kILL

Everything was dark, he couldn’t see anything. Suddenly a blinding light filled a portion of the room that he was in. Zach squinted before his eyes adjusted to the new light. He looked around, he was tied to a chair. His arms bound to the armrests and his legs were tied to the bottom. “Where am I?” He looked around franticly, trying to remember what happened. “That’s right.” He thought, “I was with my friends telling weird stories about them, no one liked it and Ava got angry. I think she hit me over the head with a bat. I don’t remember anything after that…”
Suddenly Zach saw a silhouette approaching from the shadows and when she finally stepped into the light, it was Ava and she was carrying a tray of something. “Ava, what is this? What’s going on?!” Zach asked her, scared.
	“Oh nothing, just a little pay back.” She said and set the tray on a table next to Zach.
	He looked over at it and his eyes widened. He felt fear and dread in the pit of his stomach. Knives, a hammer, nails, and pliers. The items on the tray, he knew well what was coming, and he only hoped this was a joke. “You’re kidding, right?” Zach looked up at Ava, he was shocked and scared and was hoping she’d just laugh it off and release him. However, he could tell from the look on her face she was serious.
	She didn’t answer just walked up uncomfortably close to him and inspected him. Her eyes darting around. “Where to start, where to start?” Ava said in almost a happy tone. She got up close to his face then quickly backed off.
	Zach was too horrified to even say anything, he couldn’t even plea for her to not do it. Ava’s hand slowly creeped towards the tray of her tools. Zach’s eyes darted over to it, knowing no matter what she picked up he’d be in a world of pain. “Let’s start off easy.” Ava said to herself and picked up the pliers.
“Wh-what are you doing with those?” Zach asked, still holding on to the hope this was all a prank.
Ava didn’t respond again and walked up to him, putting her foot on his knee and grabbing his chin. “Open wide~,” She said in a playful tone treating it as if they were two children playing dentist.
Zach couldn’t bring himself to do it, accept his fate, so he clenched his jaw shut. Ava squeezed his face hard and pulled his chin down until he had no choice but to open his mouth. She placed her pliers around a couple of his bottom teeth. “There we go,” She said looking happy she finally got it open.
Zach looked up at her with pleading eyes, tears brimming in them about to spill over. “Don’t be such a baby, this is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you.” Ava said.
“ ‘Really?’ You ask, but you can’t because your mouth is full of my pliers, and is about to be empty of teeth.” She said in response to herself, “Of course it isn’t, people like you deserve this.”
	Zach sat there finally accepting what was happening and braced himself for the first jolt of pain of the many he would be experiencing until he died. Ava gripped the pliers with everything she had and pulled hard. Digging her foot into his knee for leverage she finally managed to rip them out. She slightly stumbled backwards because she was pulling so hard. “Man, those were stuck in there.” Ava said, running the back of her hand across her forehead to wipe off sweat.
 She was so focused on getting them out she didn’t notice Zach’s small screams of pain until after. He seemed to be trying to keep everything in, keep her from knowing how much he was suffering but he couldn’t help but let out small cries of pain as the tears in his eyes finally spilled over. “You monster.” Zach looked up at her with rage, blood dripping from his mouth. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this!”
“Stop playing innocent, you know what you did.” Ava said dropping the teeth from the pliers into her hand, there were three of them, “Look! It’s your teeth!” She said bringing them close to his face.
He would’ve swatted her hand away if he could move his, instead he just scowled. He really didn’t know what he did. Maybe he had lost his memory or Ava was just completely insane. “I really didn’t do a thing to you!” Zach yelled full of fear and anger.
“I said you did, now shut up before I make this even more painful.” Ava picked up one of the knives from the tray and pointed its tip right in front of Zach’s eye.
Zach immediately regretted his words before Ava quickly pulled away and threw the knife behind her. “Who am I kidding?” She chuckled, “Eyes make me super squeamish.”
He was relieved to at least not have his eyes gouged out today. Ava quickly whipped her head around looking for the knife. “I probably shouldn’t have thrown that.” Ava said then turned her head back around, “Oh well I have more.”
Zach was filled with fear again when he saw her grab another knife. She bent down on his right and looked at his arm. She very lightly ran the knife from the back of his hand to the bend of his elbow hardly leaving even a mark. Then she placed her index finger on the top of the knife and pressed down hard, slowly running across the same course leaving a deep gash through the top layer of his flesh. Zach clenched his remaining teeth together and tensed up trying to keep from screaming as the knife dug into him. When she finished he relaxed his body and let out a loud breath while blood still dripped from his mouth. “Hmm, a good first cut. Not my best work though.” Ava said inspecting the wound.
	Zach turned his head and looked over at her. “You’re insane.” He said under his breath.
	“Don’t think I didn’t hear you.” Ava responded but did nothing else, only began to focus on the cut she had just made.
	She went over the cut again and again until she felt something scrape the tip of the knife. Ava gasped and stopped in her tracks. “Is that bone?” She said to herself, and it was.
