The next in a multi-part series by Lance Marwood

Warning: graphic content.

Hope is so important to the work of a malicious agent.

Our trade is bifurcated. On one hand there’s the lowing of bovine on the importance of successful interviews, and on the other there is the grunting of swine hellbent on the usefulness of cruelty. I am saddened to say my own sect is the former. Saddened, because I understand the opportunity that fear plays well before the first taps on the patient’s skull ever even happen.

Whether sawing someone upside down or burning them with acid, denailing, degloving, dehumanizing, demoralizing, it’s all the same fucking thing at the end of the day. We’re a nasty lot and someone’s got to make the sheep watch their step. We’re the givers of the necessary backhand this world needs.

I don’t pretend to know all there is to know about the time that led up to the Dynasties. All I know is they are a many splendoured thing. A class of people so pure, so awe-inspiring, they have made me openly weep with their command of language and ideology. I’ve never actually met any of them in person, but I continue to consume their casts and verses, their songs and tributes. Everything about them swims. Listening to them speak, I’m reminded of every useless, low-born thug that walks my block.

Life can be comfortable for a Torturer. For example, I have my own place, with no other roommates, a luxury most could never consider let alone afford. The nature of my work requires that no questions ever be asked, and my guild pays well enough. We do tend to freelance, but we always like to band together based on method. As a z-man, I’m in the same company as the pharmacists, the nephrologists, the neurologists and endocrinologists. Ours is a subtle work, one built on patience, but we are known for our efficacy.

And occasionally, very rarely actually, we are called upon to cleave through to the heart of a resistant subject.

I was talking about hope and how important it is. There’s the very obvious flip side to that, of course, and it’s that hope sustains life.

Hope by itself in a person isn’t the problem; it’s the discipline of it. The moulding, the shaping of it, into an armour that is nigh impregnable.

I read about someone who had been interrogated at the turn of the century, and I do mean the previous one, the Millenium. There was this guy who’d been suspected of helping orchestrate this terrorist attack. It seems silly to think of now, but at the time planes were still flown by human pilots, and even sillier, the practice of security was considered a vanishing concern. So when these terrorists boarded this flight, even though it was heaving with people (a different time, I suppose, when more people could afford such luxuries), these men took boxcutters and used the classic threat of blade to dominate the planes.

They flew them into what I understand to be rather large and important buildings at the time, and the result seemed to make a big impression at the time. The actual body count or wars that resulted wouldn’t even register today, but we were apparently a much softer people then. And it was with that same softness that the government at the time captured one of the men who helped orchestrate this attack.

I’ve studied their methods (goes without saying we have to have as much background as we can), and I shake my head at the ineptitude. Sensory deprivation. White room. Stress positions. Rectal hydration and humiliation. And then waterboarding (clearly drowners of their time somehow managed to be even less effective than they are now). They carried out 183 waterboardings in the space of a month on the man.

Very milquetoast stuff by today’s standards, and I always found it unsurprising that they had a devil of a time trying to break him.

Hindsight’s 20/20, sure, but even they had to admit the problem they had there was the clear lack of position they had. The subject either already knew or became aware he was too important to let die. And so he turtled.

When the subject becomes aware of the pursuit of torture against him, they either ostrich, monkey, or turtle.

An ostrich will stick its head in the sand when confronted with danger, leaving the rest of its body fully exposed and ready to be taken advantage of. This is the standard stuff you get with the normie population.

The next step up is a bit more grit and resilience, but it’s essentially a lot of experiencing of pain, but with theatrics, and a type of guile that if you’re not careful of, can lead to turtling. However, as with any beast, with enough oscillation and sawing through to the heart of the problem, the problem will dissipate.

But the turtle. That’s a harder nut to crack. The subject doesn’t need to experience or wager or act or swear or fight. They simply retreat inward, and the day is almost lost.

Not everyone can turtle. In fact, it’s rarer than you might think. But I’ve been fortunate enough to become something of an expert on turtles.

Practice makes perfect.

So when I say that dealing with turtles takes time and patience, I mean it. There’s no rapid route plan with those ones. No end game stultifying, no amount of acceleration that will suffice.

Oh hey! You made it to the end!

Wow. Thank you.

Seriously, thank you so much.

Is this interesting so far? Do you want more of this? Let me know in reply, I read everything.

And hey, don’t be a stranger, I’m always interested in connecting with other writers and creatives, so let me know what you’ve got going on and maybe we could trade our work?

Anyway, that’s it for this week, I’ll be back next week with another fun slice of life from the very progressive, fun-loving Torturer.

If you like occult paranormal novellas that happen to also feature bloodline curses, maybe give my other book a try?

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