Edward Locke

A crack resounds and it awakens me from my thoughts.
There should be pain as the cold air scratches against my torn flesh, blood dripping down my thigh; wounded by the lashing of a whip. There should be agony, and perhaps there once was, but I no longer scream. The whip has marked my flesh countless times, and the pain is an old friend, one whose messages are marked in my skin across countless scars from poorly healed wounds.
The whip snakes backwards and then strikes forward against me again. The soft of my breath drawn sharply through my teeth as my autonomously body jerks away from the pain my mind no longer registers. Just like the shapes and sounds it no longer registers.
The man who strikes me is like me. The blood that runs through our veins is the same. The apparent crime of my birth that he so despises should be the same crime he has for leading to my birth. Yet this is my failure. This is my fault. Somehow, I am the one to blame.
“Our name used to mean something!” he declares, as if it has some special meaning to me.
“Our name used to have legacy! We were powerful!” His fatty chin jiggles, as if the irony of his own corpulance warbled out its engorged cry with another crack of the whip cutting into my skin. The sensation of blood dripping down my arm somehow both warm and cold.
“You weak! Pathetic! Worthless piece of shit!” he cries out, as if my physical reaction to the whipping was insufficient, that he would resort to whipping me verbally.
But I have to ask myself if I care. If this has any meaning any more. I can’t remember anything I was supposed to care about. Trapped in this prison occupied by the jailer and his family. Focusing on the shapes, they swim into focus, and I see the man once more. Glancing away, I look towards the knife on the table.
Dislocating my wrists, I pull them out of the restraints, sunken and starved, it leaves me limber enough that I reach out. Wrap my hand around the knife and lunge forward. Plunging it into his corpulent throat and pushing through his windpipe. Breaking a startled scream into a bloody gurgle as he stumbles backwards and his blood streams and stains his clothing.
My lips curl upwards, finally I’m free and A crack resounds and awakens me from my thoughts.
The force throws my head backwards, my eye twitching from the signals my body sends in response to the sudden trauma, blood trickling down and coating it. I can see him with the other one though. His expression looks terrified, as if he’d seen a ghost or something horrible. Perhaps he’d seen my smile in the way I reveled his death?
“Demon brat!” his voice harshly exhales in a snarl. “You dare look at me like that, are you tired of living?!”
Am I tired of living? The grin returns. The cold blood feeling like it was now bubbling inside of me, rising up as my dry lips cracked and bled under their spreading. My teeth, red from the blood that leaked from my gums. My hoarse voice replying a heartfelt and passionate “Yes.”
A shiver ran up my spine. I felt so alive. So desperate to die, so desperate for an end, that the joy of sensations burbled up in my chest. A strange sensation, like a warmth I had never known. A sound escaping my lips as I began to laugh. Softly at first, until my whole body was wracked with it. Giggling. No matter how hard he hit me, I couldn’t stop. My wrists and ankles bleeding from the convulsions as the laughter grew and I could hardly breathe.
The tears stream down my face and mix with the blood, slowly the laughter stops, and I look at the man. My “father”, and ask him “Don’t you think it’s funny too? Why else would you be here?”
His face pales. He doesn’t like questions. He doesn’t like it when I speak. The whip speaks as a staccato consonant upon the four words he speaks: “Don’t! You! Talk! Back!” I feel something snap alongside with the whip and go limp.
It’s not as funny anymore.
So I go silent and he hesitates. Afraid of what he might see if he stayed any longer. Putting the whip back down on the “play table” and washing his hands in the bowl. Leaving the room as he does. Opening the door for a moment, I hear someone cry out “Daddy!” in excitement before it thuds shut behind him.
The Warden and his family leave me alone, and the silence is all that waits for me. I close my eyes. Waiting for time to pass, willing my end to come, having felt like I had long since paid all debts on any crime I had committed.

A crack resounds and awakens me from my thoughts
The restraint on one of my arms snap and I fall forward from the cross. A sudden sensation jabbing from my shoulders as they cry out from the shifting pressure, clenching and unclenching my hand. I pull myself back up and grab at the other restraint. Fumbling and unclasping it, then releasing my legs. Finally undone, and released I collapse against the ground and tremble, the stimulation of my blood suddenly freely flowing restricted it’s passage to my head.
