Another edit...

Ach. I slogged through another edit of torn yesterday. It pretty cam down to finding typos and deciding what needed rewording. Now it has been handed off to my mother, so that she can give me her opinion. Then I plug the changes into my 'puter and send it off.

This is always the part that makes me nervous. I mean it's not as if I haven't been published in some form before. But somehow short stories for the student newspaper are easier to accept than a full length book.

Maybe it will get easier. Maybe the nerves eventually settle down. I just hope that is liked. It's weird, but there is this fear that people will hate my work. Of course I always have that fear, but have never recieved negative feedback. Somehow, having never been flamed makes it even harder. I guess that it will eventually catch up with me and instead of understandable negativity, I will recieve a pounding.

Anyway, chapter 52.

Torn
52

There is a point where pain is so intense that the mind blocks it. Usually it forces the body to sleep, but when sleep is not an option it moves the consciousness somewhere else.

That was the stage the elf was at. He heard his screams, but as if from a distance. He watched as Jack made slice after slice in his body, feeling on one level but not on another.

The slicing was easier to deal with, what was really hard to bear was how Jack was making pockets in his skin. The pain was one thing, but pockets only meant that something else was to happen later. Something was obviously going to occupy those pockets. The elf really didn’t want to know what that something would be.

Jack finished slicing an area, and picked up a bloodied towel. He roughly wiped the area so that he could see his work area.

The elf’s body stiffened involuntarily. It knew that the wound was to be reinvaded and expanded.

Jack looked up and smiled at the response.

He turned again to focus on his work. He chose one of the cuts and angled the blade so that it cut just the first few layers of skin. He moved it so that the pocket was about an inch deep, two wide and semi-circular.

The elf forced his mind not to focus on what was happening.

He tried to remember a happier time, one with his family and friends. Enjoying life for all that it had to offer.

Jack looked up and saw the blank gaze in the elf’s eyes. He slapped the face, the only place on the front that he didn’t want to mar. He wasn’t going to repeat the procedure on the elf’s back. What was the purpose when the visual was all of the fun, it would only be a waste of time.

The slap was an unexpected pain. It brought the elf back to the present.

He wished that he could kick at Jack. He wished that he could move at all. He had realized some time ago that Jack’s statement about squirming was half in jest. At some point Jack had slipped him an immobilization potion. It was only minutes after the cutting had started that the elf had stopped moving beyond bare minimum muscle movements. He hadn’t noticed until much later, however, when he was totally free of bonds and Jack had left for a minute and he still couldn’t move.

He couldn’t even spit on his captor, no matter how much he wanted to.

Jack was humming to himself as he made the pockets in the elf’s skin.

The bloodied towel made a reappearance.

Jack looked up and grinned.

Roughly cleaning the area again Jack could see the loose skin.

He pulled out a small bag of salt and held it between his knees.

With one hand he pulled one pocket open, and with the other he sprinkled a little salt into the wound.

The elf’s screams intensified.

Jack’s smile widened.