Bounded Balls: A Narrative Fiction

So much pain, so much blood. Everything was fuzzy, people looked like splotches blocking my vision. The yelling. It’s getting louder. I look for light, but only darkness is here now. There. Under the door. I try my hardest to lift the fallen door, but a shooting pain propels up my leg so I stop. “

With his pleas falling on deaf ears the monster pulled the man to his feet with one hand, still vice gripped around his neck. With complete inhuman strength the creature proceeded to crush the man's neck, bones giving way under the monstrous strength.

“The setting plays an important role in how the narrator discovers the many ways he may die” (2). It is a dungeon full of torturing traps, and the character, as any normal human, feels terror inside his prison and fears his death in any of the cruel ways arranged for him. Still, he has to decide between death and the relief which it brings or life with the interminable agony of being tortured as a lab mouse.

Still looking around through pitch black darkness I hear it again, louder and closer this time. My heart beats a bit faster in a panic of fear and adrenaline, and my eyes dart to the foot of the bed, hoping to see nothing and calm down. But instead, at the foot of the bed I can barely make out

The animal did not make a sound. It went down hard, then got up again, and Rat took careful aim and shot off an ear. He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its back. He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn’t to kill; it was just to hurt. He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away. Nobody said much. The whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn’t a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo. Lemon was dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world. Later in the week he would write a long personal letter to the guy’s sister, who would not write back, but for now it was a question of pain. He shot off the tail. He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs. All around us there was the smell of smoke and filth, and deep greenery, and the evening was humid and very hot. Rat went to automatic. He shot randomly, almost casually, quick little spurts in the belly and butt. Then he reloaded, squatted down, and shot it in the left front knee. Again the animal fell hard and tried to get up, but this time it couldn’t quite make it. It wobbled and went down sideways. Rat shot it in the nose. He bent forward and whispered something, as if talking to a pet, then he shot it in the throat. All the while the baby buffalo was silent, or almost silent, just a light bubbling sound where the nose had been. It lay very still.

Suddenly the boy stopped again, I was a second too late stopping this time. Prayin' to the heavens above he didn't hear me, I heard somethin’ myself. They sounded like footsteps. Lighter than my own, but too heavy to belong to any child. Knowin’ I was losin’ time I lunged at the little girl with my knife held high. Then, a shadow of a man tackled me off. Caught off guard I didn't know what to do. I threw the shadow off me. Then I saw the boy helpin’ his sister up. Not wanting to lose my chance for good, I attacked the boy. We scrambled for a bit, but he was no match for me. My ears were met with the satisfying sound of that boy's screamin' over his arm. I must have done a number on ‘im to get that kind of noise. Then, the girl crashed into me. Taking my chance, I tried stranglin’ the life outta her. The shadow man yanked me off

I lift my head from my ball-like figure and scan the kitchen for something. When my eyes land on it, terror fills every inch of my body. But I reach for it anyway with tears streaming violently down my face. The tip of the knife is sharp, seeing as I just sharpened the blade a couple days ago. I guess I knew that it might come to this.

I shiver at the sound, there is only one person in the room who would cause me any harm, the scout was up. It was impressive he could move after being tossed around like a rag doll, greater so he had the strength to lay his hands on me. Unluckily for him I knew where all his wounds were. As his grip tightens I swing my arm to where his upper abdomen would be. He grunt of pain tells me I found it. His grip loosens and I push him away from me. The man doesn’t stumble very far, but the look on his face told me he wasn’t used to being beaten. Assessing my threat level, he charges. I have hardly any time to block his swing and milliseconds before it happens, I know he isn’t going for my face. There is a crack from my leg and pain shoots from my ankle. I scream in agony. The scout pins me down, I should have left him in the woods after

I awoke to a cacophony of screams, both of excitement and of pain. I jolted up quickly, unable to control my own muscles or vocal chords, as if a spectre was holding me back with airy fingers of death.

I woke up in a cold sweat, screaming and struggling to move my restrained arms. The night guards ripped open the heavy steel door to see what was wrong. The creature was standing in the corner looking right at me. I was pulling my arms against the leather restrains trying to point the naive guards to the cause of my appalling state. The

Slowly, I awoke to see looming trees all around me, bending over me, watching. Listening. They heard the screams, they heard my screams, I was still screaming. I clamped a trembling hand down over my mouth to only realize it was closed, my lips rolled in. And then thick as velvet. The blood pooled.

He produced numerous, knives, tongs, and saws from the cabinets to his left and right. Many of his instruments were doused in fresh crimson fluids and had heavy signs of use. He removed my clothes, folding them into a nice neat pile, placing them on a countertop to his right. I felt the first incision, a fine line being carved vertically across my chest, peeling back the skin. Next he used a fine-tooth saw to cut through my sternum. It wasn’t until he cracked my ribs open, that the futility of the situation took effect. The pain was excruciating, I began to scream and thrash around on the bench, kicking his instruments of torture. “Shhh, shhh, shh,” he said, placing a dirty wet rag over my mouth. My vision blurred, as I watching my exposed heart beat, blood pulsating from my chest, over my bare skin, down onto the stone floor. I slipped into a warm

I woke up, like a corpse rises from the grave, my bloodshot eyes flooded with tears. The cool air lulled my throat, dissipating the faint memory of a raging fire and loathsome vultures

Dream felt his intuition driving him to swing onto another branch. Right next to the main stem, for he did so at the last moment. The knife scored a hit on what would have been Dream's left lung if not for his superior luck. Once Dream examined the needle-like blade, he knew only one person that could have thrown it with that deadly accuracy. He immediately cowered in fear at the thought of confronting this

I stared in horror – that wall was stained with gruesome blood stains. What the smell was became all too obvious and I felt the need to vomit… that motion put away and forgotten in an instant when the shuffling of feet rustled behind me. Panic. I turned around in a blur, my eyes huge and watering. My stomach stirred in the slightest. A lamp? Indeed, a tall standing lamp radiated a warm light only a few metres in front of me. Was it real or a figment of my abused mind? Curiosity would get the best of me, lending me a tiny spurt of energy to boost me on my feet. Teetering footsteps led me forward cautiously, random tremors reminding me of my weakness. The lamp was close enough to touch, its friendly warmth the only hope in the world to me. Basking in it for some slow seconds, I wondered, maybe there were more things in the room that hadn’t been revealed to the naked eye? Turning sharp on my heel, I let out a blood curdling screech as I came face to face with the most horrific thing I had ever seen. Huge fly-like eyes took in my paling complexion, and a lopsided smile of stinking razor sharp teeth mocked me. Rancid skin that looked like the algae layer that sat upon a swamp bubbled and oozed, trickling down a sharply shaped ‘face’. Flight or fight reaction chose the obvious option and I turned back again to run. Where, I did not