Chapter 22 I’m Sorry, Little One
All that evil needs to triumph is for everyone to do nothing.
Filled to capacity, the room became dark, with only one naked light bulb hanging above the table. The darkness helped to hide identities. The light helped draw everyone’s attention to the atrocities committed on the table. Fuck! They hadn’t even started. That’s why it was so quiet.
The air was stagnant, already smelling of sweat, and the robes they insisted we wear didn’t help the discomfort. At first, I stayed in the back. When I peeked between all the bodies standing in front of me, I saw a glimpse of her.
A girl? I couldn’t believe my eyes. Master only liked young boys like myself and his sons, everyone knew that. Why is this girl here? I didn’t understand. Hardly any of us survived being a meal on the table.
There was no way she could survive.
I looked again. Mael was yanking her away from the pet and then electrocuted both of them. She collapsed on the floor. Jesus fucking Christ! She was such a little thing. This was Mael’s doing? What the fuck? Why? God, he was as sick as his father.
“Get up!” he screamed at her, and when she didn’t do it fast enough, he kicked her.
“You’re gonna fucking kill her, you asshole!” the pet yelled, master’s current little prince whom everyone seemed to hate more than any of his predecessors.
The crowd slightly shifted. From there, with the crowd in front of me, I couldn’t always see what they were doing to her, but the sound of the punch striking her face made me wince followed by the whimper it pulled out of her, and the collapsing of her body to the ground.
Other than the torture being unleashed, the room was quiet.
“Stoppppppppp!” the Master’s pet yelled.
He was a few meters away, closer to the light, inside what we referred to as the Master’s chamber—a bird cage–shaped prison cell for the Master’s current object of torture and desire.
Many had been in that hellhole before; few survived it.
I'd talked to some of them. The torture on the menu for him that day was obviously to watch her, the object of his love, die a thousand gruesome deaths.
A sound from behind me caught my attention.
The doctors and nurses were at the back door, ready to take her.
“If you really loved her, you wouldn’t do this to her!” he yelled, trying to get Mael’s attention, but he ignored him. “Mael!”
I allowed myself to really look at the pet.
God, he was so fucking helpless. It made me gag because it reminded me of my time in there and how I had been just as bad, if not worse.
The self-disgust would become too violent every time I remembered myself submitting and my body enjoying it.
Either the pet still hadn’t learned to hide his pain, or it was different because of her.
He was holding onto the bars with all his strength while spilling his na?ve words.
He was so thin all his bones were showing under his dirty stretched skin.
“Who the fuck said anything about love?” Mael scoffed then chuckled. When his laughter suddenly ended, he yelled, “Com’ere!”
“Ahhhhhh!” she screamed at the same time he demanded for her to go to him. I dared move my head, wanting to see what he was doing, only to find out he’d yanked her by her long, black hair and pulled her off the ground. I only saw snippets between bodies hidden in cloaks.
The show was meant to numb us, to torture, to rob us of all empathy and shatter it into nonexistence. This was the first girl I’d seen in the facilities or on the table. It was very well-known that Master only liked young boys.
“W-what are you doing, Mael? What—What are you do—” Her voice trembled with fear, almost echoing. She sounded so little and frail. And like a record player scratching, it stopped my heart.
“Mael. Listen to me. You’re better than this.
You don’t need to do this. Mael!” The pet kept yelling and banging his palms against the metal poles of his cage.
I wished he’d shut up. We all knew that at this point, not even Mael had a fucking choice.
Once a meal was served, it had to be destroyed.
There was no room for mercy in this room.
Mael had made his decision to put her in this position, and that was that.
“What are you doing?” she asked once more, and for that, he punched her in the eye so hard she fell.
“Help me get her on the table,” Mael demanded.
“Having trouble controlling your pet, boy?” Master joked, and all the grown men laughed while the rest of us looked at each other.
We all knew it was meant to anger Mael even more by humiliating him, degrading him in front of everyone.
I didn’t want to hear or see what he’d do to her next.
I lowered my head, knowing it would only get worse from there on.
