Carnifex

11/8/469 AC, The Base, Kashmir Tribal Trust Territories

He was alone now, the pain almost entirely gone. With the pain had gone his strength, of course. Sergeant Sevilla was barely able to stand to change the angle of his arms to allow himself to breath.

The signifer had passed first, two days prior. Sevilla didn't know why. Perhaps it was the injuries he'd taken when captured. He forgave the boy his idiocies. What good could holding on to anger and hate do now?

The other three had all gone silent yesterday; their bodies hanging dark, cold and unmoving. Even the children seemed to have lost interest in them. There was little diversion, after all, in tormenting a corpse.

And I'm near enough to a corpse, Sevilla thought hazily. Not much fun left in me for them, either. Almost, he laughed at the thought.

He wondered sometimes if he wasn't already dead and had just gone to Hell. He saw things, things he knew weren't there. His mother came to him in those visions, weeping for her boy. He whispered to the vision, "Don't cry, Mama, it will all be over soon and I can join you." The visions didn't last. The feel of the rough wood on his back, the evening cold biting his exposed skin, the soreness where the nails had penetrated his flesh, spilling his blood and splitting his bone . . . all these told him he was still alive.

Unfortunately.

Tomorrow, I'll die, Sevilla thought, with utter certainty. Under the circumstances, he looked forward to it.