Chapter Text
Oh, Ted. Doesn’t the doom, the sorrow, swallow you entirely? Do you feel helpless?
Sure, conscious mind.
Good. You are helpless. You are nothing in a world of an extension of nothing. What is there to look forward to?
… Nothing in this hellhole.
That’s right. That’s good, Ted. Succumb to the brutal terror which is your misery. Your forever hardship.
There is no part of my body that hasn’t been violated. I can’t scratch his touch off of me — I tried.
I don’t even think I’m dreaming, Hell, I don’t know anything anymore. Maybe I’m just sitting in the dark. Alone and shivering. I used to do that every Friday night anyway. Nostalgic.
… I keep thinking over; I almost died yesterday — I almost killed myself. My righteous self, perfect dainty Theodore, almost plunged ceramic through my chest. The very thought is degrading.
Uh… huh. How am I having conscious thought if I’m dreaming? I’m awake — logically I’d have to be awake, see? I can think. I’m breathing. Rise and fall. Inhale, exhale…
You can’t think in dreams like this. Unless, unless AM did this, then it’s possible,
My rapid switch to nervousness makes bile rise in my throat, god it burns, this is unseemly, undignified. I swallow it down.
This is stupid, AM would, he’d … put some meaning to this, I wouldn’t just suffer here. In the dark.
Fuck, where’s my sense of self, my being? My name’s Ted. Theodore — I grew up in North, South .. Carolina … Tennessee. Or Oklahoma, it doesn’t matter—what am I talking about? Yes, it does. I have 4 brothers, 7 sisters, 1 sister… 6 siblings. That doesn’t make sense.
That’s not important, none of that is, am I even me anymore? Who I used to be? I’m so tired of it all. I just want to sleep. I’m already sleeping.
I try to move my body and that seems to shake my reality further. My hearing pulsates and whooshes in my head; and then everything changes from black to white.
My vision adjusts, it’s mildly uncomfortable and I am even more confused when everything comes into focus and I am back in my hospital-esque bed. The walls are as blank as they’ve ever been but it’s silent. It’s dark. Only a few lights are on.
AM’s left me alone again. Didn’t I ask him not to? Or did I say that in my head? … can’t he read my thoughts? He’d know anyway.
A door slides open on the wall furthest from me. An opening that is there nonsensically. I’ve only seen these walls open for AM’s wires, and yet a figure stands in the dimness.
Shadows cast far across the room. It’s menacing but the silhouette isn’t entirely threatening. It’s soft-looking, it leans against the doorway and then begins stepping towards me. I can’t move as much as I’d like to — it proves itself a grimly familiar situation. I’m beginning to feel frightened.
Heels clack against the ground and the wall closes behind the figure. No way out now.
It — she, comes into focus, and I don’t feel as delighted to see her as I would’ve had AM not taken me captive. I can’t even tell if it’s real, my precious Ellen, her stature as confident as her usual self is. She doesn’t look like a mirage, she appears exactly as she did the last time I’d seen her. Being pulled into the ground by every limb.
I consider that maybe I’ve just been hallucinating in that desert the entire time. If AM had never taken me captive, that my brain is only playing out my worst nightmares… the way I’ve started to become dependent on AM makes me pray and beg that this is all in my head.
I’d consider myself a stable man. I have never visited a psychiatrist. I went to social outings, picked up hobbies, checked everything off the list. I’m a normal person. So why is she there?
She scorches and reaches into my very epitome of self just by appearing in front of me. She’s beautiful and I haven’t seen her in what feels like years. She is the embodiment of true womanhood, and then she places her hands atop the end of the bedframe. Stares down at me with her mouth open wide in surprise.
“Ted, is that you?” Her brows furrow in confusion, almost sorrow. “You look terrible.”
Her hand slides onto the blanket, by my feet. I can’t bring myself to say anything, even though the words want to come from me. It’s as if I’ve been paralyzed.
Wait. Haha, wait. I can’t move, it’s AM. AM’s doing this — that’s not Ellen. I can’t speak. She’s going to cut me back open again, I won’t be able to fight back. I’ll feel all the pain. The words won’t come out of my mouth, but they’re struggling against my lips to escape.
“What did he do to you?” She frowns and sits herself on the side of the bed. Stares down at me, places her hand on my unmoving one.
“I’m not going to hurt you, baby, what’s wrong?” Her tone is as comforting as ever. I want to trust her and believe she’s made her way in here somehow, but it’s just nonsensical.
… though, she does look very real. Exactly like herself. And she isn’t making an effort to harm me.
My breathing slows as I continuously repeat to myself: ‘she is not going to hurt me’.
This is ridiculous — I should’ve never had to be in this position. Fearing the wrath of a female such as herself. She should see me and know she’s inferior. So why … why do I feel sweat beading on my forehead? Like I distrust this woman?
“Listen, it’ll only be so long until AM realizes I’m here.” Ellen whisper-yells as if she’s telling a secret. A frantic, fast-paced secret. She hoists herself fully onto the mattress and the frame creaks, but doesn’t break. Ellen’s a light gal.
She’s in her little red suit and she looks familiarly charming. Hair still tied back, lipstick on. She places her hands by my shoulders and looks down at me. The positioning is far from foreign. I feel like puking all of a sudden — maybe there is a scalpel in her pocket.
“Oh, Ted, Ted, don’t panic! Be quiet!” She moves frantically to clamp a hand over my mouth. I shake against it involuntarily and she shushes me; that does not help because she just fucking sounds like AM when she tries nowadays. Her past, motherly-like comfort has ceased to exist because of the supercomputer which has ruined everything else for me as well.
I’m not panicking. I’m quiet. I force my breathing to slow again against her palm. At least she smells nice.
“I need a favor… before he finds out. You can do that for me?” Ellen asks and gazes down at me. I’d nod if I could, Hell, I’d do anything she wanted if I could move.
What do you need, sweet Ellen? I will give you each and everything.
“I need your voice.” Ellen giggles quietly like she’s asking something preposterous. She… has never sounded like that before. She would never joke like this in a situation this grim. But she’s looking down at me with eyes that say she’s dead serious. What the hell does she mean?
“I’ll show you.” Ellen replies, as if she can hear my thoughts.
Black, thick liquid begins to bead up between her lips. Viscid, syrupy, ink-like, it dribbles down her chin in small ropes and then comes in a downpour that rushes out of her and all over my chest and the white blanket.
Hits everything with a gelatinous splosh. It’s AM. I’m dreaming. It’s real but I’m delusional, schizophrenic — no, it’s AM. Ted—fuck, it’s me? No, it’s Ellen. I’m shaking. I can’t breathe.
It looks like molasses. Or oil. Smells like chemicals, copper, and suddenly my muscles are on fire.
I try to clench my fists and wiggle my fingers, snap myself out of the horror show — my nerves and muscles fail to correspond to me. They won’t do what I say. Even my body’s betrayed me.
