Page 178 of Once Upon a Fable

I ran.

I was weak.

I dropped my bag and bolted back into Fables with its bleached carpets, disinfected air, and spotless bedrooms hiding all signs of a massacre.

“Get him!”

A shot rang out as one of the guards fired at me. All concepts of tackling the new guest and killing him like I’d killed Storymaker fled.

I’d lived with demons for too long not to recognize one.

Run!

Gasping, I shoved away the memory, recalling the discipline required to shut the doors and turn the keys, reinforcing the walls between my past and present.

I wasn’t strong enough.

I fell back into nightmares.

The interrogation lasted days.

I lost track of time. I lost too much blood. They broke my bones, my mind, my hope. I lived in a never-ending merry-go-round of questions, abuse, and torment.

The silver lining in being tortured was my sanity finally snapped.

I drifted into a place they couldn’t reach.

“Tell me what happened here!”

“Where is Stuart Page?”

“Where are the guests, the guards, the slaves?”

“Tell me!”

Each question came with pain.

Pain that would never be strong enough to make me give up my family.

I swallowed down answers until they were so far inside me, they’d have to kill me, resurrect me, then murder me all over again to access.

Time flickered.

The shouting and torture stopped.

Silence was my friend until the door opened and light entered and the man with a white beard squatted by my broken face. “Unfortunately, our time together has come to an end. I have a pressing engagement that requires swift attention.” He patted my cheek, grimacing as my blood stained his fingers. “I was going to kill you like you killed everyone here, but...I have a worse punishment for you.”

Standing, he braced himself over me. His heavy boot pressed against my throat. “I’m going to give you a parting gift. And you’re going to die slowly, painfully, all fucking alone in this valley. If I ever hear that you’ve survived or that you climbed out of here like a sewer rat, then I will slice you apart and feed your pieces to my dogs.” He laughed. “You think you stopped us? You think this place is the only one?” He ground his boot harder into my neck. “Stupid boy. No one, especially not you, can stop the lucrative peddling of flesh. Ponder on that while you die. Know that there are others, children, obedient little possessions all kneeling for their masters.”

In a burst of suicidal rage, I fought him. “You fucking son of a—”

And that was the last thing I remembered.

His boot crunching against my head.

Over and over and over...

Fuck, stop!