Written in 365 Parts: 179: You’re dead

“Surprise, you’re dead
Ha ha ha, open your eyes
See the world as it used to be when you used to be in it
When you were alive and when you were in love and when I took it from you

It’s not over yet
You don’t remember I won’t let you forget
The hatred I bestowed
Upon your neck with a fatal blow
From my teeth and my tongue
I’ve drank and swallowed, but it’s just begun
Now you are mine
I’ll keep killing you until the end of time
Surprise, you’re dead
Guess what
It never ends
The pain, the torment and torture, profanity, nausea, suffering, perversion, calamity
You can’t get away”…

“You’re awake. I mean, finally, awake. It has been a little while. We thought we’d lost you again for a time.” the Captain sounded slightly happy. Maybe happy was the wrong word, gleeful. Drick blinked and opened their eyes. 

They could barely see, the world swam in and out of focus. Their head pounded so much that they didn’t feel the hypodermic slip into their neck. A few moments later and the chemicals hit their system and the world stammered into sharp relief. Drick let out a roar of anguish as the dulled nerves screamed into life and brought a wave of pain to their synapses.

They were still suspended by the arms from the ceiling. Their arms seemed so thin now, barely skin and bones. Thick brown trails of bodily fluids ran from the binding on the wrists, that had cut deep into the flesh, and had started to scab over as they had been held for so long. The fingers would probably be useless now. Too much nerve and ligament damage. Held too long without a strong enough blood supply. The hands looked puffy and black.

Drick looked at the Captain and sucked on a hollow cheek. They could not move their jaw. The last beating had smashed it so thoroughly the medic had just wired a cage together to hold it in place. Whatever sustenance they gave Drick now was given via a tube, this had been wedged down Drick’s throat whenever they felt obliged to keep them nourished. Drick suspected it was the minimum needed to keep them alive. Maybe not even that. The amount that allowed Drick to die slower was probably more accurate.

“You don’t look good,” The Captain walked closer and then wrinkled their nose. “In fact you reek of death. You’re apparently rotting away. Even with blood micro-pumps helping your body and extremities there isn’t enough blood getting to your limbs.” The Captain looked almost sad but Drick could see the malicious gleam in her eyes. “It might be best just to put you down. You’re pretty much a corpse anyway. You’ll never walk again. You’ll barely be able to lift the stumps that remain of your arms. You’ll probably have trouble speaking, hell you’re going to need help breathing. You can’t move your jaw much. If we leave you, we’d find you in a puddle of your own piss and shit. So it’s over. You’re done.”

The Captain turned her back and walked over to a table where there was an unusual shaped gun. It had a square barrel that had a small series of holes at the tip. “So I have decided to end things for you.” The Captain picked up the unusual weapon. “And I had our engineer make this for me. It fires tiny darts. Generally they are called needlers or needle guns. You can fire a variety of interesting shots with them, they are very versatile. Sugar darts loaded with toxins that dissolve in seconds in the bloodstream leaving almost no trace. Mini ablative rounds that blast interesting cones out of things. Magnetic shots with isotope tracers that you can satellite track. Explosive darts, needle shards,  a whole plethora. That means many types if you are not familiar.”

The Captain looked at Drick and the smile faltered for a second. Drick stared straight at them, summoning all their energy into a single look of pure calm. If they were free the whole of this crew would be dead. “You are one tough piece of work. You gave us nothing, oh hell there were the months of playful tuorture. But you never talked. You never gave anything up. I have to admire that, while of course hating every shred of your being. Now, I am going to fire depleted uranium rounds at you. Don’t worry, there won’t be any issue with the radiation. You won’t last long enough to care about that. The darts will go right through you. They will leave a hole less than a millimetre across. I can fire a single shot, or the whole fifty thousand shot magazine into you. It’s all my choice.”

The Captain raised the gun and aimed at Dricks arm. “The medic tells me it will be a prick that will burn. They also told me that if I hit an organ, and put a hole through it, you might die. I mean enough micro holes through you is going to make you bleed a lot internally anyway. So let’s start with the limbs. Don’t worry. Today you will die. Just very, very slowly.”

Drick wished that they could have told the Captain that the first few shots had no effect, as to Drick they didn’t. So much was painless against the unending throbbing and piercing pangs from limbs. The datrs passed silently through the flesh leaving little trace of their existence. It was five or six shots before the Captain hit a vein that was close enough to the skin for a small rivulet of blood to run. For them to see that they had hit Drick. A dozen more shots into the shoulder and near to the neck before Drick winced in pain as a muscle group that still had sensitivity was struck.

The Captain let out a snort of laughter. Then they fired a shot into Drick’s lower abdomen and Drick jerked in pain. That burned and a searing fire made their limbs spasm. The Captain laughed, “looks like there is still enough fire in your belly to burn you with.” She snapped.

The Captain took aim and fired a shot that went through the top right of Drick’s chest. A sudden burning and Drick was coughing as blood trickled into a lung. The coughing was getting easier as the hole closed quickly, being so slight, but still the pain was staggering.

“No passing out this time,” said the Captain. “We stopped at a station a few days ago. Managed to pick up an exotic concoction, it will keep you awake no matter how much pain you suffer. You are going to feel every moment of your death. Every agonising second.”

The Captain lifted the gun again. Suddenly they jerked in surprise as an alarm sounded throughout the vessel. A voice came over a speaker. “Captain we are being approached. Five ships just came around the planet behind us. They are attack ships in a delta formation. Looks like they are coming in high and fast in a containment manoeuvre.”

The Captain hit an intercom switch. “Take us down low to the surface and hit the main drive. We’ll use the narrow distance and angle to throw us off in a straight line escape route. The cloud cover will help.”

There was an aye Captain. The Captain turned to Drick. “Looks like I may have to just toss you out into space.” She grabbed a hold of a wall mounted handle and activated her magnetic boots as the vessel accelerated. 

Drick could feel the shifting in gravity and inertia. It sent fresh spasms of pain coursing through their body. They would be dead soon. But maybe those ships would blow this vessel to pieces. The Captain’s suggestion was good. Cloud cover and a straight descent to near the surface. Use the gravity to throw you back out on a fast line course away from the pursuit. Smart.

Drick had a moment of satisfaction as new alarms sounded and a mechanical voice screamed ‘proximity alert’ into the ship. The tannoy broke through again, “Captain there is a large vessel below the clouds.” There were sudden loud clangs from the hull. They were deafening. Drick could have laughed if their body wasn’t a hellscape of agony. “They’ve attached graples and are bouncing electromagnetics at us. We have lost all navigation and sensors. They are reeling us in. We were herded straight into a containment vessel.”

The Captain screamed in anguish. “They have us,” she finally shouted. “All crew prepare for boarders. Defend the ship and let’s see if we can take out these bastards. The Captain strode towards the doorway and then stopped and turned to look at Drick. “We may have lost. But you’re dead.” She said. 

The Captain aimed the needle gun at Drick and switched it to full auto. Then Drick watched as she depressed the trigger and sprayed Drick’s body with the entire clip.