Nails

For Chris.


The first thing he saw was nothing.

He opened his eyes as wide as they could possibly stretch but there was only stifling black darkness. He gasped in a breath of air in alarm like a drowning man breaking the surface of the water. He forced himself to stay still, and strained his ears for any kind of sound, any idication of his whereabouts. The sole sound that he could hear was a dripping of something liquid hitting the floor, like the room... Or place that he was in had multiple leaky faucets. His heart thudded a frantic beat in his chest, panic rising from the bottom of his stomach as he desperately tried to wrench his fuzzy, fright-stricken brain into function to try and figure out where he was. He remembered the fight. Yelling and throwing something and hearing it smash against the wall and the sobs of his wife...

He steadied himself and determined that he was lying on some surface, most probably a floor. He then figured, more calm now, that he had simply passed out from the booze and hit his head or something. This veing decided, he tried to lift himself from the floor.

And found that he couldn't.

Searing pain ripped through his hands, feet, torso and to the back of his head, bringing tears of agony to his blind eyes. He screeched in surprise from the unexpected torment and immediately lay still once more on the ground. Sobbing, he rolled over and was overwhelmed with another wave of extreme, horrible agony. Screaming louder than had ever done in his life, his lay as still as possible while tears streaked down his dirty face. As he lay there, prone on the ground, he suddenly noticed the sound of static coming from somewhere in the dephs of his painful hell. Before he could even think of what it could possibly be, he heard a gruff, crackling voice speaking to him.

"Hello Jacob. You cannot see me, but I can see you. I want to play a game."

The man, Jacob, choked on his words as he pleaded for help from this dubious, cracking voice, barely paying any attention to what the voice was saying and begging, begging, for it to help him.

"For the past three years, you have in an act of great cowardice, hidden from your guilt and your loved ones through the means of alcohol. You always feel like you are thirsty, constantly drinking to quench your need to be forgiven. But just how thirsty are you, Jacob? How far will you be willing to go to quench your thirst and continue to hide?"

Jacob lay completely still where he lay, his eyes wide though they saw nothing. How the fuck did this man know all of this? He tried to place the voice, attempting to figure out who the speaker was, but he simply did not know.

"The room that you're currently inside of is completely filled, ceiling, walls and floor, with nails. You could think of this room as an elaborate iron maiden. Every move that you make will be painful. Inside this room somewhere is a bottle, and inside it, a key. Use the key to unlock the door keeping you held inside this little pit of hell I have made for you."

He was sobbing uncontrollably on the floor now, praying to gods that he no longer believed in for some sort of mercy or forgiveness. Why me?, he wheezed to himself over and over. There are thousands of guys like me out there... Why pick me? Why me? Why me? ...


"Let's see how much agony you are willing to put yourself through to quench that cowardly thirst of yours. Time is wasting, Jacob..." The voice trailed off, leaving him to howl his grievences to the cold, unforgiving hell that he found himself unwillingly thrust into. Eventually, his despair gave way to the instinct to survive, and tentively he extended the arm not tucked beneath his body to feel for the nails that were supposedly sticking up all over the room. Nervously, he lowered his hand until he felt a sharp, slight pain on his palm. Anguish overpowered him once more as he felt the cruelly tiny distance in between each sharp point. There was absolutely no way he was going to escape this with minimal injuries.

"Fuck... Fuck... Fuck...Fuck...." he whimpered pitifully. He didn't even know which direction the bottle was. In a fit of desperation, he jolted from his seated position on the floor and stood on his feet. A nail pierced straight through his left foot and he screeched hideously in physical torment as blood spurted from the stab wound. In complete and utter misery he stood there as his foot throbbed and bled. Then, in a shining ray of inspiration, he remembered the circus that he had attented when he was young. One of the acts was a woman who walked, lied and did tricks on a bed of nails. It hadn't hurt her when she had stood or landed on it, because her weight had been distributed.

He nearly giggled in feverish glee as he assuredly decided to test out the theory. As carefully as he could possibly move, he bent and lay the palm of his hand out wide upon the nails. While he could feel the sharp points, they were not piercing his skin, no matter how hard he pushed down. Standing up straight once more, he swallowed his anxiety and ever so slowly, lowered himself backwards on the bed of nails. He was now lying down, his pierced foot at an uncomfortable, awkward angle. Feeling sick to his stomach, he realized that he'd have to pull his foot out of the nail. Bracing himself, he yanked hard upwards and cried out, his entire body shaking with sweat and adrenaline.

