Feels soft. Squishy... I retrieve my foot painfully slow back towards me. It's wet.I lift my foot to my face. I lick the wetness and find blood.

My hair hangs in front of my eyes. Not that there's anything to see. I've been in this chamber I would guess... about 11 months now. I spit on the wall after I lap from a bowl of warm water. That way I can lick it up when my throat is painfully dry from many hours of inhaling dust and assorted shit down here. I feel the deep crevices in my back where I usually get whipped for 5 minutes.Sort of exercise for my keeper. I remember my life a long time ago very thinly. Most of the past has been consumed by my mind's intense thoughts of hell. They are coming for me. I can hear the pounding of the boots that come with spikes sewn into them. I shiver at the thought of yet more torturous abuse..of more mental abuse. I have been broken many times now. I sometimes welcome the pain and the blood as it reminds me I still alive. I remember a while ago as I was dipped in bleach.. trying my damnest to keep the chemical out of my eyes and orifices. I passed out for a long time that nite. The door swung open. Coming towards me... I feel their hatred be4 I feel it physically. Then I feel pinpricks. Stabbing at me everywhere... Going in deep and being pulled out. Gotta concentrate on my mental picture I usually conjure at times like these. Rivers of blood,flowing...carrying me away from black shadows... Transporting me to a bright sunny opening in the forest.I look up to see the hawks circling. More furious stabbing with the needles now. Ice cold droplets of rain..... Then the stabbing needles stop.I cringe at what'll be next.. I feel my legs being spread apart. A strong hard punch to my groin. Stars...then NOTHING.

I awake wet. Water.... Lovely precious water. I lap at the puddle on the floor in front of me. I hear a whimper. It is coming from the floor near me. I try to turn my head in that direction,but I feel a sharp pain and can't go any further than in front of me. I ask if anyone is there. I wait... Nothing. I ask again. I hear a muffled reply. I say not to worry. I say you're alive..though you may not want to be. I whisper calm words in the hopes that whoever it is hasn't been too damaged yet.

Hours pass by and no more sounds come from the right of me.I finally close my eyes..wishing I can scratch the itch on my neck. I dream. Dreams that come rushing at me so fast,I find myself jerking awake gasping for air. I have cramps in my arms and legs where there used to be muscles. I try again to sleep in my hellish situation. Rats scurry past me going nowhere. Damn.My dinner has passed by.I sometimes am able to catch one with my foot and squeeze it between my toes till it's last breath expels from it's lungs.Then I raise it to my mouth and take small bites. Sometimes choking on the fur. I was too tired to catch my meal. The smell in here is atrocious as I don't have the comforts of home. But I quickly adapted as I am slowly turning into a raw animal. I must have fallen asleep,because I quickly awoke to screams. They were hellacious screams,just one long note..a breath..another long note. Occasionally I hear this as the sounds echo off walls and amplify. By the tiny crack in the wall straight ahead I can tell it's morning.I can see shapes now.Yet they are still too dark to make out. I force my body to twist to the place where I thought the other human being may be laying. I can make out the outline. In a sitting position. What throws me off is that this human has no shackles.No chains that I can make out.

Bloody,but alive is this boy.Man? Can't tell from here. He lifts up his head and turns towards me. The most beautiful face I have ever seen. The hurt in his eyes. The pain in his head. He is almost broken. He's just a boy. How did he get here? Where did they find him? I ask if he can speak. Slowly his mouth moves. Yes. Help me. Please. I tell him I am chained. I am of no use to him,except for comforting words and companionship until they decide to change our positions. He bows his head and I hear him weep. I feel useless. Someone is approaching.

I put my head down painfully and whisper to him to lie down. The door flings open and another thump.This time I can smell death. A horrible smell. This is the smell you can't ever get over.It stays with you. The door slams shut and the deadbolts slide back into place. I call over and ask the boy to come over to me. He gets up on his knees and crawls over. I tell him to put his hand in mine. I feel ripped skin. I feel cuts. I feel warmth. I feel another human being and it feels so good. He puts his head on my chest and puts his arm around me. We stay this way for a very long time. I finally shift my weight and try to stretch my legs. He wakes and I can feel his breath on my face. I tell him we are going to get out of here.Something I didn't believe.But why have him lose all hope? He gets up,stumbling to his feet. I hear him peeing somewhat away from me. He comes back and says he wants to die. I tell him he can't die till I'm ready to die and that is a long way off. There has got to be something.Some way to get me free and us out of this dungeon of doom. The door opens. They must have tiptoed.I didn't hear them coming.They rush in and grab Trent.He told me his name.Finally,a person AND a name! They drag him by the arms and he is screaming and fighting. They slam the door and I hear silence. I pray for him incoherently.

