“It was as if pure power and authority had entered.”
My Own Prison
By J.S. Schaffer
I gasp out each time the hammer rang out, driving cruel, unfeeling iron through my wrists. Before I can recover my breath, the Romani hoist my body high above the mob.
They will not hear me beg.
Hours pass. The centurion paces impatiently before ordering our legs broken. His legionarii laugh as they take out their cudgels. I roar defiantly, bracing myself for the blows. Nothing could have prepared me. My teeth throb as each sickening crack crushes bone. No longer able to brace my bloodied, splintered feet against the wooden beam, I fall with all my weight upon the stakes in my wrists. I involuntarily squeal in a pitch which would shame me if existence hadn’t become agony.
I… will… not… beg.
My screams are drowned out by the clamor of a callous and unfeeling crowd. Some wept. Many looked away. Others laughed and jeered, pelting the lot of us with rotten food and insults. I see a small child innocently playing to the side. I hate him… his youth, his innocence, his happiness.
“May you and the gods suffer as I suffer!” I gasp with what little strength I have left, hatred heating my heart as coldness grips my flesh. “For what? Because I took for me what others stole for themselves? I wish death upon you all!”
Unconsciousness overtakes me, though I don’t remember it.
~~~
I suddenly wake up in darkness, disoriented and confused.
Memories of the execution flood my mind. Jerking, I check myself for injuries. My fingers feel unmutilated skin and unbroken bones. Had it been just a dream? It felt so real, the pain so intense.
Rusty iron bars dripping with fetid water faintly come into sight. “Damn it all, I am still in some stinking cell,” I mutter. How have I wronged the Fates so grievously that they would curse me to experience death twice?
“The Fates?” croaked a guttural voice in the darkness, somehow answering the question formed in my thoughts. “You aren’t nearly important enough that they would take interest in you… but I have.”
My hair stands on end as the chilling tone of the words scrapes through me soul. “Ohh?” I growl. “Your mother told you about that time I sodomized her?”
The voice laughs horridly. A monstrous face appears behind the bars. Its smile is sickly and much too wide for its rotting face. “Oh, it is so nice to finally meet you, you know… face to face,” it giggles as malice radiates from its pinpoint eyes. For the first time in my life, I feel genuine fear rather than being its inflicter.
“Wake up!” I screech, trying to jolt myself up. The monster cackles before stabbing me with a red-orange spear, seemingly fresh out of the forge. My skin crackles as it drips to the floor, emitting a choking, stinking smoke. I cannot even utter a cry, though as the spear withdraws, my wound closes, leaving soft skin fresh for renewed brutality.
The torture is suddenly interrupted by the sound of a door opening on the far side of the room. The beast's incessant smile disappears before contorting into something akin to fear. Cursing, it melts back into the darkness.
A presence suddenly enters the room. The fear that must have gripped the creature grips me. It was as if pure power and authority had entered. Curiously though, it dissipates quickly, but not before washing away the trauma of the jailor's cruelty in its wake. An unassuming hooded figure carrying a torch appears behind the bars.
“What do you want?” I ask, my courage returning.
He doesn’t speak, but takes some exotic herbs out of his scrip and begins to grind them in a mortar on a nearby bench.
“Are you the physician?" I demand harshly. "Your barbarian jailor has mistreated me. Let me speak to your centurion.”
Still quiet, the man produces a vial filled with a shimmering liquid. He drops a single drop into the stone bowl before grinding it into the mixture. The torch briefly illuminates his face.
“Hey, I know you… You're the fool madman who was crucified with us in my dream. The one who claimed to be a king.”
He doesn’t answer, but walks to a nearby cell where another lays in the dirt, beaten and bloodied. I hadn’t even noticed him. He was the third man from my dream, the other thief. The physician opens the iron door and kneels next to him, tenderly cleaning his wounds with the salve.
“My Lord…” the thief whispers weakly. “You came for me…”
“Lord? You believe this fool is actually a king?” I scoff derisively. “I care not a frog’s ass if he be Caesar or even Zeus himself, I shan’t bow to him or anyone else.”
The physician didn't respond, but gently scooped up the thief with an impossible ease and carried him out of the cell.
“Hey, let me out!” I shout angrily.
Putting the man down, he pulls back his hood, revealing himself. The full weight of his authority returns like a tidal wave. He is brighter than light itself, a light which passes through me, unveiling my own wretchedness even to me. Though he radiates peace, his very presence encompasses the ferocity of the most terrifying storm.
“Leave me!” I beg as I fall, terrified and unable to bear the weight of this apparent demigod’s nature.
His eyes meet mine. I know without knowing that nothing is hidden from him, that he knows me better than I know myself. As he watches me, he weeps. Crystalline tears run down his face, a face that shines like burnished bronze. He doesn’t speak, though a voice floods my mind.
I would have saved you had you only let Me.
“I want nothing from you!” I scream, unable to bear another moment of this supernatural presence. “Leave me! Please!”
As you wish, came the voice sadly.
What seems like an eternity passes as they depart. Darkness wraps around me once again. "Thank the gods," I gasp. My hair stands on end when I hear the croaking laugh of the jailor again.
“The gods?” giggled the monster as he clicked his talons along the bars. “He was the only God who could have saved you!”
This has to be a dream...