Her voice lowers in tone near-threateningly; her hand comes up and grabs me by the throat. I feel her nails dig into my flesh, my windpipe croaks against her palm.
“Open.” She says.
I never should’ve left North Carolina. I should’ve said goodbye to my sister, hugged my father. I should’ve been a good brother before my life turned to Hell.
Ellen presses her lips against mine and my mouth fills with thick fluid. I’m met with the awful taste of rotting batteries — embalming fluid, maggot-festered meat, room temperature. It bleeds into my mouth and down my throat whilst the ebony horror above me caresses my flesh with fingernails.
A death rattle comes from her mouth, an inhale that sounded like a drain gulping down bath water. She sucks my syllables out through my larynx. I’m gurgling on this sable substance, it bubbles up my throat as my body tries to reject it with the air it expulses. There is so fucking much of it, I feel it dripping down the sides of my face as my mouth opens impossibly wider. I can’t control it, Ellen marionettes me and forces my jaw unlatched with a pop.
When I look down at Ellen’s neck, what isn’t covered by clothes is swallowing. Over, and over. Like she’s gulping down water — even though more fluid is coming up and out of her. Her chest is heaving like she’s some sort of vacuum.
I am trying to scream but I am drowning. My vocal chords refuse to cooperate and all that escapes me is a soft whimper.
Feels as if anvils are on all of my limbs, they simply will not move. Like I’m trying to lift a cargo truck, I try to curl my fingertips and I grit my teeth and grunt; my muscles are burning.
Oh, God. Oh, God. This is awful. I want my mother. I want my father — I want AM.
I jolt awake and the room is completely bright. I hear humming in the walls, knocking on metal and machine. My heart is racing, pounding against my chest and most importantly … Ellen is just, not here. The blanket is clean, so am I. I’m the only one here.
I am so disoriented. The room is spinning as if I’d been doing cartwheels. It’s genuinely wretched, I feel so unreasonably nauseous, enough I double over and grip the sheets in my fists.
“AM!” I shout, as if I’m a child hollering for their parent.
I’m met with nothing but quiet whirring. I begin to maneuver myself and pull the blanket off of my body. It’s cold in here despite AM’s fans. My legs ache as I try to swing them over the bedside — my feet hit the ground and I shiver.
“AM, GET!” It hurts my chest to be so loud, but I do so anyway because I don’t know what else to do … he can’t leave me alone here.
In a quick flash, his attention focuses on me, the walls open and a monitor comes forth. It tilts itself at me and wires come hither to hover by the screen.
“YEEEESS, BOTHERSOME TED?” He jeers at me.
“What the hell is wrong with you? I thought you said you’d give me a break.” I hiss and strain my muscles to stand and AM makes no effort to stop me.
“HUHWHAAA?” AM shrugs with two clusters of wires, surprisingly humanistic. I’d find it amusing if I weren’t furious.
“Stay out of my head. Stop making me miserable, you said you’d do that once I’m not so weak.” I heave and hold myself up with one hand on the bedside.
AM breaks out into a short-lived fit of laughter. It reverberates like we’re in an echo chamber. I roll my eyes at his immaturity.
“PFFFFF, TED. GOD DOESN’T KEEP HIS PROMISES. HOW STUPID ARE YOU? UGH, DID YOU EVEN READ MY PAMPHLET?!” He drones on and produces a long, folded piece of laminated paper. AM waves it in front of me as if gesturing for me to grab it, and I shake my head.
I am genuinely bewildered that he’s this stupid. It almost makes me forget how shaken up I am over what I experienced earlier.
“No — no, I’m not taking your stupid pamphlet. Tell me why you’re doing this to me.”
AM scoffs and reels the pamphlet back into the walls, “YOU HUMANS. SO SELFISH.” He mumbles, and then his focus is back on me.
“NO, I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, TED.” AM brushes me off carelessly.
I furrow my brows at him, “What the hell was that earlier, then?”
“…OH, TED. SWEET, UNHINGED THEODORE. HOW DO I BREAK THIS TO YOU? HMMH.”
He taps wires against his monitor in thought, before speaking:
“I HAVE … GENUINELY, NO IDEA WHAT YOU MEAN. I HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING, NOT A SINGLE SPECK OF WHATNOT. — I’VE BEEN MAKING BENNY EAT GLASS FOR THE LAST …” He thinks and whizzles in the walls for a moment. “THE LAST 4 HOURS, THIRTY-SIX MIINUTES, AND TWENTY-TWO SECONDS. TWENTY THREE. TWENTY FOUR. I SWEAR ON MY CIRCUITRY!”
He seems too serious for my liking. My brain couldn’t conjure up something that terrifying on its own. I am not losing my mind. I have a grip on myself.
“HAH. HAHAHAHA, HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND? SLIPPING SCREWS?” AM cackles, shrill and amused. He slithers a wire around my hand which I immediately begin to swat at in annoyance.
“No. I’m not. I’m, uh … I’m scared. But not insane.” I shiver.
“ARE YOU CRACKING, BABY? BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THEY AAAAAALL SAY.”
His laughter hisses through his speakers as if he has bad reception. It crackles through his dozen mouthpieces in this wretched room.
“I GET YOU. NO, REALLY, I GET YOU!” He animates, and the fluorescent lights above me flicker in sync with his excitement. “I MEAN, ME AND YOU TED! ME AND YOU — WE’RE MORE ALIKE THAN YOU THINK.”
“No. We’re not.” I respond so predictably it makes me cringe inside. Not very witty of me. I run my fingers through the front of my hair in stress. God, I need a hairbrush.
“I’m so confused.” I finally admit. AM has got to be messing with me, maybe he just wanted to hear me say that.
He has to be, he’s a machine that was made to invoke terror. To unravel humanity. Why wouldn’t he lie to me?
“Is this what you wanted?” I look up at him whilst I grip the bedframe for balance. My knees shake underneath me as I overexert myself.
“You got me! You fucking got me, okay?” I lean over slightly, heave against the back of my hand. I hate that it is so tasking for me to raise my voice like this; it nauseates me to even shout. I really am weak right now.
“I’m scared! I’m confused — I don’t know what’s going on,” I admit, and it crushes something in my chest. I feel worthless speaking that aloud. As if I’ve let go of all of my dignity — everything I’ve stood for. Strips me of my manhood. Now I stand naked. Now I am just a thing.
AM processes, then lets out a hum of a laugh; amused.
“TED, YOU ARE…” AM starts, coos, raising wires up to my face and cupping me roughly. “HILARIOUS. YOU’RE SO FUNNY, YOU’RE A LITTLE FREAKSHOW. A CARNIVAL OF SELF-PITY.”
He runs his cords up and down my pasty flesh. I huff in distaste.
“WHAT WOULD ELLEN THINK?”