A very long time later,as I chewed on the last piece of rat pie,the footfalls approach.I hear the flesh being dragged.The door opens and the body is flung in.The door slams shut. Help.........me......help... I hear his voice,small and weak. I smell earth.Dirt. He comes closer. He collapses on me. I wrap my legs around him and hold him tight. They took him to the woods and shot arrows at him. His right shoulder and his thigh was hit.Not serious wounds.But enough for him to lose blood. I worried about the dirt that covers him and hope the arrow holes don't get too infected. I picture myself tending to his wounds and brushing the hair away from his face. Tears run silently down my face. I can handle being tortured. I can't handle another being led through this. I tell him I may have a plan. It is nearly impossible,but there is a small glimmer of hope. First I catch him some dinner. I force him to eat. He needs strength.

After the last piece I give him with my mouth,he suddenly gets up and wretches his guts out. I ask him if he feels better.He says yes. I start the plan. I tell him to go around the room close to the walls and feel for anything sharp.A rock,anything. He does this and a few seconds later returns to me with a stone.It has a jagged end on it.Good enough. I tell him to start sawing at the first of the shackles on my left arm. It is tough going at first,but then a groove forms and I have hope rising again in my mind. Footsteps sound and I can also hear nails hitting the floor skipping a beat.Trent flings himself away from me into a ball. The door opens and I hear panting. DOGS. From the panting close to my ear,there are two of them. Then I hear a low throaty growl. I feel something being splashed on me. Smells like blood.Instantly I am being torn into with sharp file-like teeth! Vicious tears in my skin.Ripping the flesh in strips off me. I am only concious of the fact that they are working on me and not Trent. The mauling continues and I grit my teeth and fight back my screams of agony. The dogs retreat and the door shuts. I call Trent over and have him go back to the sawing with the stone.

He is crying and his tears are hitting me in the face as he leans over me to work at the shackle. Two days have gone by without the door opening. I wonder what that means. Can't be anything good for us,I gather. Trent is working on my left leg shackle now. The stone has worn down to just a small piece now. I now have use of my arms.They have been shackled to the wall so long,I need to learn to use them again. I know Trent is dehydrated. I can see it in his eyes. He is weaker. I take my left thumb and pinch it with all my might till my blood appears.I stick my thumb in his mouth and get him to suck. He sucks hungrily. I take him in my lap and for the first time,I am able to stroke his hair.Feel his face in my hands. Kiss his forehead. He wraps his arms around me and we hold each other in hell. As he works the last of the steel off my leg,I feel hopeful for the first time since being dragged down to this wretched place. I comfort Trent the best I can with words like escape,life,overcoming,free. He looks me in the eyes and shows me he truly believes in me. I just hope we can pull it off.

As we got around to catch our meal,and lick the walls,I hear a faraway sound. A distant familiar sound. A sound of rescue in my mind. Twisted little mind deciphering a small sound from another world. A little while later,I hear it louder.It is a wail of a fire engine! And it sounds as if it's getting closer. Then I hear shuffling.The halls have come alive! Voices and footsteps running. Scrambling. Shouts and curses. We look at each other and wonder what is happening. The door burst open and a man covered in flames is projected into our pit. His body on fire lights the chamber and as I look around,I see shackles,and bones,and blood and a prone body in the corner. But what I really see is Trent's eyes.How beautiful and tortured they look at the same time.The second thing I see is the goddamn door! Open! Freedom! The body coming thru the door is huge. Like a huge roman.Like the ones who wear body armor. With a whip in his hand,he slams it down on the floor,making me jump with every crack of it.My back arching as it whistles in the air above me. Trent moves around behind this beast and grabs the whip as it descends down towards my head.He pulls on it and spins the beast around. I manage to get up and I give the monster a good hard kick in the ass.He starts falling towards Trent and Trent puts his knee up to catch the tormentor in the balls.The beast goes down hard.I take the whip and finish him off,leaving bloody tracks in trails on the floor.The body that is on fire,the burning flesh is getting to me as I gag and wretch on the beast.

