Seven Sins (1-3)

FIRST OF FOUR

LUKE

So many sounds escaped my body that made me feel like some kind of beaten animal. I couldn't help it. The pain tore out of me and became a creature of its own.

"Shut it, freak! Or I'll come down there and knock your teeth out!" Detective Anderson yelled down the dank stairway.

Why couldn't he ever use my name? And it wasn't just him, it'd been the kids at school, strangers on the street, heck, even my own family members.

No one ever called me Luke. Well, except my mother. Though when she called me Luke it came with my middle name, "Mitchell" and a twitching left eye.

Sadly, even memories of my mother couldn't bring me out of my misery. I writhed on the grimy floor and my cheek slid against caked dirt and unpolished cement.The pain tumbled its way through my stomach and ripped out of my throat with a primal release of agony.

Detective Anderson yelled again, but I couldn't make out what he'd said this time. He was probably upstairs in the lab, either studying the blood he'd taken from me, or cleaning up the mess of it off that damned pristine floor.

Not sure why he always cleaned it up if he was just going to rip me open again. Thinking of the lab made me relive the last five hours of torture. It blurred together with my weekly episode of agony.

Pain, I've discovered, is a sentient thing. It's alive, and it can take over your body in ways you'd never thought possible. Pain made me screech, or cry, or even defecate.

A year of this sh*t has made me appreciate pain for what it is. My body was punishing me for being unable to protect myself from harm. Every nerve that lit up under my skin with a razor blade of fire was the cost of my own stupidity.

I can't do anything about it now. It's just the price I have to pay. Pinching my fingernails into my palms added an indecipherable sensation to the symphony of agony.

I reminded myself I needed to save it all up. Keep all of this pain for myself, because when I finally got out of here, I was going to give it all back. For now, I closed my eyes and drifted into the bittersweet relief of unconsciousness where only my nightmares could rival reality.

When I'd woken, the pain had retreated to a dull ache and I could only tell it was still there if I tried to breathe.

Unfortunately, I'm no different than other humans in that I do actually need oxygen to some extent, so when I tried holding my breath and pretended everything was back to normal, reality came rampaging back with a fit of wet coughs.

Twinges sparking through my chest reminded me where Anderson's knife had slid through my ribs. Each breath brought a fresh pinch biting through my skin.

I shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position and my leg throbbed, still healing from the pieces of bone fusing together in my cracked leg.

This wretched body needed eight hours to heal. The level of pain told me I had two or three more hours to go.

I eased my way to the corner of my cell. Pressing against the damp cement made me feel like there was something solid to hold onto. Floating in a nightmare wasn't how I'd keep sane.

A year of perpetual darkness can make a man go mad. But my mother had done this to me sometimes too, so maybe that's why I was used to it. Not the torture or anything like that, but the isolation.

A man didn't need training to handle torture. People are born with a certain pain tolerance, and either they can take it or they can't.

Pain is just a biological response, but being left alone with your senses deprived tricks a person into thinking they're already dead. To survive isolation isn't innate. It's trained. Only a fortune teller could know I'd need such insane training.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it, my mother was a bonafide psychic.

She'd tried to tell me that her destiny was linked to three, which meant I was next in line. There would be three others I was linked to as well, all for the purpose of the girl I had to save.

I never knew what she meant by that. Until Detective Anderson had locked me down here, I'd thought my mother a bona fide psycho as well.

When I'd turned eight she'd begun my "training." She'd throw me in the basement and let me scream until I fell asleep, and wouldn't come back for me for a whole day, sometimes two.

She always cried every time she brought me back into the light. I remembered how even the soft living room lamps burned my retinas and looked like tiny suns casting beams across the room.

I'd tremble and cling to her, even though she was the one who'd left me all alone. She'd just stroke my hair and tell me that I needed this, and one day I'd understand. When I'd turned thirteen, I'd gotten enough sense to alert the authorities.

Of course, she'd seen that too. And through the tears she'd told me to forgive myself for doing it to her. She'd understood, and it was a small price to pay for keeping me alive. I clung to the hope that one day I would forgive myself, because ever since I realized what she'd sacrificed for me, still rotting away in a cell, forgiveness seemed impossible.

The only comfort was that I was in a cell too, and could live out my term just as she was now. She'd been right about everything.

Once I'd learned the truth, I'd wracked my brain trying to think of any wisdom she'd offered from her visions through the years. Which was difficult when at the time, I'd thought everything she'd said was psychotic rubbish.

All I could remember was the last vision she'd given me, and her assurances that even though I'd reach the limits of my endurance, I would survive. Given my manifesting powers of regeneration when I was a teen, I didn't need a psychic to tell me that. I pressed my fingers into my eyes as I tried to recall anything useful.

The motion sent pain jabbing through my cheek and eye socket as I snagged dried blood. With a short chuckle I couldn't believe I'd forgotten he'd take the eyeball during this torture session.

What did he imagine he could with it? Was there some black market for creepy grey eyes? Sure, my eye had already grown back.

My broken bones always healed, my plucked organs regenerated, but it didn't mean he'd learn anything from taking them out. My regeneration wasn't f*ck*ng scientific. It was supernatural, and he knew it. After I'd peeled off the scab, I crawled and roamed my hands across the floor hoping to find a bottle of water. If it was past evening, I wouldn't always get dinner, but I'd get water.

I couldn't regenerate my own fluids, and my new left eye felt like some kind of deflated leather balloon. My fingers struck the soft plastic and the delightful swoosh of moving water made me crack a smile.

That was the trick in isolation. Make tiny goals, and when you can accomplish one, enjoy the sh*t out of it. As slow as physically possible, I relished each finger that wrapped around the bottle.

The cool water stole my heat without adding more dirt to cake onto my skin, and I reminded myself to enjoy the small reprieve. I set the bottle upright and ran my finger around the lid. It was rimmed, and the shape of it meant it was a Dasani bottle.

Damned Anderson, why'd he have to buy water with sodium added? I didn't need more salt. That was for sure. Closing my eyes, I chided myself for not fully appreciating my water. It was water...with minerals added.

Don't think about the sodium. Appreciate what you've got, Luke. Just as I was about to take a sip, a searing beam of light cascaded down the stairs, and my right iris desperately retracted.

My left eye wasn't as functional and sent shooting pains through my skull as it absorbed every bit of luminescence before it sluggishly shrunk.

"Looks like you've got a new roommate, freak. Isn't that nice?" Anderson sneered as he dragged a body down the steps.

"Been a while since you've had any company." My vision finally adjusted and I leaned against the iron bars. Anderson let the body thump down each step while he sauntered with an unceremonious stagger.

"What's the problem, no muscle to do your dirty work?" I retorted, my voice coming out hoarse from all the screaming I'd done.

Anderson shot me a glare. "For someone in your position, your consistently cocky attitude amazes me." I pressed my face against the bars and tried to look bored, but in reality, the pits of my stomach were desperately trying not to retch bile.

Anderson had some unconscious guy rolling down the steps, and I pitied the poor soul when he woke up. His pale face was marred by a streak of red where he'd been struck on the temple.

But I knew that color of pale.. It wasn't from blood loss. His lips were white, and his cheeks were sunken in.

This guy had been fed on by a f*ck*ng succubus.