Page 76 of Devoured

“I wondered when you’d crawl from your hole.”

Her face drained of color. Real fear finally cracked through the madness.

“You know each other?”

I didn’t answer. There was no point.

I moved fast. Faster than my broken body should have allowed.

The blade found her throat—not deep enough to kill, but enough to open the voice box. Her screams turned to wet whistles, echoing through the stone.

“Remember Marion?”I hissed. “How you cut her?”

“Remember what you did to me?”

Blood bubbled from her open throat. She tried to scream, but no voice came.

“You wanted to be the Judge’s bride?”

I grabbed her by the matted hair, dragging her to a flatter section of the floor. “Let me prepare you for him. Let me skin you. You love blades, don’t you? You bitch!”

The Executioner set down the water and moved closer. When I raised the blade, he caught my wrist—gently.

“The skin must be taken while they live,”he said. “Like this. Find the plane between dermis and muscle.”

He showed me on her shoulder. Even with a crude blade, precision mattered. This wasn’t about death. It was about understanding.

I worked methodically.

Arms first. The blade sawed through flesh with sick efficiency. Then her legs. Her pulse surged against the stone.

She gurgled. Whistled. But stayed awake.

“Don’t you dare pass out on me, Doctor.”I mimicked her clinical tone. “For research purposes I need you awake.”

Her body convulsed as I peeled her open, strip by strip. Muscle. Fat. Nerves. By the time I reached her torso, her breathing grew ragged. Shallow.

Her eyes rolled back, showing only white.

Then... nothing.

I sat back on my heels, the blade dripping.

Dr. Alan lay there like something from a butcher’s window. Everything exposed—except her face. I’d left that untouched. I couldn’t bring myself to ruin it.

The shock had taken her. Her body quit before the blade could.

She died on that cave floor—raw, ruined, and finally understanding what her victims had felt.

∞∞∞

The water was cold against my hands, but it couldn’t wash away what I’d done. I scrubbed until my skin was raw, watching the pink water swirl and disappear into cracks in the floor. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Some faint light filtered down from somewhere above—just enough to see shapes and shadows. But it was fading now, growing dimmer with each passing moment. In the dying light, I could see Alan’s corpse sprawled on the cave floor. The sight made my head reel.

“I did that.”My voice sounded strange, distant.

“I took her apart piece by piece. Listened to her suffering and felt... satisfied.”