Quote:Warning: This story is a gruesome tale centering around a rather demented individual. Flaying people alive isn't out of the question, in fact Unselie actually looks forward to explaining such activities in great, horrifying detail. If you get queasy easily this is most certainly not your story. You have been warned.
Enjoy, try not to eat anything before reading.
"Got something on scanners. Looks pretty big."
"Another Rheinland ship? Thought I told you not to bother with them, if the boss finds out we took one he'll have our heads."
"Nope, looks like a pirate train, mostly intact. Mostly."
"Sweet. Any readings from it?"
"No.... wait, yeah, there's something."
"Put it through."
The sounds of tortured screaming and pain echoed through the salvage ship, bouncing off the walls in a horrible cacophony.
"Good god, turn it off Mitzy!"
Mitzy slammed her hands onto the switch, but the sound seemed to echo in her ears for a few more seconds.
"What the hell was that?"
"You mean besides horrifying and creepy?"
"Whatever. Have the cargo scans come back?"
"What do you mean 'whatever'? Hezekiah, we should get out of here as fast as we can!"
"When was the last time we got paid?"
"Umm.... long time ago?"
"How much food is left in the ship?"
"Not much..."
"And how often do we get finds out here that aren't already being taken?"
"Every few months."
"Two plus two equals-"
"Alright, fine, we need to salvage this thing or we'll starve. Still, I think I'd rather starve than sound like those people over the comms."
"They might still be alive. If they are, we should help them. Might get a royal reward for it too, if they have families."
"I suppose.... whoa, nix that, this thing is running without reactor containment."
"That's suicide!"
"Not the least of this scrap's quirks, looks like the cargo is all passengers. What kind of creep runs passengers without containment?"
"Probably the same type of person that names a ship the 'Whipping Girl'. Spelled out in whips, too. Someone's got a very weird sense of humor, that's for sure. See anything worth selling Mitzy?"
"Well the whips might be worth something to a collector. And... the inside is filled with all kinds of sweet stuff, dear me... it's got wood! Real wood! Not to mention what looks like a wine cellar, maybe some cardamine..."
"This thing is a gold mine. Nice find, good to have you on the ship."
"Thanks, Hezekiah. But, uh, we've got to take it off the ship, and that isn't going to be fun."
Freeport Eleven..I'm fourteen, again...This is out back of Yareva's Saloon, between the freezer and the recycler station, an empty space where the bulkheads don't quite meet, and just enough air is vented in to keep it breathable, if only for one person, if they're generally unconscious.
Thats why I had a breather. He didn't. I was watching his lungs rise and fall, open and collapse, just like wet balloons glistening by my torch. Damp, glistening crimson sacs, quivering up and then down as he struggled to breath.
His name was Terry, and he was a year older than me. About a head taller, too. He was perfect. A shining, golden haired spacing lad, muscled from lifting objects and shifting gear around ports...He thought I was cute, when I smiled. He thought other parts of me looked good, too.
He had wanted a kiss, my first kiss. I'd never had a pet, and only ever pulled hair, before. Wasn't really interested in boys....but I'd seen a vid, a while back, in class. So, we kissed, and I knelt down. He dropped. I caught his head, softly. That was earlier. Just now, his ship had lifted off, leaving him behind.
With me.
I wore the breather, tanks strapped to my back. My hands and shirt covered in blood, and his lungs, exposed...His stirnum had split with a moist pop as the scalpel reached his collarbone, and his ribs had sprung out, a bit...I'd pulled them back more.
"Oh...oh...Hezekiah....gods below..."
Someone's here! Someone's caught me!
..............
Sophie's eyes shot open, awoken in a panic...pulled a tattered little girl closer too her, spheres of blood spilling from her mouth, floating out, splashing and shattering on a blood soaked face.
Thump, thump.
Three weeks. I grew to love you, in those three weeks, Terry. Bliss, we had. And agony. Sweet, wonderful agony. And Bliss. I was your nurse, your comfort, your lover. I was your confessional and your foe. I loved you, more than I loved my life. I watched you gasp in the air, heard you beg and sob. You held my heart in the palm of your hand, and I went so far as to grasp yours...
Thump, thump.
Mitzy threw the door closed with more force than Hezekiah could remember seeing from her.
"Grab that piece of metal over there, we'll brace the door with it. Mitzy. Hello? You there?"
"Y-yeah, sorry..."
"Alright, whatever you saw isn't coming through now. Are you alright?"
"I think so."
"You sure?"
"No."
"Here's a spare gun if you want it."
"Thanks, Hezekiah."
"Alright. If you want to head back to the ship that's fine."
"Why?"
"Because we have to get to the other side of that room somehow? That's where all the goods are."
"Of course. We're loved by divine powers, thank you very much... bastards. Ah well, at least this time around I've got firepower."
"You aren't usually this violent minded."
"Usually I don't see people who look like they drank the blood of other humans. Not much that excuses that."
Mitzy armed her pistol with a satisfying click.
"In that case let's just pull the metal off and charge straight through, howabout."
"No thank you. Don't need to see that much blood again. We go around."
Hezekiah smirked a little, to which he received a thoroughly hostile glare from Mitzy.
"Alright, alright, we go around. Map Arturo drew up says we head that way then swing around after getting closer to the wall."
The two of them walked silently but briskly along the path Hezekiah had lined out, trying not to look at the walls too much, which were increasingly adorned with various grisly paintings and ornaments, as well as the odd bloodstain. Every once and a while one of them would spot some valuable looking trinket and throw it on their salvage cart. As the pair approached a bulkhead that would put them into one of the larger rooms, Hezekiah spotted a corpse lying off to the side. It had very little clothing on, and was awash in blood and bore a most horrible expression of terror and pain on its face.