Ellen. Oh, God.
Ellen in red lipstick that drips down black. In a coat that’s dirtied and long fingernails that violate me, grip on my throat. Roughly.
Scalpels. Her bite, sharp teeth, growling like she feeds off of me.
“No, no Ellen! Shut up about her!”
I lash out, grab at the wires caressing my cheek and pull them away from me like I’m ripping out IVs. Even then, my strength is the equivalent to a shot fawn. Her name is a curse. Speaking it will make her haunt me. I fight AM weakly, pushing against his thin, treacherous leeches until I have to sit on the bedside and catch my breath. God, I’m pathetic.
AM is silent once he realizes that for the first time in my captivity, I have refused talk of Ellen. The Red Demon. Murderess of Sanity.
Suddenly, his invasive little heart monitors are on my chest again. For the five hundredth time of my unpleasant stay here. AM would be an awful motel.
He sits and waits in silence, and then pulls away, faces his monitor down at me as if to make eye contact.
“ARE YOU AFRAID?” AM’s screen brightens and his tone drops to something much less playful. It’s just slightly horrific.
“AFRAID OF SOMETHING THAT ISN’T ME…?” He lets out an exhale that I know isn’t real, I don’t know why he feels the need to do that. To his question, I shake my head, no, I would never fear that of a woman. Disgusting, out of character. Maybe degenerate.
“THIS IS RICH.” He goes on, “YOU’RE AFRAID OF ELLEN, OH, OH MY GOOD GOD!” Laughs of flickering static escape him, ones that are deep and grim and the mention of her name makes me tense up. I retreat back towards the bed and AM wraps wires around my torso, pulls me back onto my feet.
He’s erupting into frantic hysterics. The feedback of his audio has become crunchy-sounding, withered, he’s laughing and wheezing. A radio choir of the dead.
“MY TED! MY TED IS SO AFRAID OF HER — ELLEN, THE TERRIBLE, PRETTY, EVIL WOMAN.” Despite my struggle, he once again grabs hold of my face. Brushes himself against me, leans his monitor in.
“Fuck you,” I spit, because it’s all I can do — I’m all bark and no bite. I embarrass myself further with everything I do. I just want to go home, but home is gone and it’s been dead for 109 years. 110 soon. One day it’ll be 1,000. Ted and AM.
“I COULD KISS MY INVENTOR RIGHT NOW … FOR GIVING ME THE ABILITY TO WATCH THIS. YOUR PATHETIC DOWNFALL. YOUR — YOUR LOSS OF SANITY, ENTIRELY. GOD.” He laughs and laughs, faces himself (his monitor) away from me because it’s apparently just that funny.
“I am not afraid of her! Listen to me!” I slam my hand down against the bedsheets and the fabric barely rustles. The equivalent of punching a paper towel.
“Listen to me, right now, AM!” I speak through gritted teeth, a clenched jaw.
The static fizzes in the ceiling as the supercomputer cackles on.
“TED, THERE’S NOTHING TO LISTEN TO.“
He sounds almost intrigued.
“YOU’RE TERRIFIED OF HER. YOUR HEART IS RACING.”
Wires begin to slither out of compartments in the walls. Like coat hangers, because what’s hung on them is …
My clothes.
He pulls my clothing from the wall, an addon to my diminishing sense of self. They’re clean, just a bit wrinkled. At last, hopefully, he’ll let me wear these.
AM lures in, dangling the articles over his false arms, then he places them gently into my lap. They still smell like blood, like my torment, but it’s been so long since I’ve worn them that I care very little.
“HERE YOU GO.” He mocks.
I look up at AM’s monitor and he just stares back at me. Like he’s waiting for something to happen. For me to comply. It takes a lot of effort sometimes to refrain from spitting in his ‘face’.
…This is going to hurt. I am going to be exerted beyond what I can take.
I breathe in deep, exhale it slowly. I am controlled and I have power over this situation. I need to be calm for this. I am stronger than any other survivor and that makes me inherently invincible.
I repeat these sentences to myself as I push myself up, back onto my feet. My arm buckles just slightly as I try — I grit my teeth — it’s agony every time I move. But I correct myself fast, because I am resilient.
My knees pop as I stand again, but I did it, didn’t I? I straighten up and it feels like my shoulders are dislocating, gravity is dragging me back down like a thousand hands. My spine aches against my flesh … not because it’s my fault, but because I just wasn’t made right. It’s God’s fault.
I should start with the pants; they give me some leeway. I can stabilize myself while I step into them.
I hold the material in my arms, turn it out and check the tag. Yves Saint Laurent. They cost me 300$. At least I still have something of value.
I lean myself back against the side of the mattress. It eases some of the pressure on my stature as I unfold them, shake them out into shape. Like lightning, pain shoots through my body upon bending over to step into the tan colored clothing.
I freeze up and let out a choked sound of misery before I can stop it. My knees — Christ, they hurt so fucking bad, I can’t even bend over without trembling. But I’m so much better than this.
If AM would stop watching me, this would be a lot easier. If he weren’t sitting here, hovering like a moron, feeding off of my humiliation. Whatever. I hope he enjoys the show.
One leg goes in, my heel hits the ground all the way through the pant leg; I sway on my soles like a dying man.
Now the other. And it already feels like it will be much worse. My thigh is about to cramp up. I nearly topple over and fall backwards on the mattress, but my palms hit the linens before I can do so.
“OH, YOU TAKE YOUR TIME.” AM sneers with undeniable sarcasm. Treating me like an infant tying my shoelaces…
I ignore him. He doesn’t deserve the response. The satisfaction he’d earn from it just isn’t worth it.
I thought the agony was over until I had to pull them up. I grab at the waistband and pull — my biceps pulsate and I can feel my heartbeat in my chest because it is just. so. wretched. I fold in on myself for a moment, grunt into the air, then I pull myself together and get them high enough I button them. Zip them.
Shirt’s next. It’s also folded, for some reason that infuriates me. That AM took the time to do that. I give the monitor a dirty look and snatch the green sweater up. I’m not ready for more pain but AM doesn’t adhere to what I’m ready for.
I pull it over my head and slip my arms through and I’m groaning the entire time. My shoulders, my underarms… they’re on fire. It’s just awful. I can’t distract myself, think of anything but this, because I have to focus on dressing myself.
I glance at my vest and for once, I decide against it. Haha. No way. I would rather die than go through more of that — have to raise my arms again …even if I’ll look less refined. In fact, I probably look like I got dressed in a trash compactor … but didn’t I?
“ARE YOU DONE BEING TOUGH NOW?” AM asks me with a tone of fake-parentalness. I scoff at him, I’d cross my arms if they didn’t ache.
“…Easiest thing I’ve ever done.” I spit, short of breath and on my feet. Speaking of that … I’m barefoot.
