.:the prisoner and the rack:.

The man’s hands and feet were bound to the table. He lay there, spread-eagled.  His hair, once sleeked back and meticulously trimmed, lay dirty and unkempt. His fingers clutched convulsively, nails chewed down to the quick. In the place of his usually suave and debonair manner, madness bloomed like a fetid flower in the sunken pits women had once been charmed by. His body, pinched with hunger, writhed about in a futile attempt at escape.

He didn’t know what it was he was roped to. If he reached out far enough, his fingers brushed against something cold, and he could hear the metallic clink of chains. The same result was reached if he kicked out hard enough. For hours, he prayed that the rope would break, testing, nothing. So far, success was a distant notion.

Suddenly, a blinding flash of light hit him in the face. His bonds were cut. Thoughts of leaving that dirty, silent place, however, were swiftly shattered when icy shackles replaced the rope that had previously bound him. A cry of desperation tore through his throat. Pain shot through him as he tried to wrench his hand out from the shackles, but to no avail. He pulled, twisted and strained against his bonds, causing jagged metal to cut through his soft flesh. Blood from his now mutilated wrist dripped to the cold stone floor, a grim reminder of life and warmth as it trickled down his fingers.

Hours passed. He found no comfort in the oppressive silence. No sounds were there to keep his thoughts occupied. Just him, and the darkness. Not a crack of light gave him the time of day. Not a breeze to cool or comfort, yet no heat to warm him. He felt the tension in his muscles slowly abandon him, leaving a lifeless sack of bones and intestines, unconscious and indifferent of the outside world.

He slept. There was nothing else to do. How much time passed, he did not know. When he awoke, his eyes had not grown any more used to the darkness. He was alone. Or was he? A noise alerted him. What was in this chamber of his, where none else would come to liberate him from this torture? A rattle of chains, metal against stone, followed by a creaking noise was the only clue as to what was going on in the blackness before him. Panic rose within his gorge and caused him to struggle even more violently than before, tearing open old wounds and creating new ones.

As he struggled, the sound of a winch being turned echoed in the room. The prisoner felt the chains at his ankles and wrists being pulled slowly away from him. Fear, sharp and metallic quelled all thoughts of escape and stilled his body as he realized what it was he was chained to. The rack. Torturous death, slow and painful, that left the length of your life up to the torturer. The man groaned, unwilling to realize his imminent death.

The winch tightened the cables so he felt all the muscles and bones in his body stretch. It was not quite painful yet, but he felt very uncomfortable. Then the winch stopped. The prisoner looked about himself, and tugged slightly with all his limbs, trying to find a bit of give. But his legs and arms were stretched with no give. He gave up after a few moments of straining against the chains. Ignoring the pain coming from the cuts in his wrists and ankles, he slept.

The next day, muscles screaming from the distended position, the prisoner was awoken by the sound of the winch being turned. The chains tightened more, and this time, the prisoner felt a sharp stab of agony run across his chest and thighs as they were stretched just a little more. After what seemed only a moment, the winch stopped turning, and silence pervaded the area. He was alone. His wrists begged for a release from the sudden tautness forced upon them. Sobbing for breath, the man slowly overcame the pain and tried, with no result to peer into the corner where the noise had come from. He had no notion of how the winch was being operated, or by whom. All he knew was the pain coming from his throbbing hands was only just beginning.

He didn’t know how much time had passed. He didn’t know how long he slept. He groggily looked around before remembering bleakly that his eyes would be no use in this gloom. He didn’t hear the telltale clamor of the winch, so he assumed he had slept all his body needed. He wondered about his life, away from this chamber. About his wife. To his horror, as he thought of her, a face slipped out of his mind. He forgot. With a frenzy that threatened to tip his mind over the edge, he dredged up an image of a young woman with shining eyes and smiling lips. A small smile curved his lips, thinking of the woman, whom he believed to be his wife. He remembered her clear laughter, and the curve of her neck. He remembered the feel of her hand in his. He firmed his resolve at the need to be with her. He would survive this torture, and go back to her.

The clanking started again. This time, it seemed to go on forever, as the chains pulled his screaming limbs further away from his body. He screamed a rasping, thick cry of pain. Tears rolled down his cheeks unheeded as he felt the muscle fibers tearing in his biceps, and as he felt his ankle bone shift in its joint. Then, the noise stopped completely. The only reminder that there had ever been anything happening in that cell was the pain that tore violently through his body in long spasms. His muscles twitched involuntarily as he gasped in agony.

The pain slowed time down, or so it seemed. An eternity passed before he could finally sleep. And when he did, it was full of bright colors and dancing sparks. He woke, slept, and woke once more. The rack was not activated again, but every day, as the prisoner’s body and mind grew weaker, he began to wait for the stretch. He thought of a face with shining eyes and---he could not remember what her lips were like. With a superhuman effort he pulled up a picture from the depths of his mind. A face looked up at him, with shining eyes and pouty lips. A faint moan escaped his lips as a perfume too faint to be smelt fluttered through his mind. A taste lingered on his lips. Of what? He had not eaten recently. What was that spicy taste on his lips?

He slept. He woke. He slept. He was jolted awake by the renewed sound of clanking machinery. He felt the stretch. As he screamed, it pulled his bones farther. With a gasp, he felt his right shoulder dislocate completely. The nauseous pain caused by the snap made him retch, but there was nothing to heave from his pain-ridden body. Instead, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he blacked out. When he came to, the winch had stopped, and he was alone again, sound and sight a complete impossibility. The only essence that assured him of consciousness was a perfume too faint to be discerned.

He slept. In his dreams, a woman with pouty lips and tear-filled eyes wept for his broken limbs. As he watched her, puzzling as why he had seen her before, and where, another woman appeared in the back. It was a beautiful woman, with shining eyes, smiling lips. A glow from deep within her seemed to wrap him in, ignoring the other woman and filling his heart with warmth. But as he tried to remember her name, the lips that smiled frowned a little. The eyes lost their glow. An icy mask covered the love in her face. Then she sighed once, the look of great loss covered her face, and she was taken by the darkness.