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It’s pure unfiltered agony that lances from his back down his legs, his arms, up his neck into his head to make his vision white-out. It’s burning and sizzling and nothing that should happen to the human body. It’s tight, inflamed heat that wings out over his upper back, onto his shoulders. It’s hot, no, it’s cold, no, hot, the sweat against his brow, his arms, his lips.
Something against the burning skin of his wrists, and touch means burning, means more heat and tight-pain. But rough-rope is gone from his wrists now, and the touch is cool, smooth, not rough and heavy. There are voices over him now, but voices mean pain, even more so if he listens. Instead, he works to tense his muscles in preparation of more pain. The pain from his back flares up in response, but he has since cried all the tears his dehydrated body can muster.
The rest of the ropes are gone, and something scratchy is lowered over his bare form. He lets out a small shriek at the aggravation of his wounded skin, but otherwise stays silent as he is manhandled off of the table he’d been tied to. He keeps his eyes on the stone walls though; never look at them, you can’t look at them, more pain more pain more pain . There’s a voice close to his ear, and sometimes he is supposed to hear and understand those, but his mind is exhausted and all he can parse are the words ‘far from here’ but what other place exists but here?
Will the ‘other place’ be more pain or less or the same? Please let the rules, at least, be the same, he isn’t sure if he could learn new rules, much less unlearn the old ones. A grunt of air is pushed out of him when he is slung over a shoulder, the scratchy fabric against his back still sticking at the pain-burning-tightening thing on his back. It’s too real, everything is too real. The light outside the room is too bright, no dancing fire-shadows for his eyes to rest in. Vibrant green and yellow arrest his sight when he opens his eyes to see the ground, but he closes them again. Let them rest. Let any part of him that can, rest.
The person who had slung him over their shoulder placed him in a cart, oddly gentle. He opens his eyes briefly enough to see curly hair and a freckled face and a blue coat. Blue? All of his tormentors had worn red.
The face, the coat, it pulled at something, but it made his head hurt so he closed his eyes. More voices, less heavy in the open air, more space for the sound to spread out. The cart moved beneath him, wheels rattling. He wondered if he could sleep. He decided he could.