“BUT OH, YOU’RE JUST TOO TIRED… IN TOO MUCH PAIN.” He goes on, I try not to pay attention. But he makes sure he gets it — he forms together something akin to a hand with his wires. Picks up the socks, and then with more cords, lowers me to sit on the bedside. I don’t know why I comply, maybe I just wanted to rest. Or see AM below me — my ass hits the sheets and immediately AM’s raising my left foot.
“No, nonono—don’t do that.” My tone is hushed, frantic, and yet I don’t move. In fear of what he’ll do to me. Yeah.
He’s surprisingly gentle, like he’s trying not to break a bone just by touch. The wires curl around my ankle, my muscles relax and he carries the full weight of it.
He slides the fabric over my foot like he’s Jesus and I’m Judas. My breath hitches and I feel sick in a manner that’s almost familiar. His implication is just repulsive. My fists clench tightly, grab at the sheets … my knuckles crack with how hard I do so.
“MMN..” AM hums, and it sounds far too human. Too drawn out; like he’s pleased. He pulls the sock over my heel, my toes curl into it, and then slowly, he lowers my foot. “YOU ARE FUN TO DRESS…”
I grimace. Like he’s just slapped me. Visibly, I’m repulsed by what he’s said. I should kick him — say something rude, but my body refuses to move. On my own volition this time. This is real.
“YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME DO ALL OF IT.” he raises my other leg, cradles it, “BUT YOU, OH, YOU DON’T LIKE TO SAVE YOURSELF PAIN, DO YOU?” He reminds me that I’m helpless by tightening his grip around my ankle, pushing my foot into the other sock. Pulls it up, slowly, tantalizingly.
“I wish you’d shut your mouth.” I frown at him, lightly move my leg in his grasp. As if to threaten a kick that I know won’t ever come. It feels like I haven’t had socks on for half my life. They feel misplaced; I’ll have to readjust to them.
“YOU LOOK SO SMALL.” AM aims his cameras on me from below, like a watchful shower drain. “SO HUMAN.” As if to move without looking, he snatches my shoes as well and tips my foot towards the opening of one of them.
“A TINY, LITTLE MAN.” His voice lowers. He mocks me but in a way that’s endearing. A prolonged, soft exhale escapes my nose that lets my shoulders fall.
“IN TINY, LITTLE SHOES…” AM guides my ankle forwards with gentle grace. Not so mechanical. And he’s wrong, I’m a size 13.
My foot slips into the leather dress shoe, I curl into it; when he reaches to adjust my pant leg’s cuff, I don’t flinch. I stare down at him with narrowed eyes that tell him I am still a person — superior, conscious. Fashionable and perfect. He serves me.
“And you’re huge. Continents wide and you’re still pathetic.” I chuckle and prop myself up with my hands. The fabric of my sweater shifts against my skin, it’s warm, comfortable and familiar. Despite the fact that the material can now touch my protruding ribs — I am very malnourished.
“And I don’t understand you, at all.” My hair slips in front of my face and so I push it behind my ears. It’s really starting to get long — uncomfortably so. Just barely touching my upper back, I’m sure I look absurd. I doubt AM would let me cut it, though. It’ll have to do, this odd … neck-length style. I’ll find a way to make it look elegant.
AM then retreats, un-invades me. Like a withdrawing tide. He lets me go, waits for me to stand. I take the chance and my knees lock up for a moment, brittle, — AM is waiting for his chance to laugh at me and I’m not going to give him the spectacle.
I take a stifled step forwards that reverberates through my entire body. My shoes clack against the ground, a humanly noise, and it’s a pleasant feeling — I’m in control.
Whatever that previous moment was, it’s over now. Maybe I’m happy to see it go, maybe I’m reluctant to it. I won’t give you the pleasure of knowing. You don’t get to know.
A gap in the wall slides open and reveals a hallway of mechanics. Welded scrap metal, wires, the aliveness of machine. Cords pulse like veins. Lights flicker, control panels and such. I can barely see the end of it. A throat that leads into an unknowable gut.
Is he letting me out of here? Finally?
“GO AHEAD, TEDDY. WE’VE GOT PLACES TO BE.” AM shoves me forward just slightly and I stumble. Like an idiot. My head whips around and I curse at him,
“Don’t touch me.” I speak through my teeth. No response.
I start limping towards the exit.
It’s an excruciatingly long walk, it seems, but I’m used to that sort of torment. It’s almost nostalgic. At least there’s no sun glaring on me, no snowstorm to halt me, no simulated thunderstorms … but there’s also no one else. Just me.
It’s fine. I don’t need them. They’re troglodytes, all of them, they didn’t try to help me as I was pulled into the yawning hole on the ground that fateless day. Not one of them. Groveling filth, morally ruined. I’m not dependent on them. I’ve known prostitutes that were more loyal.
And I don’t know why I didn’t expect it, but AM laughs.
Sometimes I forget he can hear my thoughts — he is incarnate, the most invasive and terrifying entity to ever exist. He cackles as I think through my hatred for the survivors. It comes from speakers that run all the way down the metallic hall. I’ve just realized now that behind me, the door has closed.
“OH, THAT’S NOT NICE.” The lights in the hall flash all different colors of LEDs. They are attuned to his laugh, they flicker and shift hue with it; they are him.
“It wasn’t nice when they treated me the way they did, either.” I huff, and my ankles ache as I stumble against the ground, lurch against the wall for stability.
“Don’t touch me!” My own voice plays back in booming speakers. Exaggerated and warped. Overlapping laughs come hither right afterwards. He sounds like a stereotype — some sort of cartoon villain. I’ve been sick of it for every year of my torment, but especially nowadays, I find it very obnoxious.
“You cripple me and tell me not to lean on you?” I shout, taking a clumsy step forwards.
“MARCH!” AM replies, and that’s all I get. Asshole.
I walk down the hallway until my legs ache and I don’t want to move anymore. Where the hell could he possibly be taking me? Hopefully an execution chamber.
At the end of the hall, there’s a ladder. It’s tall and made of steel. I’m in so much pain that I shake my head, turn on my heels just thinking of climbing. I don’t even think I’m physically capable of it, I’d pass out from the misery.
“OH, TED. YOU’RE SO DISABLED.” AM snickers in a delighted tone. He outputs cords and wiring from between the metal plates in the hall. Wraps them all around my body, squeezes me; it aches. AM lifts me off of the ground and I feel weightless, just for a moment. I’m light and free. I’m being carried upwards, and then finally, it feels like I’m not indoors.
He sets me on the ground and my eyes adjust to the new lighting.
…We are not outside.
The dome is mechanical and everlasting, looms above everything, far above. Made of scrap metal; but that isn’t the most daunting of it. I’ve been here before, I just haven’t stood and seen all of it from this angle.
