Page 72 of Degradation

I can smell the stench of her flesh burning, I can smell the stench of it cooking. The heat hits me, even from this distance and I can’t keep the vomit in. It erupts out of me, covering my chin, my chest.

Devin doesn’t react; doesn’t even act like he notices.

Her screams turn higher and high pitched as those flames cover, as they torch more of her.

Her beautiful skin turns to blisters, it literally roasts up and simmers as it boils under the immense heat. Her eyes explode with the pressure, and so much blood streams down her now twisted and mutilated face.

And when she falls silent, all we hear then is the sound of crackling wood, only now it sounds like bones snapping.

She’s dead. Kora is dead.

And it’s all my fault.

“I hate you.” I spit out. I don’t even know if it’s for him or for my husband. In truth, I hate them both.

Devin draws in a long deep breath, something that feels far too intimate for such an occasion. “Hate me all you want, Paitlyn, it makes no difference to me.”

I don’t understand what those words even mean. I don’t understand what he’s trying to say.

Gunther strides over to where the flames are now raging. His grotesque features are illuminated by the flickering, and it only makes him look more dangerous.

“Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.” He says.

Those words bore into me. They echo off the walls, the repeat over and over.

Only, Kora wasn’t a witch, she was my friend. One of my only friends in this cursed place.

I hang my head, letting my tears stream down. She’s dead. Dead because of me.

“Keep her there.” Gunther orders, pointing that finger at me, at my face. “Let her watch until the fire burns out. Then take her to the chapel. She needs to repent.”

Repent. Like I have any sins to repent. Like I have anything that even matches the evil of this man.

Devin inclines his head, tightening his grip just enough to prove a point.

But the point was already made, the point was made the moment Gunther put his hands around my throat the first time, in the Cathedral all those months ago.

He killed me then. He choked the last bit of life out of me. I’ve been existing since then as nothing more than a ghost. A thing.

Pailtyn

Apparently, the usual kneeling and flogging isn’t enough this time.

Apparently, my sins are so great, that harsher measures are necessary.

I don’t bother to speak, to plead, to do anything.

I feel numb. Utterly numb.

And completely broken.

Devin hands me over to the waiting Priest who looks like he can’t wait to get started with whatever this punishment is. He yanks me into the Chapel, and slams my body as hard as he can against those marble slabs.

I scream out, curl up, afraid that he’s about to do something unforgiveable, that he’s about to hurt me the way Gunther allows his friends to do.

The Priest sneers, staring at my breasts, at my thighs, at my exposed pussy too.

“Dirty, filthy little whore.” He says, grabbing what looks like a load of dried-up brambles. They’re a metre long in length, one end bound together with some rope that provides a handle.