The Sensory Thief Part 3

Part 3

The thief placed the man's severed nose in a jar on the self among his other trophies. He admired his collection of living human parts before he continued the harvest. Once again, he hovered over the frightened man. The room is a tomb of gray light as the Thief worked this time in silence. His movements were as steady as a clock's gears. He places the man's head into the heavy iron vise, the cold metal bit into his temples. With each turn of the screw, the man's skull groaned, the pressure mounted until his eyes felt as though they might pop from their sockets. The Thief reached for his blade, a sliver of silver that hummed with a malevolent light.

The man tried to beg and plead for mercy, but the Thief had already claimed his tongue. What came out of the man's mouth was a dry, thumping of air against the roof of his mouth, a desperate, gargling sound that vibrated deep in his throat but carries no meaning. It was a hollow, pathetic noise that the Thief ignored as he touched the tip of the blade to the top of the man's left ear.

The cut began its slow, methodical journey through the skin. The man heard the sound from inside his skull it was a terrifying, sandpaper rasp of steel against cartilage that echoed through his jawbone like a saw through rotted wood. Each nerve ending screamed in a white-hot flash of agony as the blade circled the ear, the warm, metallic scent of blood began to fill the air. The man's world was reduced to the sharp sting from the knife and the terrifying realization that he could still hear his own skin being unzipped from his head.

The Thief leaned closer, his rancid breath hitched as he uncorked a full bottle of ever clear. He poured it directly into the raw, gaped circle he'd carved around the ear. The liquid hisses against the exposed nerves, and the man’s body went rigid, his muscles snapped tight as he kicked and jerked against his restraints with violent, electric spasms. His mouth gaped open and released that frantic, tongue-less gurgle sounds like a drowned animal. Then, the Thief set the bottle down and picked up a long, thin chisel.

He placed the cold tip against the bone just inside the canal. The first tink... tink... tink... taps were put into place with a small mallet. The sound was deafening inside the man’s head. The sharp ring vibrated through his teeth that made his jaw ache. The Thief worked with an agonizing patience, the chisel scraped and grinded against the man's dense skull bone as he severed the internal anchors. He began to pry them free; the sound of splintering bones echoed like dry strands of spaghetti being crushed. Slowly, the entire organ—the canal, the delicate drum, the three tiny bones—were teased away from the brain's edge, while the Thief began his low primal chant. With a moist, sucking sound, the final connective tissue gave way, leaving a deep, hollow hole where the man’s world of sound once lived.

The Thief lifted his grisly prize and held the severed ear with its attached internal machinery up to the flickering light. Its messy tangle of cartilage, nerves, and three tiny, bones, were still slick with a life force. To ensure the soul of the man’s hearing hadn't been damaged, the Thief leaned in close to the bloody mass and whispered a single word. On the table a distance away, the man’s eyes widen in terror—he heard the whispered word from the Thief's lips crisp and clear. The sound came from outside his own body and echoed into the hollow ruin of his skull. The captive man began to cry, and the Sensory Thief grinned with delight. Satisfied that the organ was still functional, it was gently lowered into a jar filled with blue liquid that seemed to hum with its own unnatural light. The ear floated freely, it suspended like a specimen from a nightmare, as the man sank into a muffled world of absolute despair.

The Sensory Thief's eyes locked onto his prey as he spoke. "Are you ready for round two?"

Back to work, he performed a ballet of agony. He reached out with his long, pale fingers and unlatched the locking mechanism of the heavy iron vise. With a slow, agonizingly smooth motion, he swung the man's head around, the metal hinges let out a high-pitched, whine that was the last sound the man would ever hear clearly. The Thief’s shadow stretches long and jagged across the floor as he repositions himself, his movements hauntingly calm, almost affectionate, as he tilts the man's remaining ear toward the light. He leans in so close that his cold breath tickles the man's skin, his sharp silver blade catching the reflection of the blue jar as he prepares to begin the circle once more.

The Thief’s blade found the skin above the second ear, but this time, there is no hesitation, no clinical quiet. As the steel bit deep, the Thief opened his mouth, and the primal, dead language erupted into a loud, booming chant that vibrated every glass jar specimen.

The man’s body, a bridge of tension, arched his back so hard it threatened to snap as he felt the blade race around his second ear. The chants drowned out his own tongueless, gurgling, and filled his entire reality with the sound of his own undoing. With a violent twist of the chisel, the Thief ripped the second organ free in a spray of gore, his voice reached a fever pitch of ancient power. As the Thief dropped the second ear into the blue liquid, the auditory world for the man suddenly quieted to a distant hush.

The chant, the splash of the liquid, his own heartbeat, all of it, was sucked into an underwater vacuum. He was left in a muffled void under blue liquid. He stared at the Thief’s moving lips as the monster continued to chant an unknown language the man would never hear again.

To be continued.....

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