Whipping
Author: whump-the-gun
He bit back a cry as a bright flare of pain lit in the corners of his vision, blooming from a painful twitch of his nerves beneath his flesh. Sparks spasmed in his skin, and he felt his body tense as a thunderclap of pain shuddered over his spine, sending tremors through his bones, into the tips of his fingers.
“One.”
He braced himself against the pole, feeling the cuffs chafe at his wrists as he gripped the wooden post as tightly as he could, trying to steel his frame for the next blow.
It felt just as bad as the first one, a brilliant lick of flame that snapped across his back. He gritted his teeth, feeling the wound burn on his skin, a vivid, scorching line that was painted from one shoulder to midway down his spine. He pressed the top of his head against the pole, setting his jaw.
“Two.”
And again, beneath his shoulder, a long stripe of keen, lurid pain that bit into his flesh. He shut his eyes, turning from the bright, yellow light that obtruded his vision, favoring the darker portion of the room. Pain danced across his nerves, scattering pinpricks of agony to the farthest reaches of his being. He gasped, immediately clamping his mouth shut and biting down on his cheek to muffle the sound. It was the first vocal reaction he’d given to the lashings.
“Three.”
He drew a breath, clenching his jaw and digging his fingers into the depressions of the coarse wood. He squared his shoulders, clamping his hands into fists and exhaling, arching his back in preparation and pressing his forehead to the pole.
His entire body jolted as the fourth blow hit, and he jerked forwards, towards the post in an attempt to recoil away from the lashings. He let his head fall between his shoulders, feeling the wounds at the top of his back stretch painfully.
Five, and the dizziness already pooling within his skull began to make itself known. His back was ablaze with pain already, the sear of the open skin raging in his flesh. The wounds were slick with blood or sweat, he couldn’t tell, and he could feel the raw flesh, scalding lines forming the start of a tentative, uneven latticework of cuts. He bit his tongue, feeling the hot buildup of tears pushing against the backs of his eyes, zeroing in on that one, tiny, zinging pain to try and divert his mind from his back.
Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
He groaned, softly, biting his lip as his body convulsed in response, the handcuffs snapping into the wood as he tried, desperately, to pull away.
Make it stop make it stop make it stop gods make it stop
It was blinding pain, the brilliant, burning scald of each would leaping, angry, screaming in color, screaming in bold, bright, white. Fiery, sharp lines that streaked down and across his back, every strike just as fantastic and terrible as the last. His breath was hot, mingled with tears and sweat, and he whimpered, mumbling nothings, unable to restrain a cry as the eleventh, the twelfth, the thirteenth, the fourteenth hit, again and again, painting stark, sheer bands. He wanted to see. He was terrified to see.
There was a tiny, brilliant flame of panic glowing in his gut, and it jumped every time the whip touched his skin, fueled by fear and anticipation, wrenching a sob from his lips. The fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth were still sharp, still acute and clear, distinguishable from one another. His captor’s voice rang above him, counting, enjoying every moment, attacking from every angle.
The nineteenth blurred with the twentieth, but he heard the numbers, loud and clear, the only sound he could decipher over the ram of his heart against his ribcage. Everything was hot beneath his skin, and everything was cold where the air touched. He shuddered, weakly jerking away from the twenty-first blow. He tugged at the chain where it was linked to the post, his aching, burning arms screaming for release. He groaned, blinking away sweat or blood or tears– he couldn’t tell.
The lashes divided themselves into sections of pain as he forgot what numbers were, becoming nameless, quick bouts of pain. It was only on the fuzzy, gray edges of his subconscious that he heard the numbers– “twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five”– but even so, he didn’t register what they meant.
So on, they dragged– it could have been seconds, could have been hours, could have been one lash or twenty– he didn’t know. He just sat there and took it, crying, whimpering, groaning and screaming util his throat burned and he was unable to force out any other sounds.
But eventually, somehow, at some point, his captor stopped.
He lay there, slumped, shivering, waiting for the next blow to land as tears trailed to his chin, whimpering, lips moving weakly as he tried to form sound. Everything hurt, and his vision was rimmed with nothing, blurry gray that smears together what little he can see– the wooden texture of the post he’s chained to, the floor in front of him, the red of his blood against the darker tones of the ground.
Warm air against his ear, the back-and-forth stir of breathing. He struggled to ascertain what was causing it, battling to think clearly, until the low rumble of his captor’s voice hit him, too loud, to rough, too much.
“Darling, I fear I’ve lost count. What are we on again?”
He shivered, slumped, head shaking slowly, uncertainly, trying to remember, to think… why did it matter? Why did… who wanted… what…
“Hm, that’s what I thought.” His captor leaned back, smiling. “Let’s start again, then, shall we?”
https://killian-whump.tumblr.com/post/1 ... 8/whipping
