Torture

Uneventful day. Wish something would happen. Distract from thoughts... Distract from body count.

Believe I was describing the next atrocity Morningstar inflicted on that family. The Mother was next on the chopping block. On the table, she was staring at her daughter and trying to speak through her gag. Morningstar leaned down and put his head beside hers, staring at the daughter as well. His smile was smaller than usual. Can't help but wonder why.

"Yes. Take a good long look Mrs. Revis. Soak it all in. Burn that image into your mind. It will be the last time you ever see your daughter."

He looked at me and smiled wider once again.

"Dr. Marsh, let me show you a surgery I learned from one of my best teachers."

He... Held her eyes open and inserted a small, dull piece of metal between the eye and the socket.

"Look at your daughter. Look at her. Look hard. Look her straight in the eyes. It will be the last time... Heheh."

He slowly... Pulled the eyeball out, still attached... He cut the retna. Then did the same to the other eye.... He moved her head to face her daughter. I couldn't look at her.

"Cruel world we live in, eh kiddo? Look. Look what they did to Mommy. Look Look Look. Why... She almost looks like..."

He took out a sewing needle and some sort of thread. When it was over he had sewn the woman's lips shut. Don't ask me for more details. Ungagged her screaming was.... How many time she told her daughter she loves her. I suppose at least... At least she got to before the end. The father didn't even get a chance. I am sick and tired of writing this... I don't want to remember this... Recount this. That sick son of a bitch.

"Hey kiddo. Take a nice long look at this face. This is what killed your big brother. I wonder, did you hear the screams when he was taken?"

At this point I noticed Morningstar's face gradually losing it's manic expression. He looked... Bored would be one way to describe it. He kept that expression for a time before seeming to get dizzy. He was holding his head with one hand while he pulled out a knife and began stabbing the woman around a dozen times in various places. He barely seemed to notice what he was doing.

When he... Finished... He slowly walked away and waved over a proxy. By the look of him, an Elvis Impersonator or something equally ridiculous like that. He had a syringe with him filled with a clear fluid, which he injected into Morningstar's arm.

He proceeded to sit down for a few minutes, looking increasingly glum. Once he finally got up and walked back to the table, he looked at the corpse of the woman.

"Oh Goddammit. Must have got carried away."

He pushed the body into the floor and walked over to the little girl, grabbing her chair and pulling her away out of sight. When he came back, he had an empty chair with him. He sat down in the chair backwards, arms draped over the back. Staring at me.

"So."

I simply stared at him. He stared back before making an expression that I read to mean "Go ahead." I said nothing.

"You asleep or something? Helloooooo."

He began knocking on my head. I replied with an impotent snarl. I would have liked to reply by tearing his arms off.

"YOU ARE AWAKE! Good, good. We have things to talk about Doctor Marsh. Post-Surgery... Thing... Debriefing? What is it they call it.... I do not know. ANYWAY, so what did you think of my surgery skills? Do not be nice, just give me the truth. I can take any criticisms."

I told him what I thought of him. He kicked my chair over and began ranting incoherently at me about... God knows. I was sick of his voice and not paying much attention. When he stopped, he set my chair upright again.

"So. Next topic. I had mine, you can have yours. Shoot. I am an open book. Gotta be a good host to my esteemed guests."

I asked him why he does not just kill us and get it over with. I figured he was going to torture us to death too... So his response was surprising.

"Believe me I would LOVE to... But you see... I cannot. OK, my turn. A related topic... Why? Why am I not allowed to kill you? Can you tell me? I would really appreciate knowing. It has just been BOGGLING MY MIND all day. I think about disemboweling you, I get this really SICK feeling in my stomach. I think about sawing off your useless limbs, I go numb in my own. I think about just SHOOTING you in your empty fucking head, and I get a MIGRAINE. So tell me. And be honest. What makes you two so goddamn SPECIAL that I cannot END YOUR MISERABLE GODDAMN LIVES LIKE YOU DESERVE?!?"

I did not have an answer. It was a shock to me as well. It does not want to kill me? Or maybe It does not want a proxy to kill me. But why? Am I part of some bigger plot? Do I have some use for that abomination? Suicide has never looked more tempting, just to spite that wretched thing... But back to the day's events... I could not answer Morningstar. He noticed.

"Great. Even you do not know. Peachy. Means I have to babysit you for a while longer."

With that, he walked off...

He didn't speak to me again for two days. We were untied occasionally to eat and drink... Under constant watch and with a gun trained on us by multiple proxies. But for the most part we were simply left alone for the next two days. Roland did not say a word, except crying from time to time. I think I did too. I still am. Maybe not for me, but for that little girl...

I still don't know what happened to her. I never saw her again after Morningstar took her away... It is... Remarkable in many ways. You hear on the news about acts of unspeakable violence against people, you find yourself thinking "That's really bad." But your mind just... Does not comprehend exactly what unspeakable violence is. You imagine the scenes in your head, but your wildest imagination does not do the reality justice. The horror of it is... Beyond words. That people like Morningstar can exist in this world, that they can perform these atrocities without a shred of remorse... Without even remembering the faces of all the victims. The people. The living breathing human beings he killed... I always thought that humans, while flawed, and selfish and prone to extreme error were fundamentally good. But Morningstar... This... What he did... I don't know if I can still believe that.

We were knocked unconscious two days later. Then we woke up in that shack.

Now I just want to forget this. I want to sleep it off, I want to... Maybe see if drinking it off helps... But I doubt it. My dreams will be filled with that family's screams. The look the little girl was wearing on her face as Morningstar dragged her away... It's shadow engulfing us all... That's all Morningstar is. A shadow of It. A puppet of It. A tool. Whatever It has in store for us... I will do everything in my power to ensure it fails. But I need to find out what it is first. I cannot die before that happens. I cannot.