Pain

A college professor reminisces about his past experience while under the knife.

James cried out in pain. His eyes were on fire, he felt as though his veins ran with molten lava. He had been strapped to this chair for about three weeks, and his pain was only getting worse. He wanted it to end, he wanted everything to go away, the pain, the light, the misery...

He wanted to die.

He wanted to get out of here, to cry to the heavens, "Forgive me, O heavenly Father, for I have sinned!"

He wanted to cry out, "Whatever faults I may have committed by hand or foot, in word or deed, with my ears or eyes, mind or body, knowingly or unknowingly, forgive me for them all, victory unto thee, O Great Lord Shambhu, the Ocean of Compassion!"

He wanted to fall to his knees as he scream "I seek protection in the might of Allah and His power from evil and of what I fear!"

But he couldn't. All he could do was scream.

His torturers were tall, to him, at least, from where he lay, with their hypodermic needles and their long, sharp knives. He did not know how this came to be, but as he strained out against the restraints, he passed out, and he began to remember. 

***

He sat back in his chair. He remembered, he was once a college professor, and his students were always the brightest or the stupidest, nobody in-between. He was grading his students' papers. He taught Religion, and the current unit was Islam. His students were obviously rather... Opposed... To the unit. 9/11 had only happened a few months before. He sighed as he remembered one student's comment. "Damn towel-heads..." one student had said. At that point, Mr. Browning had hung his head in shame. He thought he had taught his students better than that. Firstly, not all Muslims were terrorists, and Sikhs wore those types of headdresses, not Muslims. He got up from his desk, sighing as he did so. He was done with the grading, thankfully. He sighed opening the door. "What the-" His head was immediately covered, and he felt a sharp pain on his temple before all went dark.

***

When he awoke, he was groggy. He remembered... The pain. The blinding pain. They came back into the room, and those masks, those horrible masks. They were white, with grins going up to their foreheads, sunken eyes, demons' horns, and over sized ears.

They would be comical in normal life, but now... Bloodied and stained...

Four of them came out. Four syringes, one drill, two knives... They leaned down, and James swore he could hear them chuckling. "This'll teach you to work with those damn Al-Kayda..."

They set to work. James cried out in pain. His eyes were on fire, he felt as though his veins ran with molten lava...

Author's Note

The prayers in this story are actual prayers. Well, not exactly the first, that's a modification of a Christian prayer for confession, but the second is a prayer of confession from Hinduism, the third being a prayer of healing from Islam. What do you think overall? Too cliche, or no? Also, any racial slurs in this text are meant to show a character's mindset, not the main character or my own.