me back to work, squeeze what little is left of my soul into ink, to fuel their intergalactic literary empire? Cicero once said that a room without books is like a body without a soul, but they seem hellbent on keeping me in this room until they have squeezed out the last of my soul into their books. Their books. I should have read the fine print.

We volunteered looking for inspiration, but we ended up as slaves.

The door bursts open again. I've never met this one before. My heart flutters as I look upon her beauty. No man alive could say 'no' to this woman. Despite believing I'm nearly dead, I'm aroused as she stands in the doorway, her hands on her curvy hips. Her scent envelops me and my brain shifts into hyperdrive. I'm no match for her power.

She saunters over to me and caresses my cheek with her hand.

"Come on Marcus," she purrs. "You signed up for the Wattpad Muse Program." She sits on my lap and drags her fingers down my chest and between the tight space between us to my groin. She licks my ear and whispers, "What will it take?"

I succumb to inspiration and write.