Catharsis

In a darkened room, deep in the latest reaches of night, a man slept. Rain danced a sad pitter-patter against the single window of the room, and the sounds of urgent winds and distant trains filtered through the window's imperfect seal. The man turned in his sleep. And, as the man slept, he dreamed. And through his dreams, a man named Michael died.

***

Michael's arms burned and his fingers cracked, white knuckles and bleeding palms proving to be a poor distraction from the abyss that gaped beneath him. A spasm threatened to shake his grip free, but Michael restrained it with a pained grunt.

Michael could feel the blood oozing from his hands, could sense the strength seeping from his over-taxed muscles. But he did not care. Any second he kept holding on was a second he was still alive. Time seemed to slow down, paralytic agony crawling in spiderwebs through his back, his shoulders, and into his arms. Muscles tore and he seemed to grow heavier by the moment. Michael let out a gasp and his fingers buckled. In an instant he was weightless, wind tearing past him as the walls of the shaft flew upward.

Faster than he could believe, Michael felt the flesh of his back being torn apart. The spike formed an ugly, jagged cone, arresting the momentum of the plummet as three feet of bloody metal burst through his chest and gut.

A spasm shook Michael's body as his spine caught and tore against the spike, and he died.

***

At first, Michael did not know where he was. The compartment was tight as a coffin, its walls blackened grating. Dawning horror drew the breath from his lungs as he saw the small jets of either side of him grow orange with anticipation. He screamed.

The jets erupted, pouring liquid fire into the cremator, blistening Michael's skin, causing pus and blood to ooze from every inch of his body. The red fire became white, and the weeping flesh blackened and caught fire, seeping the inferno into his organs and bones. Michael felt his eyes burst from the heat. Then, he died.

***

He was strapped to a table, above him, a man lowered the screaming metal teeth of a chainsaw onto Michael's neck. The buzz slowed for only an instant before pulling flesh and blood from its prey, hurling them into the air. Through the agony, Michael felt his aerteries torn, his wind pipe severed, his esophogus eviserated. The sudden inability to breath throttled him as the grinding blade touched bone, protesting with a halting hiss. Then, the blade was clear, the nerves severed, and Michael decapitated. He imagined he could feel his head roll off the table as he died.

***

A mere moment of awareness before a hatchet became buried in the back of Michael's head. Electrical impulses surged through his body, terrifying numbness cutting off his every sensation before one burst of pain filled his eyes and Michael died.

***

Suffocation, bleeding, poison, disease, starvation, crushing; Michael died again and again, without rest or mercy or hope. And rain splashed gently on a darkened window as a man slept blissfully.