Where Should We Start

Luna's Pov

My eyes burned as red liquid spurted into my eyes. My head throbbed, my wrists and ankles burned as the coarse ropes bored into them, wound so tightly that they sliced into my skin, shredding it like meat in a grinder. My arms and legs were spread so far apart that my joints creaked with annoyance, each threatening to break away from my body under the strain. My back felt like a colony of fire ants had been let loose on it, each one digging its head into my skin and taking a good sized chunk out of my skin. I wondered if the guards would consider loosening one of my arms long enough for me to reach to my back and scratch the itch that was threatening to drive me crazy although something told me I wouldn't enjoy it very much.

"Have you had enough?" One of the guards asked.

My chest felt like I had drank a mouthful of oil and followed it up with some fire. My chest beat painfully against my thorax and my stomach felt like it had had all its contents pulled out and smoked on a blazing fire before they were all returned, still smoking from the adventure. My legs would have crumbled to the ground if they hadn't been tied so far up. The ropes swaying back and forth gave me so much vertigo that I would have thrown up if my pharynx didn't feel like it had been sewn shut. My head was swaying back and forth as I tried without success to maintain my balance. Every part of me hurt. Of course I had had enough, I wanted to scream. Instead, I forced myself to laugh.

"Is that all you got? Such disappointment." I tooted. "I expected the guards of the almighty Druid Peak Pack to have more..." The rest of my words were lost in a muffled grunt as a whip curled around my stomach. When it came loose, it drew bits of cloth and skin along in its tiny jagged teeth. I whizzed as I tried to regain my breath. Not an easy feat with my body swaying in the air. My eyes grew blurry with red lines running wild before it like shadows in the dark.

"I see that we are being too lenient with you." The guard who had just whipped me, a buff man with a bald scalp snarled. I had a million annoying retorts but my pain made it impossible to speak. As it turned out, I didn't need to as the guard made his way to the rack of torture tools that laid on the table that stood opposite me.

I was in a pretty large room that reeked of pain and death. In the red light (whether the light was really red or it was my sight that was growing more blurry, I couldn't tell for the life of me), I could see black smudges on the walls, on the ground, smudges that I didn't have any doubt about what they were. The room's ceiling was so high up, it was masked in the darkness. In the center of all the four walls hung a lit brazier, affording me a great view of all that was in the room. Directly opposite me sat a table which showed off an assortment of torture weapons ranging from knives of different shapes and sizes, straight, curved, jagged, sharp, blunt, to whips, long, short, and other smaller equipment which I could not recognize either because they were too small for me to see from this distance or my brain was too clouded with pain to recognize. On all the other walls hung different assortments of torture equipment.

I watched through hazy vision as one of the guards walked toward the table and started to browse through the weapons. He picked a knife, short and straight and turned toward me, "how would you like this?" He grinned wickedly. "I guess it is not good enough, heh? We have to do better to impress you. Of course. Of course." He turned back to the table and began to browse again. I couldn't help watching his every move, (not because I was scared, mind you) as he rummaged through the piles.

Finally, he turned toward me, his head glinting in the light as he started to approach me, his arm tucked behind his back. His footsteps seemed to be amplified a thousand times over so that I almost did not notice he had arrived before he stood in my face, so close that I could feel his breath on my face. Despite the acrid smell of flames, dampness and blood, his smell of smoke and rotten fish was still enough to make me gag. He grinned, the result of which drove me near the edge of passing out. I couldn't help wondering if he ate the flesh of those he tortured here. His teeth were uneven as they boasted of tiny shrapnel which could be meat as easily as they could be fruits skins. Those things looked like they could trap water if they weren't kept in check.

I was pulled out of my thoughts as he raised a beefy hand and pried my mouth open. I glared at him as he withdrew his hand from his back and waved what must have been the scariest knife I had ever seen before my eyes. At first glance, it looked like a regular knife with a length of about five inches and a thickness of about 4 millimeters. But on closer look, the knife which had a bronze coated handle had several tiny teeth on either side of it. Looking at it, I couldn't help gulping in fear. I imagined being stabbed with it and the thought was enough to send a tremor through my system.

I tried to hide my fear but it soon became obvious that I was not doing a good enough job hiding it away from him. He grinned again as he traced the skin on my face with the rough edges. He didn't apply a lot of pressure, yet, I could feel the skin on my face sting as the blade cut through it.

"Where should we start?"