Title: Shauna

Word count: 800 words

Genre: Horror flash fiction

CW: Blood, gore, torture

Feedback: I wanted to try a fourth wall break with this piece. In your opinion, is it difficult to follow along? Any feedback/critique is welcomed. Thanks!

SHAUNA

Red.

It stained the walls. The cold cement.

Everywhere.

For Shauna, it wasn't red enough. The room needed more. More agony and the stench of death. More misery and despair. More strangled breaths and eyes that wilted and dimmed. If these walls were her canvas, bodies were her paintbrush.

The Hurt Room. That was what Shauna called this place; a cellar deep beneath a vacant house in an area no one would ever look. A place where mold and rats and leaky pipes were your friends, and daylight a stranger. Chains rattled as she strung up her next victim: a cop. He was supposed to be their hope. Their hero. The one to save those missing people, and–

“Do you ever shut up?”

Wait. What?

“Yes, you. The guy narrating inside my head.”

That's… not possible.

“And yet here we are,” Shauna replied. “I'm talking to you. You're talking to me.”

How? How can you hear me?

“Not the faintest idea. But I'm trying to torture this dumb rookie cop that wandered into my web. So, if you don't mind—shhh.” Shauna unfurled a scroll of tools. The icy metal stung her fingertips as she held a blade, then a screwdriver, then an ice pick.

“You do realize I can see? As riveting as it is, I don't need your commentary.”

Right. Well, I must say. This is unusual. Highly unorthodox. You should not be able to respond.

“Well, it's happening. I don't love it either. But since you're here, settle this for me. Ice pick or knife?”

I beg your pardon?

“Ice pick, or knife?” She grazed the blade along his cheek. “The knife will be good for carving. But the ice pick,” she pointed at his eye, “works wonders for gouging.”

I choose neither.

“The screwdriver, then?”

I'd rather you let him go. Let them all go. Haven't they suffered enough?

“Au contraire, my friend.” Shauna plunged the ice pick inside the cop's eye. That scream. That ghastly scream, rendering him from man to child. She scooped in his socket like a tub of ice cream, but this was no Rocky Road. No, no, no. The reddest shade of cherry dripped down his cheek as he squirmed and begged. Before long, his yells diminished to a soft, final breath.

“You know, your voice sounds very familiar. Have we met?” she asked while carving his face like a jack-o'-lantern. And no. I'm afraid we haven't.

I'm but a disembodied voice.

“Hmm. I suppose you're right.” Shauna wiped the ice pick on her shirt. “Anyways. Since you failed to pick an item, how ‘bout you pick my next canvas?” She nodded at the other captives, trembling in the corner. Captives she wanted me to choose from.

“Correct.”

I-I couldn't possibly.

“Come on. Sure you can!”

I refuse.

“Ok, suit yourself.” She pointed her knife and eeny meeny miny moe'd. The blade ticked, ticked, and stopped. Shauna chuckled. “Ah, yes. The little girl.”

Wait – no! Please, don't hurt her!

In spite of my pleas, Shauna grabbed her and chained her to the center of the room. A girl no older than ten. She thrashed, whimpered. Begged for her life. All of which sounded like the finest symphony to Shauna's ears. After the lock clicked, a chain was pulled that yanked her upright.

Behold, the new canvas. Displayed like an exhibit at a macabre museum.

“Easy on the metaphors, tiger.” Shauna laughed while choosing a torture tool. “So, are you sure we've never met? The way you responded when I grabbed the girl… very interesting.” She chose a tool that drew shrieks from the others: a bone saw. And what do you mean by ‘very interesting?’

“Oh, I'm sure it's nothing.”

A smile pulled one side of her face. A smile of knowing. Shauna inched toward the girl, brandishing her bone saw. Upon the blade, the girl stared at her own reflection. A frail, frightened thing. No more birthday parties. No walks by the lake. No warm, summer nights. That fear in her reflection was how she'd be immortalized.

As the serrated edge kissed her skin, the other prisoners turned away. But there was no masking those high-pitched squeals and shrieks, mimicking the sounds of a slaughterhouse. And me? Not once did I look away. God, did I want to. With every force and fiber in my nonexistent body.

But we watched. We are the ones who dwell within and the ones who'll guide the next. Such are the laws. For all who die at the hands of Shauna are cursed to be part of her. I remember now. I remember it all. There are dozens of us inside, waiting for our turn to narrate. The cop is next. Then, the girl.

Shauna smirked. “Good. You remember. A lot faster than most, might I add.” She hoisted my daughter's body from the chain, soft and lifeless—and the cycle began anew.

FIN