Deprivation- The Feast and the Famine

Chapter 25- A Man

Up over the dungeon, in the place light and food leaked from, he stumbled forward. The light in the room blinded his eyes and the effort of walking made his legs wobble. It would be worse, he knew, if he didn’t walk. With every step, he doubted his strength would hold out. There would be hell to pay. Already, he could feel the memory of acid burning his flesh and the hard toes of boots connecting with his side.

If only they would kill him. But he knew they wouldn’t, and he knew that his heart was a traitor to his mind and refused to stop beating.

“It’s doing better than I thought,” one of the men across the room said. He was tall and stood with his back to the light so the prisoner couldn’t bear even to look in his direction.

“Maybe we should feed it less?” the small warped one replied. “It’s so ugly! Uglier than me now, Prettyboy!”

The prisoner said nothing; his mouth was sewn shut. The thick black thread allowed him barely enough room to part his lips and accept the straw they fed him with. They’d told him once they didn’t like to hear men scream. Behind his lips, his tongue was dry.

The thought of less food terrified him, not because he would starve. At least if he starved, he would acquire the peace of death. He was afraid because the rats that lived with him in his coffin-sized chamber would go unfed, and when they starved, they started to nibble at him.

No, he had to stay on his feet so that they would feed him tonight. How long was it since he had real food? Time was meaningless. Maybe food didn’t exist, never had. Maybe all that existed was the straw and the goop that came out of it.

The taller man crossed the room and kicked a stone back into place. He glared at the dwarf. “You did not shut the girls’ door!”

“Sorry, sorry, I thought I had.”

“What if they heard this?” He circled a long silver knife in the air indicating the room around them and the prisoner. “Claudia has enough to contend with without being subjected to excessive violence. It isn’t good for a woman to come in contact with something this repulsive. They are delicate creatures. I thought I had made that entirely clear to you. How can she ever hope to recover is you cannot even close a door? The girls must be removed from temptation, deprived of the corruption of luxuries.”

The prisoner stopped listening. He’d heard this lecture again and again. There seemed to be nothing these two liked better than to talk about torture and their ‘deprivation chamber’ which if he understood correctly was more like a full-fledged city or torment.

The knife crashed into the wall behind the prisoner. He didn’t wince but stood as still as his starved legs could. So it was to be target practice today, he thought. Another knife slipped by him. The game didn’t end until one of his tormentors missed. They were good shots and no matter how much the prisoner prayed they never sank a knife into his heart.

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