	She scrapped out a larger area so she would see more of it then began to harshly stab at it leaving small nicks in Zach’s bone. He couldn’t hold it in any longer he let out a loud shriek of pain at the feeling of his bone being stabbed. “Finally, did anything else even hurt?” Ava asked even though she knew it did.
	Zach started to cry, completely breaking down. “How could you do this so easily?!”
	“Woah, woah, dude. I had no clue how much I had broken you.” Ava smirked clearly happy with herself.
	Zach instantly regretted crying out but he couldn’t stop himself, the pain and sorrow was too much. Tears dripped down his face as he looked up and saw Ava walking away. “Where are you going?” He asked, hoping she wasn’t coming back.
	“Oh, don’t worry I’m not going to abandon you to starve I just forgot something I need.” She said as she faded away into the darkness.
	Zach sighed and let his head tilt down and relaxed. He might as well enjoy this small bit of peace before Ava returned. Zach looked over at his destroyed arm, he hated the sight of blood and seeing his own cut up arm down to the bone made him sick to his stomach so he quickly looked away. Even though looking away made him feel less sick nothing could stop the feeling of pain constantly radiating through his body, his arm, his teeth. It hurt and he began to feel woozy from all the blood loss in his arm. Zach was staring at the ground and saw a shadow approaching and he looked up to see his few moments of tranquility were over.
	Ava approached him again carrying small sledgehammer and Zach was again filled with dread. “That old knife did nothing on your bone, I thought I’d be able to crack it with this.” She said waving the hammer at him.
	“Please stop...” Zach begged her weakly as the tears began to come back into his eyes.
	“Stop? Now? I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet!” Ava whined like a child, raising her sledge hammer above his arm.
	Zach winced preparing himself for more intense pain, he was feeling light-headed and sort of out of it, he wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. Ava swiftly slammed the sledgehammer down on Zach’s already destroyed arm and the bone cracked and a few small pieces broke off. Zach screamed again and felt like he was going to pass out. Ava wasn’t satisfied with the damage done though so she hit it again and this time shattered pieces of bone flew everywhere. There was no way Zach would ever be able to use his arm again. Ava looked happy with her work but was surprised to hear there was no cry coming from her victim this time. Zach’s neck looked like it had gone limp and his eyes were closed. Ava dropped the hammer, “Don’t tell me he’s gone and died already.” She muttered and put her ear up to his chest to find his heart still beating.
Ava was happy he had only passed out and decided to leave and take a break. She hoped when she returned Zach will have awakened again.
About an hour later Zach opened his eyes to see Ava waving her hand in front of his face. “Finally!” She said pulling her hand away from his face and looked at him in disappointment. “Honestly I thought you were going to last longer than this, most other people do. I didn’t even get to use everything I brought in.” She said looking over at the tray.
“Wait you do this to other people...?” Zach asked shocked.
“It’s a hobby,” Ava said nonchalantly while lightly tossing the large knife she was holding between her two hands, “Anyone who says the wrong things, annoys me, stuff like that gets taken here.”
“You’re even crazier than I thought.” Zach whispered in disbelief.
“I know, they all say that.” Ava said and stopped playing with the knife, “I think it’s time to end this before you die when I’m not ready. It’s happened before and is always such a bummer. But hey, be glad. Your suffering is about to be over.”
Zach couldn’t decide whether he was happy or sad to finally have this be over even though it meant death for him. Ava gripped the knife tightly and pointed at him “And I know just how to finish this.” She said menacingly and speedily stabbed him not to deep in the chest, she didn’t want to stab his heart yet.
Eliciting sounds of pain from Zach as Ava forcefully dragged the knife down to his stomach. The tip of his ribs were exposed now and Ava cut a bit deeper until she has a good view of them. She ran her index finger down the exposed part of his ribs. “These sure are getting in the way.” Ava said looking creepily at them before gripping both sets of his ribs, one with each hand.
Zach cried out as she pulled them apart breaking his bones and ripping open his chest. “That’s a better view, I can see your beating heart now.” Ava said while poking at Zach’s heart.
“Please just end it already.” Zach said weakly unable to handle anymore.
“Yeah, yeah I’m getting to it.” Ava shook her blood covered hand at his face splattering him with his own blood. She grabbed hold of his heart and pulled it out with all the arteries still attached. “Look, it’s what’s keeping you alive.” Ava said shaking it in front of Zach’s face.
She could tell Zach was turning green and looked like he was about to puke. “Oh god, don’t throw up on me now.” Ava shuddered pulling it out of his view, “Now I’m going to end this.”
She picked up the knife she was using earlier and skewered it right through Zach’s heart and then yanked it forward so all of the arteries attached to it broke off and spurted blood all around the room. With a finally cry of pain from Zach his vision faded, effectively killing him. Ava threw the knife with his heart in it on the floor making it stick inside the ground and walked off. She had claimed another victim.