I woke up, not in a dark cellar as you would expect, but in a clean, familiar bedroom. Unfortunately, I was chained to the bed with a gag in my mouth. This was the home of my close friend Paul. We were in some of the same classes, though he was pursuing psychology while I was fixated on sociology. I was here because I had found out his secret. It’s not important how, so let’s just say that I was too curious, and he was too sloppy, and sloppy drunk. I had found one of his experiments, so now I couldn’t leave, and thus couldn’t turn him in.
Paul was passionate about animal rights, and dead set against using animals in any kind of experimentation. I had heard his impassioned lectures many times, culminating with him proclaiming that we should be using “bums and prisoners” instead. I now knew just how seriously he took this view.
Eventually I was taken to the cellar, after Paul held a 45-minute discourse with himself, while pacing the room, on what he should do with me. He finally told me that I could be useful without him actually hurting me. At least not physically. I was still clinging to the idea that he would quit this foolishness soon and let me go.
I was chained, but comfortably, on a mattress. I was in reach of a modified toilet and was fed regularly if plainly. Paul kept his promise to not physically hurt me. Day two of my abduction involved me being held in a position facing a far corner of the cellar. I couldn’t turn my head, but I could close my eyes. My ears were another matter.
A young man was brought in, dirty and semi-conscious. He was also chained, directly in my view. His chains pulled his limbs outward in an x. Paul said simply “I want to see how this makes you feel.” As Paul used a saw to slice pieces off the man, I cried and begged him to stop. At first small and then ever larger pieces fell to the floor – a finger, a foot, an ear. I screamed and screamed, and then tried to turn away, retching and finally vomiting on myself. The man stopped his own screaming and begging after his second limb was severed, but Paul continued to cut. Afterwards he questioned me. How did this make me feel? What did it make me think of? Could I think of anything the man might do that would merit this punishment? What would I remember most about it? I didn’t answer, but instead tried to remain calm, choking back sobs, and repeated to Paul that he needed to let me go, that it wasn’t too late. “I’m disappointed Sarah,” he said, shaking his head, “this is important work.” I had lost my faith in being released. His lack of emotion scared me even more. He wiped the vomit from my face and produced a syringe. I woke up in the cellar, in clean clothes, and stared at the stain on the floor until sleep found me.
I don’t know how many people he brought to me. Maybe thirty, maybe more. I lost count after a child of perhaps ten was systematically treated to a large electric drill until she began to seize and then died, all while I shouted to her from my place in the cellar. I couldn’t offer much in the way of help, so I tried to console them. Every time the same questions. I tried to hold out, but I got to the point where I thought maybe answering him would help. Still, I never seemed to give him the answers he wanted. I could feel myself losing coherent thought, numbed by all the blood and torture. I thought it couldn’t get any worse.
Then he started to pose me in different positions to watch what he called “his work”. Sometimes carefully suspended. Sometimes sitting, kneeling, crouching, forced with chains to remain this way until he finished his clean up. His favorite position was to put me on my side, one arm and leg pulled up with chains, pulled just a little too much. He was starting to lose sight of his promise.
I was in that position for the last one. On my side. It was my sister he brought in. I couldn’t let myself close my eyes or stop talking to her. The things he did to her are things I don’t want to describe, but they are burned into my brain. When he was done, he started his clean up, and said he would be back to talk with me about his work. I was sobbing uncontrollably by then.
Minutes passed, then an hour, then perhaps two. I heard a few sounds, but he didn’t follow his usual routine of questioning me. The position I was in hurt more, then I became numb.
By my estimation it has now been four days. No food, and unable to move to use the toilet, I talk to myself. I don’t think he’s coming back. Did he die? Did he get arrested? Did he purposely leave me here to starve? Is it wrong that I now long for his interaction, any interaction, even the sick and twisted torture of the people he brings for me to witness? I’m alone. I’m still on my side. What can I see? Nothing. Nothing, on my side. Nothing.