After what feels like ages, the trembling slows and I push myself to my feet. It had been morning when my daily “lessons” had begun, but now the doorframe was completely dark. Had he forgotten to release me?
Had he… forgotten to lock the door? Stumbling forward, my hands scrabble blindly for the door I knew was there but could not see. Turning the handle I hear a click and… it gives way, opening as I push my weight against it and nearly fall again.
The door was open?! I could leave! Or could I? Everything was completely dark except, no. My eyes were still caked with blood, so I started to press my fingers against them. Rubbing and pressuring it until the caked blood broke and my eyes opened, rubbing away the residue and adjusting to the darkness.
The hallway looms around me. Finally, a world outside the words of the books I had known, and I feel no bigger than an ant. Taking small steps, a strange smell enchanting me. Something fresh, unlike the sweat, the shit, and the blood I had known. Something fresh and mysterious. Something enchantingly unique. I found myself walking towards freedom.
In the mansion where everyone sleeps, I alone was awake and walking forwards. A large hall, much bigger than my room, and a door, much larger than the one I always knew and more beautiful. Carved wood with shapes far more impressive than the letters I had ever known.
I could feel it through the door, an entire world I never knew. Taking in the air, my lungs expanded and then sharply exhaled, the pressure of body causing a sudden piercing sensation that forced me to lose the very breathe I had greedily taken. One leg then the other giving out as I slumped against the door. Resting on my knees and leaning backwards to control my breathe to prevent that sensation from awakening once more.
Feeling something familiar, my eyes were drawn upwards above the door, as a name vaguely swam into existence. “Locke”
“Locke” I murmured to myself. This name. “Locke” Such a small name. Such a small sound. Carried with me. Used to punish me “Locke”.
Locked. Was the outside world to me. I could never go there. I could never be free. I was locked in chains and I knew this. So long as I lived, and I was tired of living. I could feel the rare sensation of pain awakening, not from any injury but my eyes burned.
An unfamiliar liquid dripped down my face. They were called “tears” but they felt as strange to me, as I felt estranged to the rest of my body. Though the sensation served to bring me life. Standing up once more. The world felt like it had been completely changed. By outstretching our hand, we touched the door and imagined a “lock” barring the door.
Our imagination made the lock, and the door was barred. A wooden plank placed across it and now blocking the Entrance.
We? We made this? Brushing our hand against it, We could feel the false illusion that I had made. Then suddenly my hand paused, as something echoed in our ear. Like the sounds of something just out of reach, but tantalizing enough to reach out for. Our fingertips scaping over something now.
Metal and glass - the lamp lit by the servants to keep watch over the door, accessible, never likely to burn nor catch fire. Low enough to keep ne’erdowells at bay. But the melody that haunted our ears wasn’t here. No. This was a part of it, but not the primary piece. Turning away, we began to walk down the halls again.
Opening the door, we balked for a moment after finding people scattered inside, worried that our escapade may yet be discovered. Though a closer examination found that alcohol was on their breath as they snored in their inebriated slumbers.
The books… Alcohol, Fabric, Cloth and oil. These were the ingredients which gave fire the fuel with which to burn. He could hear the music behind the doors, growing and building with every sheet he grabbed, or bottle he dispersed in the halls. The glug of the liquid cascading unto the ground sounding so enchanting we found ourselves enthralled, organizing the furniture, as from as soft as silence, We could hear the sound arise, and when it all passed. Once again we found ourselves by the entrance.
The servant’s lamp still lit even now; its glass shade meant to protect it, something he pulled off to expose the bare flame to the air, and let the hungry beast it contained lap up against the oil soaked sheets he had gathered. Where tongues of flame greedily ran up the fabric. Jumping from fabric to rug. From rug to wood, sped along by trails of oil spread generously around.
Faster it roamed, louder it became, as the oil that was evaporated by the flame became a heavy smoke filling the air, filling the nostrils, and our heart with joy. And he swayed along to the sound, his fingers dancing as he orchestrated the flames. Beckoning them along like pets. Until the room was bright with fire, and heavy with smog. Opening the door, he welcomed the intruder further into the house.
