Outside the city, there is a hole in the ground.
He scrabbles at the edge of the cliff, grasping for anything that might take his weight. Despite his clawing, he finds no purchase. A sharp cry bursts from his lips as a boot finds his outstretched fingers. The foot collides with his jaw, his tongue caught between his teeth and he finds himself spitting blood as his slide turns from slow to inevitable. He gazes upwards one last time, hoping to fix the sun's rays in his mind, hoping to catch a single downwards glance from his executioner. There is none to see. The soldier, silhouetted by the sun, is dark masked and grim. And then he flips over, his head smashing against a rock and the light all fading to black as he descends.
The stones crunch under the executioners boot as they turn away. There were more to come. There were always more to come.
The hole is so vast that one cannot see the other side with naked eyes.
He comes to slowly, coughing. His mouth tastes like blood and vomit and dust. There is something soft and sticky beneath him, halfway between a liquid and a solid. It is dark, too dark to see but for the faint flickering firelights in the distance. He can hear movement in the darkness, but not matter how he turns his head, he cannot find the source. It sounds wet. It sounds hungry.
He takes a shuddering single breath and recoils because the rot was in the air itself. It was the smell of decay, of worms and flesh, of wounds long untreated. His stomach seized, trying once again to empty itself. He curled over, heaving. His body wouldn't move right. He couldn't feel his legs. He didn't want to feel his legs. He didn't want to feel anything at all.
There was nothing more he could do but wait in the darkness. Wait and refuse to acknowledge the pile on which he now sat.
The hole is so deep that the shadowed sides steal the light from the sky, leaving an unquenchable darkness so deep that it steals into the very skin, leeching the life and colour from those who crawl the depths.
The light drifts ever closer slowly. It dangles, swaying back and forth hypnotically. Grimy white fingers clutch at the lantern's chain, glowing eyes above them scanning the pile. The figure is twisted and pale, wrapped in rags and brandishing a thick stick. Callously, it pokes at the corpses. Some of them let out little moans. One croaks out a rough "please". Most stay silent. It stirs the bodies, finding the gaps between flesh where stone is exposed.
He shuts his eyes and tries to swallow as the spectre approaches. The light, small though it was, was blinding after untold days of darkness. But closing his eyes only opens his ears to the bizarre mumblings of the creature.
"Too weak," it said. "Too fresh. Too wounded. Too dead. Too bony. Too peaceful." Without breaking stride it slaps the stick downwards, eliciting a blissful moan. "This one already lives for pain." It jabbed the stick at another, which doesn't move. "This one already suffers immensely. This one is broken. This one is fixed. This one lacks pride. This one is too small. This one is too large." A long tongue circled chapped lips. "No, no. None of these. None for me. None for me."
Each slow movement took it ever closer to where he lay. He shuddered slightly. Each shuffling footstep was slightly louder. Louder and louder, each wet scrape echoing through his brain until it was right before his nose. A hot breath caressed his face.
"Now now," said the creature. "Who were you?"
He shuddered a little to feel fingers running down the front of his torn shirt, jabbing into his sides, examining the way his ribs protruded from starving flesh. Despite that, he said nothing.
"Hungry," it said. "You are hungry. Yes. Hungry. You were very big, weren't you? Very proud?"
He gasped a little as it jabbed his legs and pain lanced through him.
"Pained but not damned," it continued. "Legs broken. Cannot walk. Familiar with normal suffering. Too healthy. Stubborn. Yes." Two fingers suddenly pinched his nose shut. "Speak for me," it said. "Tell me what you are."
He swallowed, his tongue swollen. Mustering the pathetic moisture left in his body, he tried to spit. It came out as more of a gasp. The creature wasted no time. It seized on the opening to grab his lips and pull his jaw open. A protruding finger jabbed his tongue. It tasted like dirt and raw meat. He tried to bite down, but he was too weak from his injuries and its grip was like iron.
"Healthy teeth," it said. "Well fed once. No more. Loose tongue. Told many lies. Still defiant. Yes. Perhaps you. Not too much. Not too little. Needs must be met." It leaned in close until he could almost feel its face pressed against his own. "Open your eyes."
He gave the slightest head shake no.
It hissed in a very strange way. He wouldn't realize for a while that it had laughed. "You," it said at last. "You'll do. Come."
Bony fingers gripped his wrist and with a sharp tug, he was dragged away.
It is unknown who dug the hole. Perhaps no one did. Perhaps it has always been there.
The creature's house, if you could call it that, was lit by a dull fire. The walls were smeared with ash, organized into squiggly lines that danced by the flickering light. The room was small, tight, and uncomfortably warm. It stank of smoke which was almost welcome compared to the rot outside. The room was cramped. There were rough shelves, covered with tools. In the shadows, he couldn't tell for sure, but it looked as though they were covered in spikes, blades, and other sharp things.
