"I thought I knew pain."
"I was so fucking wrong."
── ✧ 🐎 ✧ ──
Ethan
I'm cold.
My head is pounding.
I'm sitting in a chair, with my hands tied behind the armrest in an unnatural position. My body is contorted in an unnatural way. I'm not wearing a shirt and the biting cold is seeping through my entire body and every nerve. It's like the winter wind on the plains gnawing you down to the bone. I get goosebumps and the hairs on my arms stand on end.
A thin trickle of blood runs down my forehead and into my eyes, probably from the wound on my head, that knocked me unconscious for a moment. My vision is blurred as though I am looking through dirty glass. I don't recognise this place. With every movement, the tightly bound ropes cut into the flesh of my wrists. Deeper and deeper, it burns.
I'm reliving it.
My eyelids flutter as I try to pry them apart. My own blood stings uncomfortably in my eyes.
I try to sit up straight in the chair, feeling each vertebra in my spine crack gradually, as if I were breaking dry branches underfoot. One by one. Crunch, crunch, crunch. The sound echoes through the empty, hollow space and returns to me. How long was I knock out? In this unnatural position? Leaning forward, hanging limply and unconscious. My muscles feel limp and stiff, and I can feel a tingling sensation in my limbs - I need to stretch. I need to reassure myself that my muscles are still working properly.
A faint and indistinct voice reaches my muffled ears from a distance. Someone is speaking to me and telling me something. A woman? Or a man? I can't tell yet. Another gust of cold wind sweeps through the room. The wind howls, and the shutters creak and groan under the onslaught of the chilly wind streaming in from the autumn weather outside. Am I in a house of some kind? I don't remember going anywhere. Why can't I remember?
I open my eyes, but I can't see anything through my blood-clouded vision. It's dark, occasionally illuminated by the flickering light of a street lamp that filters through the broken shutters, swaying in the bitterly cold wind that cuts right to the bone. At least I managed to make that much out. For starters. The light of the lamp, the broken shutters. I strain my brain, trying to remember. Where am I, and what am I doing here?
The room is dark and hopelessly oppressive. In short, it's tenebrous, as we detectives would say.
Someone speaks to me again. I blink, letting the blood rush to my eyes, and my vision sharpens as I focus on the person sitting opposite me. It's a woman with red hair, dressed entirely in black. For some reason, she reminds me of one of the Charlie's Angels.
Eager to get answers to my unspoken questions, I try to speak, but my mouth is dry and the words come out as a weak, raspy whisper, accompanied by condensed steam from my warm breath. I could use a drink. I need something to moisten my throat so I can speak.
I'm sitting in a chair wearing only jeans, which makes the cold bite even harder. I could end up with hypothermia. That's the best-case scenario. My muscles are stiffening further and I'm starting to lose feeling in my lower limbs. I wiggle my toes to see if I can still feel them. As long as I can feel and move them, I'm safe. I can hold out for a little while longer, but I need to start thinking about how to get out of this unnatural position that is slowly exhausting my body.
For a few seconds, I stop noticing it. I dissociate. My brain is buying time.
The woman stands up and walks slowly towards me, taking her time, and I see something glinting in her hand. I focus my gaze on her, trying to recall if I know her. She seems familiar – I must have met her recently. This time, at least, my words sound human, rather than the growl of a wild predator.
I want to know what happened. I want to know how I ended up here and, most importantly, why? The gears in my brain are grinding and spinning constantly, but so far none of the pieces have fallen into place.
A smile spreads across her face, but it isn't warm. It is malicious and cunning, revealing that she is the reason I am sitting here, bound. I feel like a fly caught in a web, she is the spider, who trapped me and is preparing to feast on me.
She held her long, sharp knife blade at me. She warned me. I'm slowly starting to remember. She urged me to stay away from it, but I didn't listen. How could I? I had to get to the bottom of it - that's what detectives do, after all. My job. That's why I'm here. Yes, I remember now. She's part of the case I'm investigating here.
I realise who this woman is - I've investigated her before, she's connected to both the victim and the suspect - and the pieces of my memory gradually fall into place. She knows I've just realised it. She knows that the reality of this whole case has just hit me. That bitch! That fucking bitch!
From the outset, I knew she was more involved than it seemed at first. She's not in this alone, she has an accomplice - they're in it together. However, during the investigation, I discovered that her accomplice isn't who I thought it was. The small-town sheriff. In fact, it's someone I would never have suspected. But I should have guessed - after all, I had no proof of his death.
People don't rise from the dead every day.
In fact, people shouldn't come back from the dead at all.
The knife blade slashes across my face, cutting through my cheekbone and almost reaching my mouth. I bite my lip. It hurts like fucking hell, but I swallow the pain - I don't want to show it. I don't want her to feel like she has the upper hand either. I try to free my hands from the ropes, but they've been tied too tightly. They cut deeper and deeper into my flesh and I feel more blood trickling from my wrists. I don't stand a chance. I realise I'll never get out of here. My life will end here. I'd always hoped I'd die in the line of duty. While fighting for something important, for good in this world. For justice.
But I no longer have the strength to keep fighting. It's two against one. What chance do I have of winning? I don't think I'll be successful while I'm tied up.
I feel a searing pain in my leg as the knife slices through my flesh and grazes my bone. I scream. Now that's fucking pain. That cut on my face? That's nothing, just a scratch that, if I survive, will leave only a scar. Now they've hit the bone! The fucking bone!
If the motherfucker hit an artery, I'd be dead in a few minutes. At least I wouldn't suffer, and it would all be over quickly. Unfortunately, I won't have the chance to find out. The world around me goes black, my head drops back onto my chest and the muscles in my arms tense up. Perhaps it's just the result of rapid blood loss after all. Could I be lucky enough to die quickly? That would be better than suffering painfully.
The last thing I hear before losing consciousness again is the sound of a trigger being cocked. Do they intend to fire the final bullet into my body? I had never thought about exactly how my death would unfold. I just hoped it would be as a result of my work and not a serious illness. But this is definitely not how I imagined it. Handcuffed and helpless.
Two shots ring out, but neither hits me. I wish I knew what was happening. I'd love to know, but I'm too weak. Life is leaving me. I can't even lift my head. The sounds around me fade away. I hear nothing, all is silent, calm and peaceful.
I am at the end of my life's journey - or so I thought, until the woman's face emerged from the darkness once more, compelling me to look at her one last time. She sits down beside me and cradles my head in her hands. That same twisted smile is on her face again.
I brace myself for more pain, expecting her to hurt me again. She brings her face close to mine. She smiles wickedly at me. Then..., she starts licking me. I grimace. My face is wet with her saliva. The metallic smell of blood in her breath makes my stomach churn.
I shake my head, trying to get out of her reach, but she holds my cheeks firmly. She won't let me go, won't let me slip out of her grip. It's disgusting. I don't like it and I want to get away. She opens her mouth, preparing to devour me. To wipe me out of existence as if I had never been.
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*Tenebrous – dark, oppressive, hopeless.
*Dissociation – a disconnect from reality.
── ✧ 🐎 ✧ ──
JUDGEMENT OF THE BURIED
𝓜𝒊𝒓𝒂𝒆 𝒀𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏, 2026