RATING: R (kinda nasty references to torture)
SUMMARY: Bonnie Walters' POV. Set in Amy's Petals universe. You really need to read that story first to know what the heck is going on here.
DISCLAIMER: The Buffy universe isn't mine. The Petals universe isn't mine. I own nothing.


Pain

by Rebecca Carefoot

I always wanted to die in my sleep. Pain scared me. Cuts, heavy blows. Blood scared me. I never even played any team sports because it's too easy to get hurt.

I'm not afraid of pain anymore.

The first finger was the hardest because it was a shock. It's impossible to believe that could happen. A part of your body could be severed. I almost didn't feel it, I was staring so hard at the lump of flesh lying on the kitchen table next to the basket of oranges my sister sent from Florida. I never could convince her we have oranges in California too. It didn't seem like it was part of me. It couldn't be. It was separate. I tried to move it, and then I could feel again. The shock faded to white hot agony, and my knees buckled. I would have bashed my head on the table, but they caught me, pressed my hand to the table again, and brought the knife down.

They asked me where the books are. Over and over they asked me. And at first I was so afraid I would tell them. I wasn't trained for this. No one taught me how to withstand torture. No one told me what to do when my fingers were being cut off and a hand slammed into my mouth hard enough to send teeth chittering across the floor. No one told me what to do when I started to choke on my own blood. I thought I would break. I knew I would.

But I didn't.

The pain never stopped. The pain never got any less. But after a certain point, it couldn't get any worse.

I was relieved when they put out my eyes. It meant I'd never have to look at myself again. I was ruined. I was going to die. But just in case by some terrible miracle I survived, I never wanted to see my hands, my mouth, my head, myself again.

They left one finger. I struggled hard when they tried to cut it off. So hard, a hunk of hair and scalp tore free from their hold. They left it be. What was the point in taking it? Nine out of ten's not bad. And they still had the eyes.

I held on because they didn't expect me to. My revenge. I held on because of my garden and all the beautiful flowers I hadn't had the chance to plant yet. I held on for my ex-husband, my friends, my sister, my mother so sick in the nursing home she wouldn't have noticed if I'd failed and the world had ended. I held on for Oz. I hated him. I hated him for the blood and the pain and my hair and my hands. I hated him, but I held on for him. Him and the others with him, the ones who would save the world. I held on because I had to. Because it was the only thing to do.

I wrote the message blind, my eyes gone, leaving only pain and wet stickiness against my cheeks. I had no idea whether it was even legible. But I thought it would be. Whatever had warned me that someone was coming, whatever feeling had told me to bury the cabinet in the garden, whoever was responsible for that would guide my hand. I had to believe it. It couldn't all be for nothing. And I pointed with my last finger, to show them the way.

Now I only wait for the pain to end.

end

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Other Characters // Rebecca Fic