Cheater [Watty Awards 2011]

Chapter Three

 

 Three

            Cole throws back his head, exhausted. It is the middle of the night, if he estimates from the last time that he checked his watch.

When was that, anyway?

It has probably been hours since he last saw someone... anyone. Civilisation. But every second feels like an hour, and time passes so slowly when you are uncertain of certain death.

Everyone... anybody who could’ve helped him is asleep. Anyone who would’ve saved him is deep in the land of the unconscious, in several, seperate realities. Cole's only reality is a nightmare. One so terrifying, so intense, yet he cannot wake up from it. His sweat and tears have dried up now, which is a little more than ‘uncomfortable’. 

“Please. Please. Let me sleep.” He is begging her to have mercy.

Can she not see how desperate he is?

Sooner or later, he will drift again. He can feel it. His heart is beating slower and slower by the second, everything is blurring and he starts to slowly succumb to the blackness...

“I’ll let you sleep...” Click. Click. Click, she struts her thick, black heels, walking slowly over, “When I’m finished!” With ‘finished’, she swings her arm all the way back and gives him an agonizing hit to the face. Her knuckles completely clear his cheek, not even stopping at his nose. She is furious with him for reasons he cannot understand, for reasons she will not explain and all her rage is coming out at him through violence, at full force.

He yells in pain, feels a little bit of blood seeping from his now throbbing nose. His cheeks flush red with blood. Aching, he manages,

“Bitch.”

“I’m not..." She pouts, acting innocent, "I’m a sweetheart.” She gives a wide smile.

            You little... He thinks, but is unable to finish it off. There is no word, no phrase, nothing bad enough that can be used to describe her. She is evil.

Pure evil. 

“Remember Owen’s funeral,” A roar of laughter, “You were all...so... sad....” She mocks in a baby-ish voice. Cole breathes, through gritted teeth; it makes a kind of snarling noise, like a furious dog preparing to attack. Except, there is nothing he can do... He can't even move his hands. 

“I hate you.” slips from Cole’s hot, bleeding mouth. Dark blood seeps from the corners of his lips as he spits out a little bit of the ooze, leaving a vile taste in his mouth.

“Shame. He was cute.”

How dare you? 

Cole cannot even reply to this. He is disgusted at her, by her. She cannot be human. She has the cold heart of the devil and the evilness inside her is terrifying him. Cole knows just how capable she is. It frightens him to his very soul, makes all the hairs on his body stand up in her presence. So many questions are going through his mind while he sits and endures the torture. Who is she? Why is she doing this?

His eyes flutter again– he is in too much pain to carry on listening, to carry on living...

He slips back into darkness that is his own mind, and hopes to never return to the physical, the mental torment that is this cold, wooden chair.