He lay upon the table. The creature hadn't bothered chaining him down. It didn't need to. He could only move his head slightly to look around the room. He could see now that his legs were bent in ways they shouldn't, bones poking through the skin. It had dislocated his shoulder and rubbed the skin off his back while dragging him. The pain was a constant now, an almost familiar dull throbbing glow.
The creature, which seemed somehow almost human, pottered by the fire. It hummed to itself. It had dropped its rags by the door, leaving its scarred back visible. A thousand years of suffering was carved into the creatures flesh. It was more stitches and scar tissue than skin.
Finally, it approached him and gently pried his lips apart. It raised a spoon to his lips. "Shhh," it whispered. "Drink. You'll need your strength."
Despite himself, he sipped gently at the soup. It was warm and filling and the most pleasure he'd felt in a very long time.
"And so," declared the great leader, "let our enemies be cast into the hole. Let their bodies break upon the bottom! Let us be free forever!"
Oh, how they cheered.
Bones are pressed into place. Needle slips through flesh. The creature's hands work ceaselessly to patch him back together. He couldn't bring himself to watch its work. Instead, he studies the creature. Its face is human. Its teeth are broken, its nose twisted. There's something alien and uncanny about it. It's like staring into a lake for slightly too long, watching way the ripples shake your own face.
It asks, "What was your name?"
"Why?" He manages to mutter between pained gasps.
"Important," it said, "Important to know. Make sure you still know. Names are important."
He growled. "Not telling."
"But you do know?"
He laughed, bitter. "Who forgets their own name?"
"Good." Its arm flashed so fast that he didn't even realize it had moved until he felt the pain flash from his chest, radiating from the knife now protruding from his side. "Can't take what you don't have. Can't break what's already shattered." The creature resumed knitting his legs shut.
In response, he screamed.
Well, the plants eat the dirt and the cows eat the plants and the people eat the cows grown in massive factory farms. And the hole eats the people and the worms break them down and their flesh becomes dirt. But hole never seems to shrink.
"Make you walk," it said. "Make you crawl. Give you hope. Take it again. Patterns and circles." It flicked one of the many knives in his side with a single finger, each vibration sending a matching shiver along his ribs. "Make you hurt. Make sure you hurt."
He screamed in agony. He screamed in desperation. He screamed as it pushed him to his feet, broken bones pinned together by fragments grinding on each other as he stumbled. He screamed as it pushed him onwards, outwards, forever trying to walk somewhere he couldn't. He screamed as it took a hammer to his legs again, leaving him as crippled as the day he first fell.
He screamed and screamed through the tortures, even as the pain became familiar, even friendly. He screamed as he became one with it. He screamed as the way of violence became natural to him. He screamed as his life drifted away. He screamed as even his own name became foreign to his lips. He screamed as the creature explained why.
"It's karma," it would say. It was almost a mantra. "It's natural. It's inevitable. You hurt others so I hurt you."
"But why?" He would plead. "I didn't hurt anyone."
The creature laughed. "Money," it said. "Money makes the world spin. Blood for gold, gold blood. You are as guilty as us all." It raised it red stained hands, painting the walls with his blood. "We punish because violence only respects violence. For the crimes of your people, we hurt you."
He screamed at that.
Even as the oceans rise, as the atmosphere burns, as the land itself shrinks and shrinks, as walking corpse after walking corpse is shovelled over the edge. Even then. The hole only grows.
When he was finished, he repented. A lifetime of distant torture had nothing on what he was now. Where once he had swum through pain, ignoring the ways it infested others, it now occupied his every thought. He smiled as the creature worked its way through his torso and when it offered him the knife, he gleefully did the same back.
"I was no one," he would say. "I was no one and when they came for you I did nothing. I did nothing and I am nothing. I came from pain and I am nothing."
And the creature would nod and agree. "For power cannot be broken without power, but that leaves those of the bloodstained hands. Where your crime was inaction, mine was action."
He would nod too and smile. "But in repenting, we achieve peace."
The creature would offer the knife. "And how do we repent?"
"Through violence," he would say. He would look up. "This is our containment, blessed be," he would say.
The creature took its own knife. "This is our punishment, blessed be," it would say.
"Blessed be," he would agree.
And the blood ran through the streets of that unpleasant town, the tiny hovels they carved in stone full of repentant souls.
"What should we do with the despot?" asked the revolution.
The hole beckoned. It felt karmic.
"What should we do with his collaborators?" asked the revolution.
The hole beckoned. It felt karmic.
"What should we do with those who stood by?" asked the revolution.
The hole beckoned. It felt karmic.
And the revolution turned to own. "What should we do with those whom live the violence we despise, those we no longer need?"
The hole beckoned.
One day, the creature showed him a mirror and he saw that he too was a creature. He screamed, not for regret, but in the hope that if his suffering was sufficient that those up above would chose not to live the violence that he had. That they would choose peace at every turn.
Far above, the last human teetered on the edge of the hole. The witch hunt was over. She too was unworthy. The violence was already in her. It had never been anywhere else.
The screams from the depths of the hole never reached the barren surface. Through silent streets and empty buildings, at long last there was peace.