Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 4: Living Hell

He felt another kick hit him in the stomach before someone else's foot slammed straight into the small of his back.

Each time a foot made contact with him, he couldn't stop the strangled yelps that somehow clawed their way out of his mouth. Men and women alike... even several teens and children... they were kicking him.

Yelling at him.

Spitting on him.

Then someone grabbed his hair and lifted him upright before repeatedly punching him in the face. He turned his head to the side to avoid the harsh blows, but they just kept coming... they wouldn't stop.

More abuse came... more pain... so much, in fact, that it eventually stopped hurting.

He lay limply as he was kicked around, trying to lessen the pain by keeping his muscles lax, but unfortunately they were very dissatisfied with him for falling silent and simply taking it -- so dissatisfied, in fact, that one of the female villagers eventually grabbed him by the horns and dragged his face close to her own.

"So, beast," she cooed in a sardonic baby voice. "How does it feel being forced to experience torture?"

He stared at her through blurry, detached vision, stared into her hateful hazel irises, not able to comprehend her anger.

"You're a monster," he shakily whispered, not tearing his gaze away from hers. "I never did anything to you, so why are you all doing this to me?"

The woman's face went blank with outraged shock before her nose crinkled.

"SHUT UP!" she roared, hauling back and slapping him so hard in the face that he fell back and smacked his head on the ground. "FILTHY BEAST!"

His stomach clenched when a man, presumably her husband, hauled off and kicked him with a snarl.

"Stop it!" he wheezed, fighting to free his arms when more people took turns punting him around. "Please!"

"Shut up!" a man snarled, kicking him in the mouth. "Filth!"

Struggling to move, Xaphile managed to sit up by flexing his stomach muscles, but he could barely breathe with the pressure of the ropes on his body and the pain in his skin. Still, he somehow slid his legs underneath him and crouched forward, attempting to get to his feet.

"Please!" he begged, lifting his watering eyes, "don't do this any--"

His words were cut off when someone's foot slammed into his forehead, knocking him backwards with so much force that his knees left the ground and he flipped.

When his cheek connected with the dirt, his neck jarred painfully and the breath was knocked clean out of his lungs. Only a split second later, his legs followed, slamming down behind him, and all he could do after that was lie flat on his stomach and cough violently.

He had never been hit so hard before in his life, he was literally seeing stars and could barely open his eyes past the ringing in his skull.

"Wow!" a young girl who couldn't have been older than twelve laughed. "Daddy! Kick it again! Kick the demon again!"

"With pleasure, Maria. Here you go!"

When the man who'd bashed his skull in ran forward and kicked him in the shoulder so hard that he went rolling across the dirt, he couldn't even breathe after that, let alone plead for it to stop.

Not like they would even if he did plead.

The sun had long-since slipped below the horizon when the guards finally stepped in, but by that time he'd started bleeding violently from his mouth and nose and his whole body felt utterly brutalized.