The burns weren’t the worst part—far from it. It was the Voices that came after that did him in.
Wrapped and covered, he routinely ceased being human, eclipsed by the pure, animalistic pain that howled through his veins until the morphine drip kicked in and dragged him down to where the Voices lived.
I can’t believe he’s still alive, the first Voice said, crackling its way across the dark void. He was so glad for surcease of pain—of all sensation, really—that the first Voice didn’t trouble him.
Neither did the second Voice, more intense, rusty rather than melodic. It took me five hours to die, it spoke. He stirred among the silken, black bottom of a dream. What harm could the Voices do, really? They weren’t real, anyway. Had he been awake—untouched by the fire, ambulatory, possessed of his wild courage—he would have trampled the Voices into the the dirt after he had he took his time with them, cut them, carassed their bloody forms.
The third Voice emerged, rumbling: He deserves this.
He deserves more, said the first Voice. He almost recognized it as belonging to her, the first one he sank his teeth into.
The drug waned and he slipped upward toward the light. The Voices faded into steady machine-beeps. A wisp of air touched his scorched skin. He opened his one functioning eye, the ruined cavern of his mouth, and screamed.
“So that’s him?” a nurse murmured to another. “The one they said butchered the Evans girl?
“Yeah. Her dad did this to him. Hope I catch that jury call so I can shake his hand.”
“Wow.”
I’m off in ten. Wanna catch a drink?”
“Yeah.”
And so they shut the door, ignoring the morphine drip and his muffled cries. The next shift nurse didn’t come for two more hours.
Ah, said all three Voices. Let’s play.
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