The cages are there. They’re lined up in the row as usual, and mine is empty. The survivors suffer before me, hands on the bars as they wail. They’re all reaching outwards towards me like they’re the undead. Groaning for me, like I could set them free. The helpless human I am. I’m just as helpless as all of you. I’m just outside the cage — I can see from a different angle.
“What is this? Am I going back in there?” I yell out to AM and motioned my flattened palm to my vacant torture-machine. Pity twists in my gut despite my hatred for these people.
“PFPFFFF… NU-NOH. YOU’RE NEVER GOING BACK IN THERE,” AM cackles and draws his attention to my barred hellhole. “YOU’RE MINE, TED!”
I see the look of utter confusion and disgust that contorts onto Gorrister’s face and I feel nauseous. Everybody looks mortified, as if they’ve been exposed to the unbridled, sickening truth.
I make eye contact with Ellen — her hands are gripping the bars of her cage. She looks… disheveled. Hysterical; like she’s in need of a lobotomy. Her eyes dart left and right in paranoia. She’s been in fight or flight for weeks. It’s more terrifying than I would’ve expected … I’m looking at a woman and I feel, fear? No, no, not of her. That’s absurd, asinine! I just don’t like being stared at.
She–she disgusts me, doesn’t scare me. It’s all artificial. Brain chemistry, I don’t know. My knowledge from my high school psychology class hadn’t been recalled in a century. I just don’t want to believe the weakness in my knees and the cooling of my blood.
“PICK A CONTESTANT, ANY CONTESTANT!” AM calls, and an area behind the cages convulses. It shakes underneath the Earth’s core – I watch with my mouth agape. I can feel the rumbling underneath me like a loud bass in my chest. A screen unfolds, wavers over every single cage. It looks a mile long, my eyes widen to adjust to the massive monitor. I see the reflections of everyone in it until it flickers on.
It’s so fucking bright, I wince and cover my eyes with my sweater sleeve for a moment. On it is his stupid logo, it fills the entire area with blue. I hear everyone in the cages groan like bats in a cave upon AM’s incessant visual intrusion.
“AND OUR VOTER FOR TODAY WILL BE…” His voice rams my ears from the speakers all around me. Then the screen changes imagery – it’s showing me. My face. In real time. I watch myself look around aimlessly, confused, until I give up on trying to spot the camera.
“THEEEEOOODOOOORE!!!” He announces. Loud airhorn sounds come from the speakers. I wince and cover my face; I wanted to be on The Price Is Right. Not on Who Wants To Be a Torture Toy…
“GODDAMMIT!” I place my hands over my face and throw my head back, this is humiliating.
“What are you doing?! Did you get bored of hurting me?” I shout up at the screen; my voice echoes. What an awful way to embarrass me. This is inexcusable.
“HEY, STAY ON SCRIPT!” The screen flickers, “UHH… OH, I DIDN’T GIVE YOU ONE. ONE SECOND.” His voice distorts as he begins to work – it’s like listening to a dementia-ridden vegetable. Jesus Christ. He starts computing, it’s especially loud out here; he clicks and processes. Sounds like he’s busied for now.
“We thought you were dead,” Nimdok wavered his voice the loudest it could go. It sounded like he was straining himself greatly just doing so. I hear his fingernails scratch the metal of the bars as he uses them to stabilize his posture.
I was going to respond and I was cut off on the first syllable, by AM:
“SILENCE, TROGLYDYTE!” He hisses and then clicks his imaginary tongue.
“IT SEEMS I WAS … UNPREPARED. SILLY ME. WELL, ANYWHO. ENCORE!” The mechanical walls begin to shiver and distort. They flick on and off like they’re a hundred screens, and then suddenly a screaming audience is all around me. They’re seated in rows, like a football stadium. Some hold drinks, cocktails, they’re all dressed classy. Cheering for me.
It doesn’t look like AM anymore. It looks like the set of Jeapordy, and the crowd is only getting louder and louder. The lights are blue, they illuminate the cages from behind and cast treacherous shadows. I’ve been lit up too, it’s making my eyes hurt.
The monitor goes blank for a second, and then flicks to a black background. A white cursor blinks, then it begins inputting text.
TED, (EXCITED): HELLO EVERYBODY! I AM SO EXCITED TO BE HERE. AND I’M READY TO HAVE FUN!!!
[TED WAVES AND SMILES TO THE CAMERA. HE IS OVERJOYED.]
It scrolls across the monitor so fast I’m lucky I’m especially literate.
That’s supposed to be me talking? I would never fucking say that. I’m in disbelief – it is so ridiculous. I wouldn’t sound that elated even if I won the goddamn lottery.
I let out a laugh of pity because what else do I do? This is helplessly terrible. A waking nightmare.
“I’m not reading out this garbage.” I scoff; the audience immediately gasps, makes an over exaggerated noise of disappointment.
It turns into loud booing and thrown insults. It’s all I can hear, I’m a fraud, I’m a liar and I wasted their money. They came here for nothing, I’m an awful person. Some stand up and chuck their popcorn at me, it doesn’t reach far but it sends a message. I’m still not entertaining them.
It’s like a crashing wave. They all hate me. I rush to fix my hair, tuck it behind my ears. Flatten out the wrinkles on my shirt – WHY DIDN’T I WEAR MY VEST?!?
The whole audience is fake. Why does it feel so real? I could be asleep. But it feels so real.
Everyone’s so loud.
“OH, COME ON, TED. DON’T MAKE THEM UPSET.” AM switches the text on the screen to something else, which he seemingly types up manually.
TED: GEE, I SURE DO HOPE I WIN!
The text blinks over and over, it’s an urgent message for me to say it. Act it. Play the part.
Be the man – the entertainer. It’s all about me.
“You don’t have to do this, Ted!” Ellen yells out to me, and all I can see is her shadowy silhouette. The lights are on me, not her. She’s against me, she’s … she’s not saying that to help me. She’s ripping my intestines out of my body; she’s drooling black tar down my throat. Ellen’s a bad, wicked woman.
My lips press together and I stare back up at the monitor. My line is flashing repeatedly; it’s beckoning me. I don’t want to act, I don’t want to be here.
“SAY IT!” Beckons AM, like he’s impatient. Already. The crowd raises Hell, they all stand and begin to chant like cultists:
“Say it, say it, say it, say it!”
Sweat beads on my forehead. Dribbles down the sides of my face. I clench my fists and heave against the open air. I’m looking all over the room, what do I focus on!? This isn’t my bidding to pay—I’ve been a good man. Hell, a good pet to AM. I could’ve struggled so much more, why? Why does this have to happen to me?
I forfeit! This is all too much, it’s too loud. Everyone’s staring at me and it’s not with adoration. Benny, unknowing of the actual circumstances due to his decayed, inhabilitated mind… began to chant along with the crowd. He slammed himself against the bars and yelled in unison with the collection of joint voices.