He put his head back after he had recovered somewhat, and attempted to slowly and carefully shimmy his body forewards. He only got a few inches foreward when something excruciating entered his shoulder. Sobbing but trying to keep his body as level as possibly, he moved his hand up to his shoulder and felt around. He nearly vomited. Who ever this sick fuck is... He thought of that. The nails that he felt were decidedly an inch higher then those around it, and even then they were different sizes. Swallowing his bile, he kept inching slowly over the nails, one piercing him every leg of the way. He absently noticed, as he moved, that his eyesight was slowly returned. An eternity later, he had covered what he felt was a good distance and he also had his sight back.

The room he was in was spacious, wood floors and ancient wallpapered walls. The ceiling looked as though it had once been grand, carvings and indents decorating the yellowing plaster. A single light bulb hung from the once-elaborate ceiling fixture that illuminated his personal hell. True to his word, every surface was covered completely in nails. As he observed the room, he caught sight of the bottle that he desperately needed was sitting on top of a cuppboard that hung over an ancient, dripping sink. His breath quickened. He had somehow, luckily, gone in the right direction. He smile in glee until it sunk it just exactly what he would have to do to get the bottle.

He would have to stand up.

In a frenzy, he turned his head this way and that, searching for the door that he would use to escape. This time, he did vomit in the pure horror of what he must do. The door was on the far side of the room, at least ten feet of nails and agony away from the bottle and the key to his freedom. For a long time, all he could stomach to do was lie there in wretchedness. He suddenly found himself thinking about his wife and his son. He remembered when they were happy, back before the accident...

He told her it was safe. He told her they'd be alright.

They'd just finished a night of raucous drinking. They were at the bar, and she was a little drunk and he was very, very drunk and he told her they were safe. They usually went out like this on Saturday's. Some people might of thought that it was kind of weird, the fact that he was such good friend's with his wife's mother. But she was like that cool, carefree aunt that he never had. So when he and his dear Carrie had gotten engaged, he had really gotten to know this crazy old woman. They were the best of friends, inseperable and forever. But tonight they were a little too drunk and he was way too drunk, and he told her they were safe.


"C'mon, Eth, let's gooo", he urged her, "You know 'ow 'gud of a drivur I em..."


Normally, she would have said "No", and would have called a cab. But she was a little too drunk and he was way to drunk, and they got into the car together and drove away. Within the hour, she was lying dead on the pavement and he was running away, tears streaming down his face, his drunken self unable to even comprehend what he had just done.



Crying now half from the sickening idea of turtoring himself and half from his overwhleming guilt, he finally mustered up enough courage to move. In one swift movement, he stood. The pain was indescribable, and he heard a horrdendous banshee-like scream escape his parched lips, but he ignored it and reached up to grab the bottle. Accidentally, from his pain-hazed gaze, he knocked the bottle off the cuppboards and it smashed into a million little pieces on the nail-filled floor. He bent and scrabbled frantically for the key. The metal glinted off of the lamp hanging from the ceiling and he snatched it in his bleeding hands. Barely able to ignore the gut-wrenching pain in his pierced feet, he turned and eyed the door.

Sweat poured down his face and he breathed heavily, his chest heaving in and out as he braced himself for what he knew was going to be the most gruesome, torturous agony that he would ever experience. In one fell swoop, he leapt for the door, wrenching his feet from the nails in the floor and ran. He screamed, and screamed, and screamed with every movement his feet made, another bloody hole ripping his flesh with each step. Finally, he reached the door and fumbled for the key. His vision was obscured with tears as he cried convulsively, holding the key with a shaking, blood-stained hand and placing it in the lock. It turned with mockingly easy grace.

He pried himself from the nailed floor and fell to the wondrously smooth floor, curling into a ball and moaning at the sight of his useless, mangled feet. His bones could be seen through the wrent, red splattered flesh and he curled up into a ball to stomach the pain.

Quietly, the static started up once more, issuing softly from the hell he had just escaped.

"Good job", said the crackly, level voice, "You have survived. Crawl home and tell your wife just how sorry you are, and how you are ready to be forgiven."