Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation by M. R. Sellars Page A

please feel free to come
closer. Just don’t touch anything.”
    I didn’t move. My eyes were still fixed in
the direction of the autopsy table even though the clarity of focus
had long since fled. The macabre scene had taken on the blurred,
grainy appearance of a poorly received image on an old television.
Colors were hastily blooming and collapsing—bleeding into one
another in a palette gone berserk as rushing noises filled my ears.
Doctor Sanders continued speaking for the recorder, and her words
became thick mouthfuls of gibberish joining with the mutated
cadence of the background music. My vision tunneled and fire danced
across my skin as I realized too late what was happening.
    The angry, high-pitched cry of a Stryker saw
meeting bone neatly pierced the roaring in my ears. Physical
reality spun uncontrollably into formless void as I joined with the
young woman on the metal table. Her recent pain was no longer
confined solely to somewhere in the back of my thoughts.
    Everywhere in my mind, I heard her
screaming.
     
    My mouth tastes tinny.
    Metallic.
    Electric.
    Blistered.
    Raw.
    My chest is shrieking in protest. I can feel
my flesh being smoothly peeled back, as though I am being violently
wrenched inside out. With each passing second, I become aware of
more nerve endings being delivered naked and screaming into the
cold antiseptic air.
    “Why is she doing that?” a weeping feminine
voice asks.
    I search through slitted eyes while gritting
my teeth against the pain.
    I try to turn and suddenly I find myself
slowly spinning.
    Twisting lazily on an unfelt breeze.
    Floating.
    “Why is she doing that to me?” the voice asks
again.
    “Where are you?” I ask as I continue to turn
lethargically in a formless void.
    I can see no one.
    I can see nothing.
    “Who are you?” I call out through my
agony.
    “Why is she cutting me like that?” The voice
is beyond weeping. She is sobbing now. Her words break off in hard
bewildered pieces between each breath, tumbling forth and
shattering in my ears, “Haven’t I been through enough?”
    A violent sensation, making agony seem a mere
discomfort, bites into my side, gnashing at my bones with countless
glittering metal teeth.
    My body stiffens.
    A tortured cry fills the void.
    An angry crimson wail explodes inside my
skull.
    I’m falling.
    Spiraling downward.
    Faster.
    Faster.
    I crash into nothing and splinter into a
thousand obsidian shards reflecting the inky darkness. Absorbing
and smothering all that is light.
     
    “Mister Gant?” Doctor Sanders’ voice mimics
itself in a grotesque parody of speech, casually piercing the
ethereal veil. “Did you want to come closer?”
     
    Gradually, I open my eyes.
    The black formless void still envelops
me.
    I can’t see.
    Where am I?
    Who am I?
    Something is tightly stretched across my
mouth.
    Between my teeth.
    It bites into the corners of my lips,
abrading them roughly before continuing its constriction around my
head.
    My mouth tastes of plastic.
    Of sweat.
    Of blood.
    I cannot speak.
    I cannot scream.
    I can only cry.
     
    “Mister Gant?”
     
    I’m nude.
    I’m cold.
    I cannot move.
    My arms are extended above me, and something
rigidly encircles my wrists. I can feel my flesh being torn. I can
feel the trickles of my own blood running along my skin from the
wounds, mixing with sweat and forming rivulets from the headwaters
of my pain.
    My mind is numbed by the agony. My muscles
are stretched beyond their limits.
    Something cold and hard cinches my
ankles.
    It pulls stiffly downward, unyielding.
    The stress threatens to tear me in half.
    Sharp spasms rack the muscles along my back,
and I arch against it. Bucking against my bonds as best I can.
    If it weren’t for the pain, I would swear I
was already dead.
    A soft-edged whimper escapes my throat.
    Hoarse but distinctly feminine.
    Who am I?
    I cannot remember.
    I only know that I am not who I am supposed
to be.
    It’s dark.
    I can’t see.
    Where am I?
    Who am