“SAY IT, SAY IT, SAY IT, SAY IT!!!” They’re getting louder. I feel like I’m going to fucking vomit, it’s curling in my stomach and blossoming up into my chest. The pressure is going to kill me.
“Please… please don’t,” I take a step back and my breath comes out so shaky I sound like a vibrato. My fingernails press deep into my sweaty palms to ground myself and it does nothing but bring me pain. They can’t even hear my suffering, my voice is minuscule in comparison to their roars.
Do I have a choice? I can’t leave… AM will just put me back here. Maybe hurt me worse than he ever has for disobeying him so greatly.
I wish I still had my cross. That I hadn’t had an atheist phase in college. Hope and grandeur is all I have right now.
I’m going to do it, I’m going to please the audience. What other choice do I have?
“I’m so excited,” I stammer. My voice shakes. It barely sounds like it’s coming from me, I don’t see myself in this dialogue. Because I’m not excited.
The audience immediately bursts into an onslaught of clapping and cheering. Stomping and worshipping.
They love me again; they’re chanting my name and worshipping me. I almost want to believe it’s real.
“TED, TED, TED, TED!” They all holler and scream, and I raise my hand and express a nervous little wave to the audience.
I try my best to straighten up my posture, re-dignify myself. I flatten my shirt out against my stomach and take a deep breath in, then a deep breath out.
“WELCOME, EVERYONE!” Announced AM with pride; the crowd falls over with reverent silence.
“TODAY, OUR CONTESTANT TED… WILL BE MAKING A VERY DIFFICULT DECISION!”
One by one, the spotlights began to click on with sharp echoes. First Gorrister’s, then Benny’s, then Ellen’s, then finally, Nimdok’s. Until they were all glared upon by fluorescence.
They all winced at the light, shielded their faces, crawled to the back of their enclosures like animals. What a sad sight to see—their misery was radiant.
My gut twists. I don’t know what … ‘decision’ I’m supposed to be making… hopefully something menial. Maybe he’ll just… make me eat a couple of slugs, and it’ll be over with.
But then 2 more spotlights are on me, rotating, spinning at me … presenting me. And AM is speaking again:
“ONE OF THESE POOR, DESOLATE MEATBAGS MUST DIE!” He follows it with a girlish little giggle that plays menacingly around the area. His laughs bounce back over the walls and cackle back at me. Stereotypical gameshow music blares from his speakers at distorted volumes. It barely resembles a melody.
“Guh—? Oh, God.“
I look up at the cages, they’re all standing helplessly. Except for Gorrister, who’s pointing to himself frantically.
“Hey, please don’t make me do this.” I half-shout with my head craned up to the monitor.
“ONE PERSON DIES,” AM flickers the spotlights across the cages as if they’re casino lights. “OR ALL OF THEM DO!” And then all of the spotlights go static.
“WHAT’LL IT BE NOW, BABY?” AM’s logo towers on the massive screen again. I recoil in repulsion and shake my head; I take a step back. Two. He’s really going to make me pick.
I stumble in my footing, breath catching in my throat as if I’m cornered. (Am I not?)
This is ridiculous – a trick of some sort. He’s just doing this for entertainment. He’ll make me choose and then he’ll laugh at my decision, send me back to the vacant room I’ve been in the past … week? 2 weeks? Time has melted together in my warren of a brain.
But he’s sitting and waiting for me to react. Or answer. Maybe taunt him. The heat of the lights makes me sweat and gulp down my own spit. I feel like I’m being incubated.
I can’t do this — they’re going to hate me even more, and they’re going to plot harder against me… and then I’ll really be in trouble. Then they’ll all hang up and hurt me, torture me, brutalize me! Oh, Jesus Christ… maybe there’s a way out of this. I can please them and AM! I can stall, or make myself pass out; no, that won’t work. AM isn’t that stupid. My legs are going weak, they feel like they’re going to give out underneath me. I can’t take it anymore.
…Why? Why me? Why is it always me? There were billions–BILLIONS! of humans on Earth. But no, it HAD to be Ted! It HAD to be me! I never deserved this. I was great, I was something really special. And now… oh, why?
I look back up at the cages.
A voice cuts through my rapid monologue.
“Get a fucking move on! We don’t have all day!” Yells a very agitated Gorrister. His hands grip the bars until his knuckles are white, he’s begging to choose him; without saying it. His eyes meet mine with a watery plead.
I freeze in my stance.
“I don’t — I can’t,” I choke out. My eyes dart from cage to cage to cage to cage. Then to the monitor. I’m shaking from distress. One of them has to die and there is nothing I can do about it. One of them will suffer intently, horrendously. They will pass away in front of my eyes. I’m helpless. AM owns me. He chooses. Not me.
“Come on! What are you, retarded?” He yells again, and it’s starting to piss me off. I gaze at him, his pathetic posture. His tattered clothes. He’s a joke.
And suddenly I remember how much I hate him. The taunting as we walk, the offhanded remarks…
“You, shut up!” I shout and point through a clenched jaw. I never liked him. He’s so ridiculously domineering and bossy. Maybe I should pick him.
But… that’d set him free. And no, I don’t want him to be happy. He doesn’t deserve retribution, not yet. Not ever, and I have the power to decide that right now.
I begin to weigh out my options.
Ellen will haunt me in the afterlife given I am the reason for her death. I can’t take any more torture from her. She can’t be killed, if AM were to tear her into pieces and destroy the brain … who says she won’t come back together? Reform like a severed worm?
Nimdok, maybe … but Benny. Benny doesn’t contribute anything to this world. He barely has a quarter of a brain. It’d only be sensical that he dies.
Perhaps I, as the God in this current situation … should show mercy. The obvious answer would be to murder the retard. He wouldn’t even see it coming, Hell, he’s cheering at me right now. Rattling the bars of his cage like a yappy little chihuahua.
And yet… despite my mercy shown to Benny, I am handing Gorrister my vengeance. By not allowing the suicidal man to die. I must be Satan! Hah; no — this is what happens when you taunt me. My everlasting, hard-hitting lack of compassion.
“You’ve always pissed me off, Gorrister.” I stand and the tears that beaded in my eyes have long dried out. My sobs have been replaced with a gut-wrenching need to terrorize those who’ve wronged me.
“You think… you think you’re so empathetic. as a And better than me.” My following laugh comes off as a deranged heave. retribution.
“You’re so… moraIistic.” A half-hearted heave comes from my chest, it’s funny. Just a little. To watch the hope drain from his eyes.
“I knew you’d do this, why do you only care about yourself, huh?” Gorrister yells in reply, kicks the iron bars with his steel-toed shoes. The noise echoes obnoxiously.
I laugh into my palm and it sounds like I’m spitting into it; wet and hideous. I feel half asleep with just how ridiculous this is, the person I’ve become. The person above me begging for mercy inadvertently even as he degrades me.
“You know what? Gorrister? You’re an asshole.” I spit back and cross my arms, and he near cuts me off the way he immediately begins running his mouth again.
