House of Cthulhu Ch. 03

"Oh, gorgeous," sighted László.

He stepped back, giving the medic room to work. Giving himself room to be appalled.

The Hungarian's head snapped around when he noticed Sawatzki standing behind him.

"Can I help you, Countess?"

She slid past him towards the bed, entirely ignoring his query. It seemed almost as if she were drawn by the sobs and muffled cries that came from there every time the medic wiped another part of devastated flesh clean with an alcohol pad. A strange mixture of satisfaction and fascination appeared on her face as the high priestess pulled one glove off and touched the procumbent girl above the kidney area. She then traced the lowest whip cut with her index finger. Slowly and deliberately, giving not even the slightest sign being aware of the two men's presence. Sibyl gave a weak cry as Sawatzki's touch seared her raw flesh.

László felt his arteries pumping with growing rage.

"Countess! Please?" He waved angrily towards the door. "Do you mind?!"

She looked up at him, bearing the expression of someone who had just been ripped out of deepest thoughts. An expression completely different to the one she sported a mere minute ago.

"Yes. Yes, of course... no."

She put her glove back on.

"No, of course I don't mind," she uttered, still absentminded.

László did not know what to think of, let alone say to that performance. Not giving him the opportunity to do either of it, though, the Countess left as silently as she had come.

It was dark. When did László and the physician leave? Minutes ago? Hours ago? Or had she just imagined that actual moment they had left? Had she just imagine them having been here in the first place? Like she had imagined Sawatzki having been here?

Sibyl tried to prop herself up, and the wave of pain washing across her back was beyond description. So she tried not to move. But trying not to move made her cramp up. Made her flogged flesh tremble and twitch. Made her wounds blaze.

So it is true. The punishment by whipping does not end after the last lash.

Which was the reason why she was lying in this cell. So she could not escape the well-deserved after-pain. Not even a single dry Aspirin Sibyl would be allowed. At least she was not secured by all fours by the means of the manacles welded to the corners of the bed frame. They carried the threat of culprits to be cuffed down and even gagged so they could undisturbedly think about their wrongdoings.

One may reckon that so severe a flogging would be sufficient to kill a woman of a mere fifty-five kilogrammes. It might, if it wasn't for the dark gift handed over to the true followers of the House.

The Doktor, not aged a day in decades.

Balogh László, two packs between dawn and dusk and never short of breath.

Sibyl, remarkable physical endurance – and a quick healer, too!

And what a wonderful gift it was! Weird mixtures of hormones kept her system pumping through the ordeal, the following healing pain of days thus shoehorned into hours. Very still she lied, suffering the clean, searingly pure hurt of her gashes. Then it started tingling, somewhere deep within the grisliest cuts. A flickering sensation first, turning into smouldering throbbings, pulsing with the rhythm of her heart beat.

No! No, please no!

A strain, tugging at her raw flesh. As if the leather never had left the wounds it had cut and was now pulled out, over and over again. And finally it arrived, the pain of wounds closing with unnatural speed. Reverse suffering, amplified, intensified by a metabolism turning against its system, a body turning against its owner.

Sibyl was past shame as she bit into the blanket and screamed nonetheless...

Formations beyond descriptions clawed at the chaos above. A titanic mountain range under a tortured sky. Raised, eroded and folded up again during æons of madness. This was a place never meant to be beheld by a human eye. And yet she saw. The sheer alienness of the scenery tore at her mind as the light of sickish suns finally broke through the boiling clouds. Its nameless colour finally revealed the bottom of the abyssal valley she was heading to, though neither she nor her insane surrounding was moving at all. Only the clouds were raving in lunatic circles. Those terrible clouds.

I don't want to go there! I beg of you!

The pain was even deeper now, but manageable, blunt. She had somewhat overcome the initial shock – a state which had hold everything but anguish down. Now all kinds of emotions keep on rushing on Sibyl. She felt violated, dishonoured to the core. And above all stood the overwhelming belief to be betrayed. How many hours she had been in this cell she knew not, but she trusted many more were still to follow.

Time enough for one excessive crying fit after another.

Sibyl had found her composure back to some degrees. She was still lying on the bed, on her belly, of course, gathering strength. Having suffered through several waves, movement now brought less severe pain, but was accompanied with the sticky and utterly repulsive sensation of her bled-through bandages adhering to her wounds. Two dozen strides below the surface there was no telling of time. She was thirsty – and ironically, she needed to pee.

Please don't forget me down here...

Some time ago she had realised how cold it was in this cell. So she had laid the rough blanked around her shoulders and pulled it tight – all of it with due carefulness. Wrapped into it, she was now sitting on the cot's end, leaning against the massive stone wall with her left shoulder. Sibyl did not even bother to change her position as she called out with a weak voice.

"Let me out! Please!"

She startled herself as she began to giggle.

Don't lose it!

"Open the door! I'm a good girl now!"

She moaned, mostly to get rid of that stupid giggling, and shifted on her lair. The girl fished for her boot and threw it against the door, where it thudded into the wood. A cutting pain across her whole back immediately disciplined her for that inappropriate action.

Crap!

"Don't forget me down here...!"