Page 78 of King of the Unsightly

Mrs. Kelley drifted to my side and her red heels pointed in my direction. She crouched down and pinched my cheeks with her fake nails, drilling them into my soft skin.

She forced me to look into her dead eyes; her crow’s feet even more pronounced as her leather skin sagged from all the hours she spent in the tanning bed.

She was too real and too close.

I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped my surroundings reverted back to the swamp.

Cautiously, I opened them, and she remained above me.

She pinched my cheeks harder from my lack of resistance. “Now you choose to act like a corpse? Are you mute now too?” she snipped. It was sharp and piercing, lashing at my skin.

She dropped her hand from my cheeks and stalked over to the plastic off-white table. She nabbed the leather rope and snapped it against the wooden floors.

I flinched from the cracking noise assaulting my ears.

Her eager eyes bore into mine as they sparkled with anticipation. “How many lashes will he accept as your repentance? Ten? Twenty? Or a hundred this time?” she mused, stroking the rope in her hand.

“Please make th-th-this stop.” I scraped my fingernails against the wood.

I wasn’t sure who I begged. If anyone could hear me. If Fell hid somewhere, relishing in my deepest nightmares.

My mind spun and unwound like thread. Losing all my sanity as she crept closer with the whip dragging behind her.

I had no time to consider my options for escaping, and the only blaring choice I could think of was Kaschel’s dagger.

She walked past me, and without hesitation, I lunged at her.

I stabbed her side, but no blood came out.

Nothing.

I stumbled back from shock.

She turned back to face me, an evil glint revolving in her irises as she smiled and tipped her head. “A hundred it is.” She snapped the whip again, and it cut through the calmness of the air.

My heart dropped and accelerated, hammering vehemently. My muscles liquefied as I clawed at my throat for air.

My vision tunneled as the whip slid behind me, and the dirty walls of the basement edged closer, imprisoning me.

I counted to five.

To ten.

To twenty before the first lash hit against me and shredded the back of my shirt.

I screamed in agony as the pain shot in waves throughout my body.

I thrashed against the chains, but my legs refused to respond.

The tears surged down my cheeks, and I choked on my breaths between each strike.

I wailed out again when the whip smacked my spine. I lost count as my skin went raw, and I barricaded myself within preserving what little sanity I had left.

I looked outward of my body, as if an outsider, witnessing myself chained against the floors.

A stranger to my futile howls of despair as Mrs. Kelley cackled at my pangs of suffering.

Time fell still or was forever moving, or maybe I couldn’t stop spinning.

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