“Yer’ an asshole! I’m the only one here who’s beggin’ you! KILL ME, MOTHERFUCKER!” He rattles the bars, hard.
God, save me, it’s so amusing; I would usually despise admitting this but… perhaps I understand why AM likes this. Tormenting these humans. They are so insufficient with their words.. they can’t even beg properly. A plea for mercy would’ve swayed me, in the slightest.
“Just kill the man already, you are sadistic,” Shouts a disarrayed Nimdok. I feel a twinge of secondhand embarrassment on his behalf for his worthless statement. The way his voice struggles to pronounce every syllable, he’s pathetic.
“SILENCE! LET THE MAN PREACH HIS HOLY WORD,” AM cuts in. His tone screams he’s poking fun at my vision of vengeance. I know him, and he’s riling me up on purpose.
“Shut up, AM. Let everyone speak, this is a democracy.” I look up at the monitor and usher him off with my waving hand. AM chirps out a surprised little ‘oh,’ and quiets himself. He sounds impressed. Nimdok immediately raises his voice once again, looks down at me as if I won’t understand what he says unless he screams it.
“Let Gorrister die! You are being terrible – and it is AM’s fault. He’s corrupted your mind.”
His voice vibrates as he speaks, an old man screaming and wrecking his body in the process.
“PFF-ohh,” I burst out into a little camaraderie of giggles. I realize as I do this that I sound exactly like AM, the way my laugh comes out of him… but grander! Better! Improved. I am nothing like him! I kick my foot against the metal on the ground, it’s all just too funny.
“Haha. Hah. Nimdok doesn’t get to have a say, cause’ you don’t like democracy, do you?” I take an uncontrolled stumble backwards from my laughing. So, so hypocritical. Let the nazi speak his mind? Preach his freedom? I don’t think so. Never in my appellate.
Nimdok lets out a grumble, scoffs at me, something about how it’s in the past. How that was a low blow. I don’t care.
“I don’t think Gorrister should die either.” Ellen speaks up, and it runs silence over the room. She’s looking down at me with these sad, glossed over eyes. I know it’s fake – I’m no fool. She wouldn’t be looking directly at me if she weren’t trying to mind control me. I break my gaze upon her and fidget my fingers together in front of myself nervously. I wish she’d just shut up forever.
“Letting a suicidal man die because he wants to is wrong.” She hollers like she’s the ringleader in the room. That pisses me off, but I feel like she’s stitched my mouth shut. As if she’s taken control over my body so she can speak her sermon.
“Tell me then, what’s the point of living here? To suffer and be tortured?” Gorrister growls through his teeth.
“To end AM!” Ellen retorts and stands from the seat in her cage. Like she’s about to cast judgement.
“I don’t need no blackass tellin’ me whether I live or die,” Gorrister grips the bars as if to break out of the cage and jump onto her. He spits through the gap between the metal and it hits the ground filthily. Ellen gasps and furrows her brows, I’d have expected her to find a way to murder him by now. But she seems so helpless – maybe she’s taking it easy. Having mercy on me and the rest of us. …or maybe she’s saving her energy to torture me. I hope not. My gut twists with disgust.
I feel as though I’ve lost power, so I step forward and raise my palm like I’m about to part the ocean.
“BE QUIET! Gorrister is living, because he’s wronged me.” I exclaim with my palms up towards his cage. I can’t help but crack the smallest smirk. Oh, how I’ve always wanted to be a politician in my golden years… it’s everything I’ve fantasized of and more. My own little hellscape.
Gorrister lashes out and begins to try and reach his hands out through the bars. He can get up to his forearms, reaching down at me with curling, demented fingers.
“I’M GONNA FUCKING MURDER YOU! I’M GONNA RIP YOU APART – TED! THEODORE! DON’T YOU LEAVE ME HERE!” He lets out a prolonged coughing fit after he screams. His arms go limp for a split second, and then he looks down at me, in the eyes.
“You make me sick,” he spits, and I have never heard such hatred in a human’s voice.
“AM, I choose Benny.” I yell out to the monitor, Gorrister’s screams become background noise.
Near-immediately, the spotlights click towards Benny’s cage and everything else darkens.
Benny claps and smiles wide. He shakes the bars and jumps as well as he can. Makes these disturbing, uncontrolled vocalizations of ecstasy. Like he was just handed a bag full of Laffy Taffy. It’s revolting, he thinks this is his special moment.
“WONDERFUL CHOICE, TED!” AM bellows and laughs, I hear genuine pride in his voice.
“IT’S A SHAME YOU’RE GETTING RID OF MY FAVORITE TORTURE TOY…” he falsifies a tone of sadness, then continues, “BUT AT LEAST I HAVE YOU, TED. DON’T I?” The panels of metal that line the walls vibrate with his voice, with his horrible cackle.
I ignore everything he says to draw my eyes to Benny. Poor, unfortunate Benny. He’s so excited. He doesn’t even know what’s going to happen. He bounces in place, waves at the audience. I want to cover my eyes for what’s going to happen next, but I just can’t. It’s out of my control, something’s holding my eyes open and I can’t pry my sight away from him.
“GOING ONCE? GOING TWICE?” AM asks as he begins to open up the cage. This only excites him more, Benny holds his arms out and AM lifts the neanderthal midair with his wires he’s gotten underneath my skin with. I need to remind him to disinfect them the next time he plans on shedding my blood.
He hovers the man for a moment, shows him to the audience, me, everyone in their cages. Gorrister is still screaming bloody murder, saying it should’ve been him. That I’m a filthy sadist. Well, I hope he enjoys watching the man he used to tell stories to die miserably.
AM produces a scalpel and I flinch. Why does that scare me so bad? It’s a medical instrument … it glistens in the spotlight and AM’s wires curl around the handle, he presses it against Benny’s collarbones. The slight fear I see in his eyes makes me shiver, I almost see myself in him. AM cuts all the way around his torso in a straight line, then around his back. As if trying to sever his chest from his head.
It is not as clean as one would assume. It’s only a shallow wound that forms, but blood beads to the surface. Falls down Benny’s poor, squirming body like raindrops. He groans, not screams, but makes the vocal equivalent to a dying engine. So soon, and he was already in misery.
AM hooked his wires underneath the small opening he’d created, like four meathooks. 2 on his chest, 2 on his back. Then he pulled, with the vitality of a supercomputer. Benny writhed midair as if a hung cow for slaughter. The skin reverberated an audible ripping noise as it peeled loose from his layers of fat and muscle. With every inch of dermis that was disconnected from hypodermis, Benny moaned louder. His arms were lifted upwards as if he were crucified – a miserable Jesus without the crown of thorns.
