He Sees You When You're Sleeping

17th December- Sing

The door creaked open, allowing a single beam of light to shine through to the basement. Tara watched the silhouette of a person descend down the stairs, filled with dread. She'd have tried to run had her legs and arms not been tied to a chair with heavy chains. She'd also have screamed if a gag hadn't been placed in her mouth. The figure reached the bottom of the stairs and reached over to the wall. There was a quiet click as the lights flickered on, bathing the room in a dim yellow light.
It was an old room. It smelled of rust and mouldy walls- which could probably be explained by the damp patch creeping up one of the walls. The lightbulbs were a bad quality, and flickered occasionally. There was the crackling buzz of electricity in the air.
Now that the lights were on, the contents of the room were visible. The walls were scaled with metal objects of all shapes and sizes. Some were knives, others metal rods. Cones and wicked-looking spikes scaled the walls everywhere you looked. The person ambled to one of the walls and started walking along the various torture devices, trailing their fingers along the metal weaponry. They were humming to themselves casually.
"So, Tara. What is it today?" They spun around, arms outstretched and indicating to the walls. "Sharp or blunt?" Tara's gag stopped her from responding. She only glared at her tormentor, staring daggers at them. If only looks could kill, she'd have gotten out of here months ago. The person sighed. "Come on, Tara. Don't be like that." They tutted in disappointment. They reached over to a wall and brought out a large kitchen knife and ran their fingers lovingly along the blade. Their face twisted in fake realisation as they looked up to the ceiling. "Lucky, lucky lucky," they grinned, looking back down to face Tara. "It's Christmas Day, isn't it?" A giggle escaped their lips. "I brought some special friends for you. Would you like to meet them? You can choose which one you spend the most time with." They said in sing-song manner.
Tara simply glared again. It was her only option these days.
"Mm. Not feeling very chatty today, are we?" Her tormentor raised the knife to her cheekbone and stroked it with the metal blade, before turning her head to face them. "No problem. You'll talk soon enough." Then in a whisper, they promised, "Because I'm going to break you." They leaned in, face inches from hers. Tara could see a maddened, almost inhuman look dancing in their eyes. And she knew what they said was true.
Tara watched as her tormentor climbed back up the stairs, giving her a little wave before flipping the light switch. Then the room was consumed in darkness.

Tara didn't know how long they'd been gone. She had no way of telling the time. But she knew it had been a while before the door creaked open again and the lights came back on. This time, her tormentor had some new toys in their hands.
By themselves, they didn't look too scary. A Christmas star that would have looked better atop a tree, a broken string of green and red fairy lights with some of the wiring poking out, glass shards which seemed to have once been an angel bauble, and a nutcracker.But Tara knew her tormentor, and she knew they had some ideas on how to change the meaning of Christmas for her forever.
"So, as it's a special day, I thought I might let you choose who you play with. Does that seem fair?" There was a silence in which Tara couldn't respond. "Oh, come on, Tara. Don't be like that. It's Christmas! Cheer up." They made it sound like a command. "Now, who would you like first? Twinkle Twinkle," they gestured to the Christmas star in their arms, then at the fairy lights, "or my personal favourite, Mr Fizzles? I do feel like having some fun, after all..... Twinkle Twinkle is great for prodding and stabbing, you know? Then there's Bloody Mary, the nutcracker. I'll use her to break each one of your fingers and toes, one by one. Fallen Angel loves to scratch people. I'll run his broken shards against your skin until you faint. And finally Mr Fizzles. I like him the most. Very... shocking, what he can do to you. Let's see how you two get along, eh?"
They plugged the fairy lights into a socket in the wall. The lights began to flash red, green and blue. The wires at the end the string began crackling, electricity fizzing between them. Tara could only watch as they brought the wires towards her.
"You might want to bite down on your gag." Hinted her tormentor, before they stuck the wires in a patch of her skin. Tara screamed in pain as she felt electricity run through her veins. Hot tears of pain streamed from her eyes. Her tormentor laughed, before yanking out the wires. Tara gasped, gulping for air, her cheeks marked with tears. "Let's see how many ways I can make you sing."