My Writing Blog

"I could put a bullet behind that little ear of yours, Mick."

A pause as he looks from Mickey to Connor.

"Shall I, Connor? Shall I carve a pretty little nine millimetre tunnel through his brain?"

Whumper circles Mickey and taps him on the forehead with his index finger. "Exit wound'd be somewhere round about *here* I think."

He raps again. Hard. Mickey flinches and hates himself for it.

Whumper moves in an instant, the barrel pressed against Mickey's head again harder than ever.

The hand on his shoulder pats gently. Runs across the side of his neck, slides into his curls. Lux shivers.

“Baby, baby! That’s the whole point!” As if giving him a luxurious treatment at a hair salon, those hands scrape across his scalp and tug on his hair, twisting it and tugging it with apparent affection. It sends Lux’s shoulders scrunching forward, his back hunching defensively. “You should be scared. We’re going to crack you right open. It’s gonna hurt! It’s gonna mess you up!”

The red lights were the only thing illuminating the lab, the villain’s footsteps the only sound echoing down the hall. Their strides were even, measured. They moved deliberately at a slow pace, dragging out the chase and building so much tension in the hero’s chest that they felt they might explode.

“Oh Herooooo, where are youuuu~?” The villain sung.

Hero pulled their knees impossibly closer, hoping to melt into the shadow or sink into the floor, whichever got them out of here faster.

“Little mouse always gets caught by the big bad cat eventually,” they taunted, projecting their voice into the doorway of the room Hero was hiding in.

The hero’s breathes were shallow, their heart beat uncontrolled. They swore they could feel the walls of the desk they were under start to compress, squeezing the air from their lungs.

A single foot placed itself down, the tap of it distinctly too close.

“Yeah, no. I can’t do this anymore.”

Hero unfolded themselves from their hiding spot, standing tall to face the villain closing in.

Villain’s gleeful smile faltered.

“Giving up so easily?”

Their disappointment was easily concealed, but the hero saw right through them. They may have been terrified, but they also knew their opponent well.

“You were going to find me eventually. Why should I prolong my suffering?”

There was not a doubt in Hero’s mind that Villain had known exactly where they were right from the beginning. All they did by revealing themselves was put an end to their game, and curbed the sick satisfaction they derived from it.

“You think this is suffering?”

The villains’s smile returned, the edge of it quirking up.

Hero recognized what the villain was getting at. They knew all kinds of torture and torment awaited them once they were finally firmly within the villain’s clutches. The hero also knew full and well that the dread of anticipation could far surpass the pain of completion. The hero followed a popular philosophy that could be expressed many ways:

Rip off the bandaid, plunge the needle in, get it over with.

Waiting—stalling was half the problem. As far as they were concerned, they had just cut their troubles in half.

Hero shrugged disarmingly.

“I think this is over.”

They walked slowly towards the certainty of the end, no longer scared of the sounds their rubber soles were making against the flooring. Their head was held high, their breathing more even than it had been in a considerable amount of time. The villain watched them, their surprise and disappointment boiling dangerously beneath the surface.

In a way, the hero had won, simply by losing.

But they weren’t naive enough to think they wouldn’t pay.

What happens if they are captured? Do they desperately explain that the standard protocol isn’t going to work, and promise to obey without it? Are they sedated? Restrained more tightly in other ways? More importantly, are they even believed?

Only when whumper and whumpee are alone does whumpee show anger, show desperation and fear, reveal everything they hate about themselves because that is the side of them whumper wants to see, and whumper will hurt them until they get what they want.

Just. A fun thought idea.