The sound of more punches filled the air, mixing with her sobbing and begging for him to stop until her words became indistinguishable.
It was like peeking at a car crash. I couldn’t help wanting to know what was happening, but every time I looked, the scene only got more depraved.
Her weakened body was carried up the steps then tied to the table, naked. I looked away when Mael climbed onto the table and her haunting scream filled the room. As usual, it happened pretty fast.
“What are you—Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
The screeching scratched at the walls of the room and gashed my soul. I didn’t want to see, hear, or know that anyone was being put through this, but why was her torture killing me when I had witnessed so many others?
“No. It… hurts… S-stop! Sh-stop! Stoppppppppppp!” she screamed and wailed.
“Get off me! Get off me!” For the longest time, I had to stand there, hearing her call his name over and over again.
Her cries carried and presented her intentions clearly to me.
When it changed from defiance to desperation and then to seeking comfort, it tore me apart. We called it “the breaking.”
I couldn’t breathe and the earth swirled.
Why was it breaking me too?
I wanted to die.
“Killiiiiaaaannnn! Help me! Someone help me.”
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Killian yelled while sobbing uncontrollably.
Scanning around me, I wondered who would dare say something to stop this. But everyone, the men, the other boys around my age, they all ignored me. The terror had me almost panting.
No one’s going to stop this? Although they knew I was looking at them, they didn’t turn to me.
They either kept watching or lowered their gazes to the floor.
She sounded like she was choking, trying to speak but only strange sounds came out of her.
In the meantime, Mael grunted and groaned loudly and deep.
I couldn’t accept that they would do nothing.
The nausea wasn’t the only thing attacking me.
My mind was on fire. I was losing my soul. This can’t be. Someone do something!
Could I survive this? I was used to watching the boys get ripped apart, but not a girl.
“Stop. Mael, stop!” She wailed and begged.
It was obvious this was her first time being handled by an animal like Mael.
Somehow, I could only hear the two of them even though the pet kept screaming across the room.
The bile climbed up the back of my throat, so I took the largest gulp of breath I could, looking down, and closed my eyes, but it did nothing.
I needed the sound of her to disappear. Every cell in my body screamed for me to do something to save her, but that would’ve just ended my life.
“Shut the fuck up!” Mael screamed at her after his slap reverberated through the place.
Her weeping was no longer that of a normal little girl.
I recognized the brokenness, helplessness, and desperation.
It made me want to hold her in my arms and soothe her to an eternal sleep so she’d never have to witness or feel what men were capable of doing—what she would experience tonight.
It was the continuous gutting of an small innocent wild animal.
Every sound coming out of her gashed my soul.
I found myself wincing and my body clenching tight until it shook violently.
Thank God for the robe covering me, for the darkness.
If they saw how badly I was handling this, they’d knock me out with a pipe to my head or something worse, maybe add me as an extra meal on the table.
Fuck! Come on, pull yourself together. She’s no one.
We need to survive tonight, just tonight!
I wished over and over again I could be anywhere but there, and tried to at least disconnect my mind, but she wouldn’t let me. Her “No’s,” weeping, and wailing wouldn’t release me.
My whole body readied to bolt to her, to rescue her, but something froze me in place. No matter how much I fought, I couldn’t move. Usually, I could disconnect, but not this time. This time, I was reliving my breaking.
My robe was scalding hot, and the air in the room was too thick.
I was sweating profusely. Anything would’ve been better than continuing to endure witnessing this hell.
It only worsened as she slowly lost all her fight and could only whisper the very same name she’d been screaming, weeping, praying, and begging for all night—Killian.
And like every prayer ever, it served no comfort or solution.
Like every pet before, including myself, Killian was just as helpless, doomed to watch her suffer.
Mael groaned with each movement. At first, it was for show, but then it changed.
The pitch increased and filled to the brim with anxiousness, as if he were chasing the undeniable pleasure he was getting from it.
He’d never sounded like this in any of the other meals. It was clear he was enjoying this one.
It intensified my nausea.