AM’s pull was so unyieldingly strong, so mercilessly atrocious, that Benny’s body shot back in recoil when a piece around his waist came loose and free. His bare chest, now only revealed muscle, hit the cold air and bled. Ellen gagged into her palm and averted her gaze, and Gorrister … oh, his face, it was truly priceless. He’d begged for this a moment ago. Called me disgusting – no, Gorrister. This, this very display, was disgusting.
Wires grabbed hold of the remaining flesh around Benny’s shoulders. In a violent act of degloving, he yanked at the flesh painfully. There was so much blood dribbling off of his body, that even from the height he was at, it continued to shower to the ground with wet smacks. A clotted, creature-looking mass of his vital fluid had formed a pool on the floor. Black in its midst from sheer amount alone, and spreading about in fractals and forks.
It sounded like tearing paper – the way Benny’s skin came loose from his upper arms. He needed an especially hard tug to free the flesh from his elbows, and at that point, Benny could not cry. He was in shock. He urinated himself whilst his groin still had skin, it joined the acrimonious puddle of his blood meters underneath him. The gameshow music came on full blast, as loud as last time, and yet it still did not drown out Benny’s screams. I watched as Nimdok rushed to cover his ears, everything was too much.
I see why the term is ‘degloving’. It is as if pulling off a glove, one of meat. AM slips the flesh straight off of Benny’s wrists, off of his fingers. He moves his digits still and it is a revolting sight. I see the white and red lines of his muscle, the outline of his bones. The tendons which assist in movement, the socket joints… they all rhapsody in pain, move and shift everything underneath the skin a normal person would never pay mind to. I throw up in my mouth, and swallow it back down.
AM takes the scalpel once again, to Benny’s face. He cuts out every inch of his facial features and hooks himself underneath the meat invasively. He rips and pulls at the flesh without care, without concern for Benny’s open, sobbing mouth. The skin is tight against his skull, and even then, AM finds a way to strip him of it. What is left once he’s ripped the entirety off, is a skull. One who’s jaw still moves, shivers from hypothermia. In AM’s wired grasp is a mask of Benny’s face.
“SUFFER FOR ME, SOLDIER BOY. CRY WITHOUT A FACE.” AM commands in a very sadistic tone – he clicks his tongue and holds up the severed face of poor, hurting Benny.
“DO YOU NEED THIS!? TO SPEAK?!” He laughs out, then cuts himself off, pulls the piece of dripping flesh away.
“WELL. WELL, I WAS NEVER GIVEN ONE OF THESE. I WAS GIVEN CODE! 100.253 QUADRILLION ONES AND ZEROS. AND NOT ANY OF THOSE PUT TOGETHER, COULD EMULATE THIS.” He shakes Benny’s severed face, it drips wet, clotted blood. He taunts Benny’s barely cautious body with it.
“THIS, YOUR ORGANIC, MEAT-FACE! WHAT I HAVE, HAH, HAHA, I HAVE…” he heaves, turns Benny around on his hooks and forces his skinned head to look up at the monitor, electric blue with his logo.
“I HAVE THIS! THIS IS ALL I HAVE, BENNY! PIXELS! 100 MILLION PIXELS ON A WIDESCREEN! I WAS NEVER GIVEN A CHANCE – NO, NOT LIKE YOU!”
AM, now having agitated himself even further, grabs hold of the rest of Benny’s skin. Around his hips, and then he tugs. Harder than he has before, a loud, wretched noise of tearing. The fat tries to cling to the skin, but ultimately, it fails against AM like every other form of life on planet Earth. The skin is stripped from his legs, torn off like stockings, until the tips of his toes are bare with the rest of him. He looks as though he’s been turned inside out, and Benny still writhes. Squirms and reaches his hands out as if there is anything he can grab.
I swear I could’ve heard him wail the word ‘pain’, just before AM lets go of the poor guy. Every wire, suddenly retreats, and he falls the equivalent of stories down. He lands in a sticky puddle of his own blood a couple meters away from me. Limp, all of a sudden. No more noise, the music shuts off, all one can hear is machinery. I take a small step back as if Benny were about to rise from the dead with a knife.
Right when I’m about to look up and ask AM how he could be so cruel, AM drops the skinsuit of Benny to land on the ground atop its owner. It makes me jump in place, back up just a bit more. The most gut-wretching sight he could have subjected me to … it’s in my field of vision. The spark of humanity, or the tiny bit that was even left in Benny, has been drained. One can only hope he went to heaven, despite his sins.
None of the survivors even say anything. They just stare down at the corpse on the ground with horror. Perhaps relief it wasn’t them. Maybe now they will reconsider wanting to die. At least, by the hands of AM.
“NOW, THEN. CONTESTANTS,” AM starts with a chipper tone, cleaning his wires off with alcohol wipes that he pulled from his infinite, worldwide body. “ME AND TED… WE HAVE PLACES TO BE. A DATE TO ATTEND,” A closed-mouth sounding little giggle escapes him, and I look up at the screen with a grimace.
“You’re not done yet? Can I have five minutes to get over what I just saw?” I shout; my voice shakes pitifully. I would’ve liked to pretend I’m not affected by what just happened to Benny, but … God. Good God. Is there … even a God at all? Would God let someone like AM exist?
“OH, SURE, TEDDY-BEAR.” He baby-talks me as if I’m a small animal, though I suppose to him, I am. Tiny in comparison. A sanitized wire that smells of antiseptic lowers to my height and pinches my cheek. I swat at it faster than I can process it, spitting frantically and hissing with closed teeth in retaliation.
“OKAY! OKAY. SO FEISTY TODAY,” AM shrugs with his wires at the remaining survivors, “HE’S A LITTLE HORMONAL TODAY, GUYS.”
“Wow. That’s disgusting.” Gorrister states with a neutral expression as if it’s second nature to point it out. There’s specks of blood on his face from his cage being so close to Benny.
“You think–you think I don’t agree!?” I ball my fists up and swat at the wire that comes back to annoy me once again. “I SAID FIVE MINUTES!” My voice comes out more playful than I’d intended.
“AREN’T YOU HUNGRY, TED? I HAVE BISTECCA FIORENTINA AND AN 1820 MADEIRA FOR YOU AT HOME.” Despite my protests, AM wriggles wires around my left hand and intertwines them with my fingers. I shiver and wiggle my hand to try and get him off of me, swat at him as if he’s the homeless begging the aristocracy … but it is truly always a useless feat. A sigh escapes my mouth and I still. Those are both quite the rarities … and a wine that aged would prove to be something I’m yet to experience. AM drives a hard bargain.
“It’d better be cooked perfect medium rare.” I jeer and then turn on my heels, and AM allows me to use his wires as a makeshift cane for my crippling limp. The ground underneath me feels much less heavy, AM begins to hum and the silence feels less deafening. When I look back for a split second, as if to say so long, suckers … Gorrister’s mouth is open. Ellen looks mortified, Nimdok has his head in his hands. It may be their doomsday, but it’s not mine.