The melody of the flames and their dance, so beautiful and charming that he had to invite his new friend to explore the entirety of my prison. From the cellar, to the rooms we had never seen before, new sounds joining in - the shatter of glass, and the panicked cries from those who awoke to it.
These new instruments joined in and transformed his imagined song into reality. A perfect performance with pure emotion. They would now sing, as we once had. Their voices crying out in the same pain we had experienced. If we had been hung like a painting, then now, he delivered the rightful justice of experience, and taught them the same sensation.
Their panic grew, realizing the severity of the situation as the entire mansion was aflame, and the exits barred from escape. So beautiful, almost tragic. Their lives connected by the threads that now all served to burn them together.
We could hardly breathe for our lungs had long filled with smoke. Our skin felt like paper, cracking at the heat. But that didn’t matter, for this was finally the end. A finale. Everything was going to finally end.
“Daddy?!”

A crack resounds and awakens me from my thoughts
A disorganized crash of sensations overwhelms me. Like all of reality suddenly spilled forth from a broken dam. ‘Who was that?’ ‘What just happened?’ where thoughts that slipped by, scrabbling for purchase, but lose grip amidst the sensations that now tortured my body.
The air was crushed from my lungs, and I could breathe, I could feel the floor underneath me, but feel the heat next to me. All around me. Something heavy pressing up against my back and crushing my arm and leg, but trapping me too as I could feel the flames encroach closer.
Even inured to pain as I had been, it was still human to feel pain, and as the flames began to devour my arm and leg, I began to scream in agony. Every breath inhaled, forcibly released as a growl in an attempt to fight back. To resist. The same resistance was futile though as the smell of cooking flesh filled my nostrils, and I could feel the heat pressing up in my eye.
Crying out, I attempted to push my back against the beam, exerting all of my effort in one last ditch attempt, until the exertion filled my lungs with smoke once more and I felt my consciousness wane. Some sounds in the distance alerting me to perhaps someone else being present. Though such thoughts slowly swam away from consciousness.

A crack resounds and I awaken from my thoughts or perhaps I was already awake? The popping of firewood being used to boil water nearby. My eyelids burnt shut against my sockets, A softspoken and learned voice speaks from nearby.
“Still unconscious. Multiple fractures on his right side, Right leg shattered, rib cage crushed, right arm multiple fractures. And that’s the good news. His left leg and arm are nothing more than charcoal, his eye has been boiled out of his socket. Even if he wakes up again, he’d be nothing more than a cripple without family to care for him. It would take years before he could even manage basic tasks.”
“Perhaps he would rather die?” a grizzled voice respond
‘Would I rather die?’
“I have sworn an oath to never harm a patient. I would never end a patient’s life.” the softspoken voice replies with an audible shake of their head.
“Then are you asking me to snap his neck for you?” the grizzled man said, with a shift moving closer to me.
‘Why was I alive?’
“I would never do such a thing! Not while the patient could be saved. It’s just that. Even if I save him, I’m not sure he’d make it. There’s a limit to the healing my magic can do.” The softspoken man’s confidence trails off into hesitation.
Though, as if he hadn’t been assured, the man’s fingers curl around my neck; “Don’t worry, I’ll spare you from making the decision and the worries.” his voice says coming from far too close. As they start to tense up. Preparing. A single jerk and I’ll be dead. It’d be the end. We’d be dead. We’d be free…
“NO!” two voices cry out in unison. The doctor’s voice and my own. One loud and panicked, the other hoarse, but resilient chocked out like a cough of fumes.
“Hunh. Looks like he really doesn’t want to bite the bullet now, does he?” The grizzled man releases our neck. I feel my breathing ease slightly. Relaxing as I feel my consciousness slowly lose grasp again and fade into the darkness.
“I guess not.” the doctor murmurs softly, moving forward to check on us. Leaning in to allow for a softer voice to be used “Are you sure? You’d have to start from nothing.”
My tenuous hold remains just long enough to hear my voice force itself from my lungs as he speaks “Absolutely.”