Vignette - Sawyer, Juliet, Ben
This has been hanging around in my "Incomplete" file since July of 2006 - I think it used to want to become more, now it just wants to run free. 150 words, including the title, which isn't much of one.
Vignette
She watched him writhe on the packed dirt floor, curling in on himself, twitching uncontrollably. Whimpers had replaced screams several minutes earlier, as though his body could deal with one thing or the other, withstanding the pain or vocalizing it, but could no longer manage to do both. Blood pooled in his mouth, blended with saliva and trailed out in a thin stream, staining the ground beneath his battered head; he had bitten through his tongue with the first “adjustment” and it continued to bleed unchecked.
“You won’t break him like this,” she said. “He’ll die before be gives you what you want.”
“He’ll break, just like the others did." Ben's voice was serene, his face unreadable. "They all break sooner or later, don’t they, Jules?”
Anger flashed through her eyes and was gone in an instant, but he saw. Ben always saw. And he never forgot.
#
Vignette
She watched him writhe on the packed dirt floor, curling in on himself, twitching uncontrollably. Whimpers had replaced screams several minutes earlier, as though his body could deal with one thing or the other, withstanding the pain or vocalizing it, but could no longer manage to do both. Blood pooled in his mouth, blended with saliva and trailed out in a thin stream, staining the ground beneath his battered head; he had bitten through his tongue with the first “adjustment” and it continued to bleed unchecked.
“You won’t break him like this,” she said. “He’ll die before be gives you what you want.”
“He’ll break, just like the others did." Ben's voice was serene, his face unreadable. "They all break sooner or later, don’t they, Jules?”
Anger flashed through her eyes and was gone in an instant, but he saw. Ben always saw. And he never forgot.
#