Trent stumbles over the now clearly crispy body and grabs my hand.I get up on one knee and he pulls me up. We get to the open door and do not hesitate. We run.We run and run.Running thru halls.Running around corners. Kerosene lamps on the walls lighting the way. Then we stop dead in our tracks. A wall right in front of us.A dead end. We turn and run back. Like mice in a maze we make wrong turns and find new corridors.This place is huge. Holding Trent's hand,we make our way to one of several doors we must have passed up.Pushing on the door,we stumble in and see bodies stacked up on top of each other.Skeletons still in shackles hanging off the walls. Trying all the doors and finding the same. Then we came to a door with an x painted on it with what looks like blood.Opening the door,we find a staircase.A wrought iron staircase looking pretty flimsy.We step onto it and it sways. We carefully climb each step. Towards the top I can see light. Stepping off the last step I find myself in a rather odd looking room. Trent comes up behind me.

It looks like a ballroom.All the glitter and the gold.The antique furnishings. The people.The people! There must be 50 people milling about! Music is playing.The type you hear from a pipe organ. Some people are turning towards us,taking us in. We must look like the living dead to them.Mouths opening forming oh's.And eyebrows shooting down into a frown on some of the faces. I smell the wonderful aroma of food. But I know we shouldn't be here.Nor should we try to explain where we came from. So we turned and quickly walked to the double wid e golden etched wooden doors behind the crowd. Thank God! The doors opened with a pull on the gold plated handle. We stumbled outside and at once the fresh smell of the world overtook my senses. I felt tears slide down my face and I buried my head in Trent's chest.He stroked my stringy hair,and planted kisses on my head. He whispered that we are ok now. He will take care of us for eternity. I rolled that around in my mind and loved the sound of it. We held each other's hand and ran. We ran and ran for a long time.Not knowing where we were headed.Just kept running. When the sun fell down below the trees,we stopped.

We lay down among the many fall leaves on the ground under a huge tree. Exhausted,we curled up together and fell asleep. Hours later,I rubbed my eyes and looked around. The peacefulness was like a gift from God.Memories from my hellish captivity kept trying to push their way into my head,but I kept blocking them out.I looked down at Trent. He has the face of an angel under all the dirt. My heart was hurting with the love I felt for him. Are we to be doomed? Is this the projected path of our lives intertwined? He stirred. He slowly opened his eyes to the dawn of a new day.He turned to me and smiled. We were feeling a little better. We walked till we came upon a creek.We washed ourselves and ripped his shirt in half.He tied it around my naked chest. We cleaned our wounds and licked each other dry. We kissed.A long deep kiss that took me to happiness. I felt so in love with him and so grateful that he came into my pathetic, dying a slow death life. He carried me over to a tree trunk and began kissing me all over. I returned the gesture and felt the heat rising. We tumbled around,arms and legs flailing as we found each other.

After a while of laying in each others arms,wrapped cocoon style,we made our way along the creek which turned into a river,which turned into a town. We hitched a ride south and kept hitching till we ended up in Louisiana. We grabbed one more ride from someone dressed for Mardi Gras and ended up on the street where Trent lives. As we walked,we talked about life and death and how we are lucky.So lucky to be free of hell. We approached his home. He turned me towards him and put his hands on my shoulders. He thanked me for being his one hope in a hopeless nightmare. He says to me that he feels he is my soulmate. No one can understand what we have been thru. He was locked up in another section of the chambers almost as long as I was. There were so many bodies in there that they moved the barely living together into other chambers. This is to be a scarred part of our lives forever...and the strength of our bond for the rest of our lives. We walked up to the door of his beautiful mansion. He turned and asked me to marry him. One one knee. Holding my hands in his.Looking up at me.Showing me my future. My happiness. No more slavery. I said yes. He lifted me in his arms and carried me through the door. This was the beginning of life again. Erasing all that has been done to us. Surviving and taking on all that will happen in the future. I was damaged. I was erased. I was tortured. I was broken. Now I'm happy.. THE END Susan2000