Led by two burly men into the chamber, Dietrich looked over at a table with various instruments, all of them bloodied to some extent. The floor was bathed in crimson scars, the walls covered in darkness. As her ruined shoes were shuffled across the chamber to the chains that were to bind her in place, she felt the dampness they'd spoken of; tears and torment. Spit, vomit; anything that someone in the most unbearable of pains would spew forth in their coping with the pain. The sodomizing of their heart and raping of their soul.
Her arms were held up, cuffed on the wrists by the chains that hung from the ceilings; her legs by the chains secured to the floor. Her clothes were removed and she stood there naked, exposed to the men in black attire that now entered the room.
One of them placed something on the table, wrapped in a dirty cloth. Whatever was inside moved. The other took one of the sharper-looking instruments from the table and something else. Something round, like a pill. He came up to her and shoved the pill-like object into her mouth and down her throat. As she gagged and spit and cursed his existence, he went back to the table.
The way he walked was… hazy. The room felt as if it were spinning and Dietrich started to lose all sense of where she was, what she'd been doing till then, and what was about to happen. Another, even heavier sedative.
Drool leaked from her mouth as she tried keeping her head up, making out that the man who'd given her the pill was back, rubbing the front of her body with something. It was wet and it burned. Badly. She wanted to cry out from what felt like a thousand hot embers being needled into every pore in her skin but bit down on her lip, blood mixing in with the drool. She wasn't… not anymore. For Heinrike's sake and that of the others.
The other man, the one who'd set that moving cloth down, was making sure her chains were rigid and no amount of force would break them. When he finished and nodded to his partner, her back hit something solid, and she was lowered down, now resting on a table that hadn't been there before. And, then, what felt like cold metal being pressed to the spot just above her chest. Her throat. The pressing became a stab, and she heard a squelch as the blade started moving downwards. Down and down, further and further until it reached her just above groin area.
"Pain is… Well, there are two types of pain, Dietrich…"
As the blood started to pool at the incision the other man produced another cloth and patted her down. When the man with the sharp instrument came back with the dirty cloth that'd been on the table, the other man slowly and carefully parted the skin that'd been cut.
"The first is physical, and those can always go away with time…"
She saw the man unwrap the cloth. Something fleshy and dark in color, like a very moldy green, was now in his hand. He tore it apart and sprinkled it all along the incision he'd made.
"The second is emotional…"
When he finished, the other man took what looked to be oversized thread and needle, which he proceeded to weave in and out of her skin, closing the incision.
"Emotional pains, unlike physical, never go away."
And, when they stepped back and waited, that was when the agony started. Whatever it was that'd been sprinkled inside of her was wrapping itself around her intestines and pushing its way into her bloodstream. Writhing, she closed her eyes.
"Sure, you can lock them away so they don't hurt you anymore, but in truth they never leave you…"
Biting down all the harder, her body felt as if it were being drowned in burning oil, and, in her spasms, she tried to remember Miss Elda's words to her. That physical pain was nothing if you could endure it. She remembered Heinrike.
"And, when brought to the surface again…"
The memories of their time together, the way she always acted so timid. Afraid of everything and, yet, when push came to shove, always dependable. Always there for her. Always able to cool the waters between her and Alric.
The softness of her eyes, the warmth of her smile. Sweet and never threatening. Beautiful brown hair, a nose which looked too small compared to those big blue eyes. A stuttering, quiet voice. One that would never speak again.
"They are never-ending."
And that was when her howls began.