Crown

He awoke.

Not like a man surfacing from sleep. Like a man hauled from it, dragged up by the wrists with dreams still clinging to his face.

His mouth is dry. Not dry like thirst. Dry like it’s been scrubbed with gauze. Tongue thick. Back of his throat coated in something sour . . . chemical and chalky.

He remembers taking his medication. He remembers lying down. He remembers his bed, his pillow, the bad spring under his left hip that always clicked if he turned too fast.

This . . . This isn’t that. This isn’t his room . . . his cell.

The restraints are leather. Old. Cracked like dried lips. They squeak when he shifts, but not enough to matter.

His ankles are strapped.

His wrists too.

The kind of strapping that says, We’ve done this before. There’s a logo on the wall. Small. Unimpressive. Just a circle of thorns. And just like that . . . he knows. Not from memory. From somewhere deeper. Like his bones recognise it before his brain catches up.

Not here.

Not again.

He breathes through his nose. The air smells like an old barber shop sink. Not the sweet kind with aftershave and powder. The other kind; drainage, sweat, the wisp of static electricity on a cheap plastic comb.

A light flickers overhead.

Incandescent. The yellow glow of a tired bulb inside a fogged-up mason jar, dangling like it’s afraid of being noticed. Someone’s standing to his right. He turns his head. Tries to see.

Can’t.

Just a sleeve. White. Crisp. Pressed so sharp you could use it to cut paper. The hands are gloved. Rubber, tight, surgical, second-skin gloves that cling to each finger like they were poured on. They move with a kind of bored professionalism that only comes from doing awful things very, very often.

The hands turn a dial.

A machine next to the chair clicks on. It doesn’t beep. Doesn’t flash. It hums. Wires twitch. Something stirs above him. A coil or wires lower from the ceiling . . . like a crown. It hovers over his scalp.

Close. Too close.

The hum shifts.

He flinches.

Not because of pain . . . because of expectation. He’s been conditioned like that. Voltage equals agony. Shock equals screams. But this time…

This time it’s different.

This isn’t voltage. This isn’t even electricity like he understands it. This is . . . sound. Not heard through the ears. Not exactly. It comes through his teeth. His spine. It hammers behind his eyes like a memory trying to punch its way out of the past.

His breath catches.

His pupils bloom wide.

And then . . . He isn’t there any more. He’s . . . standing. Somewhere else.

The air’s turned red. Not red like a sunset-red like a wound.

Above him, the sky is wrong. It’s like an ocean of black water, upside-down, stitched in place. Things twist inside it. Big things. Drowning slow, like they’ve been drowning forever and forgot how to die.

The ground squelches underfoot . . . thick, hot mud that tries to hold on. Screams echo somewhere far off, but they’re all wrong. Filtered. Like listening to lungs filled with tar.

And he knows this place.

From far away dreams.

From before.

Ahead, a hallway. Stone walls, damp and sweating. Arched ceiling. A wooden door, slightly ajar. Waiting.

He moves.

His boots creak.

Clothes weigh heavy . . . wool, black, ceremonial. There’s a rope slung over one shoulder. He’s on a platform.

High. Ancient. Wood groans underfoot like it’s remembering all the others who stood here.

There’s a woman. Barefoot. Shivering. Her makeup’s run in tracks down her face, mingled with dirt and something else . . . something older.

She sobs.

A guard holds her up by the elbows. Like she’s a marionette that lost its strings. She tries to talk, but the words stutter.

“Please,” she says. “Please, not like this. I have children. They need me. Please. I’m not ready… Please…”

He steps forward.

The hood is black. Rough. Smells like sweat and mildew and ten thousand other desperate faces.

He pulls it over her head. She flinches under his hands.

“I didn’t do it,” she whispers. “Please, someone else… Someone else…”

She coughs. Knees give out.

The guard keeps her up.

“They won’t understand,” she mutters, barely audible now. “My babies… they’ll wait for me. They’ll keep waiting.”

He loops the rope around her neck.

Tightens it.

Checks the knot.

It’s perfect.

Of course it is.

His fingers don’t shake.

Not even once.

He steps back.

There’s a lever beside him. Old steel, worn smooth by calloused hands and generations of duty. It sticks slightly. Needs a little extra pull.

She is still crying under the hood.

The final word she speaks is; “please…”

He pulls the lever.

The trapdoor drops.

There’s a thud, thick and final.

Her body jerks.

Then swings.

And just like that . . . 

He wakes.

A sharp inhale.

The machine clicks off.

He’s sweating. Heart hammering in a rhythm that doesn’t belong to him.

And then . . . a voice. Cold. Sharp. Punctuated with precision.

“Tell me what you saw..”