"Mitzy, close your eyes."
"What? Why?"
"Do it."
"Okay."
"Don't open them until I get the door open. You really don't want to see what I just noticed. Alright, there we go, got it op- oh my. Keep your eyes closed."
Hezekiah walked forward through the now open door into what appeared to be a sort of gallery.
Sophie's seizure was settling down, and she was alone again....It was cold..so very cold...
She peeled herself up off the floor, her bare feet rubbing across her oriental carpets...sticking to them...
"Euch.." Stained, ruined.
The doors were opened, no alarms were blaring...someone must have repressurized the cabin...She crept out, up to the crow's nest; She washed, dressed in silk. Better now, handmade kusari slippers on tile mosaics and third dynasty rugs, carefully avoiding any droplets or stains. Her hair up, makeup done, and adorned in white silk embroidered by golden lace, she walked across the cabins, and up the ladders, to take a seat at the center of her domain, not the cockpit, no, the observatory bubble, a room rimmed in gold and decked with niobium tinted glass. It cast webs of rainbows across the room, and wreathed her in halos. She'd met Seth Driscol here, every time, and even him, the bruiser of the Slaver's Union, had been dumbstruck and awed. He'd been polite.
All the bigwig's of the Union had them, before the Union collapsed. Halls of horrors and displays of their twisted lifestyles. Jamal Nassif, orchestrator of the entire Union enterprise, had displayed only single organs or tissuegroups, shredded or flayed, video feeds of the process displayed behind them in glistening detail...though the standard was much more of hall of burlesque stills. Most had been incinerated by the authorities.
Sophie's Gallery, less a sexual sideshow or a display of brutality, and more, to her mind, a display of love and grace. Fourteen girls and twelve boys, of varying ages, suspended from wires, their skin splayed and their organs hung around them like constelations, their muscles inches outside their limbs, arms wrapped around one another as if they were dancing, and indeed, twirl and spin they did, and their flesh around them, and even smaller bits, cloth and ribons and jewels around their vital bits, in a monstrous and huge mobile kept moist and glistening by a light spray of preserving chemicals.
"Alright boys, we're closing in on that beacon. Keep your guns hot, we don't want to fall into a Phantom trap. That said, don't just pile your Lugers into the thing before we know what's going on."
"Yessir, Oberst Schneider."
"Alright, you have formation data loaded into your ship computers. Start moving in, tell us when you start getting readings."
A long minute passed as the Bundschuh squadron closed in on the Whipping Girl, having been alerted by the suddenly active and rather unpleasant beacon. Most of the original group had stayed back at Yanagi rather than investigate the source of the screams, but Klaus had managed to get together a team to take care of it.
"Alright, got something. Its a pirate transport by the name of Whipping Girl, one of the old Slaver's Union ships. Reported lost with a full cargo, but I'm guessing they aren't alive anymore since the place is flooded with radiation."
"It can't have been running for that long, the Union disbanded quite a while back. Something must have turned it on recently."
"Whatever happened we're going to find out, if anyone is still alive then we'll get them off for questioning. Everyone, form up on me and head for the docking port. Hopefully it still works."
"Yessir."
"Hezekiah, we've got company."
"Perfect timing. We just got through to the good stuff, we'll have it mounted up into one of the escape pods in no time. Who's knocking?"
"Bundschuh by the looks of it, and if I read their comm chatter right they've got one of the Volksfront leaders with them. They're docking with the ship, if we get out of here before they undock we might get away without excitement. Move fast."
"Will do."
"Got the wine loaded up into the cart."
"Good work Mitzy. Can we fit the table on there?"
"Probably. Hand me that wedge, I'll try and pry it free..."
This one was broken. Didn't feel pain right....wouldn't shut up. Would not shut up. Shut Up! This is new. I HATE you. You just...make me -angry- You're broken. You are sooo BROKEN. Oh, but I have you know. Snip Snip, now you cannot walk. That will heal, which is why I'm taking your kneecaps away. You wont get far if you can't stand up.
SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP
Stop talking, please. Stop MAKING SOUNDS. You cannot be enjoying this. Ok, I'm smart, I can solve this....
huh
They aren't chords, really. Its really more like... like a drum..or a woodwind.. There were these...Two little flaps, and near those membranes, with other things around it, all muscles, and if you pull on them, and blow through the tube, well...all I can produce is the most dreadful of shrieks...but I'm sure the muscles would help make words....
Thank you, sooo much. So much quieter, now.
Stop banging. Stop it. Stop.
Tap tap tap tap tap...NO staccato...I hate you. IhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyou!
Try tapping with your phalanges out.
Thats IT!
Thump. Thump Thud, Squish. Thud, Squish. Thud, Crack.
Finally, finally.
I need a new rug.
"Oberst, got something over here."
"Ech, another body. Something very bad happened here. Split up, see if we can find any survivors."
"Yessir."
"Been almost an hour sir, think we should check in with the other team?"
"Good idea."
"... they aren't responding. Wait... got something, they're heading back. Say they can't take any more of this ship."
"Tell them-"
"They cut transmission, sir."
Klaus bit his lip.
"Alright. We'll just have to do this by ourselves. Any life signs on the scanner?"
"Well... there's something awful weak that way... too much interference to get anything better though."
"Its a lead, might be alive. Let's go."
"Alright, should be right behind this door. Everyone ready?"
"Yessir."
"We go in on three. One.... two..."
Suddenly the door opened from the other side.
"You could have knocked."