text: [Themes: horror, serious, horror]
  
  You break out the whiskey and have a couple glasses on ice. If you're going to end it, you need some liquid courage to do it. If the note that came with the vial is true, then that must be the easiest way out and as long as it ends, it doesn't matter how right? You sit down at the table, pour another glass of whiskey, and set the vial next to it. You unscrew the cap and sniff at the vial but don't smell anything.
  
  "Well, he goes nothing," you say under your breath. You throw back the vial of liquid, then take a sip of the whiskey. There was a strange tingling feeling as the unknown liquid went down your throat. You decide to go to your bedroom and lay down on the bed while the liquid does its work, whatever that may be. Before you lay down, you decide to take one last look out the window. All this will be gone after tonight. As you turn back to the room, you think you see a large shadowed figure on the street below, facing your window, but when you look again it's gone. Must be just your imagination but you close the blinds anyway. You lay down in bed and shut your eyes, waiting.
  
  You wake up to a loud high-pitched drilling sound behind you and slowly open your eyes. What you see in front of you is the most horrific sight you have ever seen. Blood, various body parts, knives, and chains are splattered and nailed into the wall across the room. You try to turn your head but it's held in place by a strap around your forehead and a collar around your neck, both hooked to the chair. To the left, you can make out a metal table, with knives, hammers, and other tools on it. In the corner on the right there is a door with a long deadbolt locked across it.
  
  "What the hell is going on!?" you scream. The drilling sound stops. You try to move but you can't feel your legs and your arms are strapped to the metal chair you are in. That vial wasn't full of a lethal liquid at all, you were drugged.
  
  "Glad to see you're finally awake," a deep guttural voice says from behind. A large man walks into view from the left, holding a hand drill up in the air.
  
  "Wh-who the hell are you?!" His face is unlike any you have seen. There are scars that run down the side of his face and through his right eye, which is just a white sphere. Looking closer, The light is just bright enough in the room to make out who he is beneath all the scars.
  
  "Grayson...."
  
  "I'm surprised you remember me." His jaw seemed to move unnaturally when he spoke and was angled down slightly.
  
  "Why are you doing this!? Why me!?"
  
  "Some people I choose fight back, but you—," he revs up the drill a few times, "—you were ready to give up, ripe for the pickings. Did you really think it would be that easy to end it? You don't deserve a quick end."
  
  "You got away with the murder of all those people... two whole innocent families killed and burnt in their homes!"
  
  "I got away, yes, but my brother didn't! You put my innocent brother away for almost a decade! He lost it when he got out. Everything he had was gone because of you and he killed himself because of YOU! And those families weren't innocent, they treated Matt like shit his whole life."
  
  "You're Emerson's brother...? What the hell happened to you?"
  
  "Some of them fight back when they realize they want to live. Those are the ones you see on the wall. I gave each of them the same choice with a vial of the same liquid." Some of the scars on Grayson's face looked somewhat fresh, and poorly stitched up. You also notice his right ear is missing, the whole lobe torn off. You look behind Grayson and count six heads nailed to the wall, facing you with a look of absolute terror and pain. Their eyes and mouths are shut with various parts of their faces missing or with long scars. Since opening your eyes in this hellhole, you regret drinking that vial. This is not how you wanted it to end. There must be some way to get out of this place.
  
  "I suggest you don't fight back." Grayson threatens as he revs up the drill again. He brings it close to your face, then moves it down toward your feet. Suddenly he jams the drill into your foot and you scream in pain. But you can't feel it at all, there is no pain. You can only watch as the blood spurts out and a hole appears in the middle of your foot. "Didn't feel that did you? Good. You won't be running away anytime soon, all thanks to that poison that you so stupidly drank."
  
  You look at your legs and your destroyed left foot and try to feel a sensation, you even try to imagine and feel the pain that the drill must have caused to your foot. You scream as a sharp pain is sent up your leg but you only feel it for a moment. You focus on your right foot and see your big toe wiggle a bit. The paralysis must not last as long as Grayson thought. Grayson walks over to the metal table and sets down the drill. He starts inspecting each of the other torture instruments on the table. While he's distracted, you inspect your bindings more closely. The strap around your forehead is tight and the collar is almost choking you. However, you notice the strap holding your right hand is loose. You might be able to try and squeeze your hand out.
  
  "Well, what shall we cut first?" Grayson wonders aloud.
  
  > wait for the Opportune Moment
  "Shall we go with the toes first? Maybe the eyes? No... the fingers?"
  
  Grayson spends a good minute or two deciding what part to start cutting first and what to cut with. Each minute feels like an eternity. Maybe that was your chance to get out and you missed it.
  
  "Please, you don't have to do this! Just turn yourself in and all of this can end!" Grayson picks up two carving knives and starts to sharpen them, running them across each other like he is getting ready to carve a turkey. "I was stupid for trying to take my own life. Maybe I don't deserve a second chance for what I've done in the past but I want to live!" He puts down the two carving knives and picks up a pair of wire cutters. He turns around, walks toward you and promptly cuts off the pinky finger of your left hand. You scream in agony.
  
  "I decided on the fingers this time. One thing that makes humans different from most wild animals is opposable thumbs. People do lots of stupid things with opposable thumbs." Grayson lines up the wire cutters with your left thumb and chops it off.
  
  "Please!! Please just stop!!!" You beg for your life. Your whole body is throbbing with pain. The blood from your two missing fingers runs down and mixes with the blood of your foot. Grayson positions the wire cutters next to your right thumb. The blood on your left hand is spurting out and making things slippery. You act quickly and slip your left hand easily out of the strap and use your last three fingers to stab Grayson in his one good eye. You take advantage of the loose strap and slip your right hand out. Grayson drops the wire cutters and clutches his face in agony. As he screams, shrieks come out of the wall behind him. The eyes and mouths of the faces open and they stare directly at you, seemingly with both hate and sorrow. Their shrieks chill you to the bone.
  
  You pick up the wire cutters quickly and swing them at Grayson's head. He hits the ground hard with his face covered in blood. The shrieks from the wall die down quickly and turn into sorrowful moaning. This hellish place needs to burn and Grayson deserves to die for what he's done. But first you go to the door and unbolt it. You see a long staircase with a glimmer of light at the top and you start walking up. At the top you push open a cellar door. The bright sun shines in through the windows upon a completely normal looking farmhouse on the outskirts of the city. You find a telephone on the counter and call 911. Grayson needs to be put on trial and sent to prison. The case that took so many lives and ruined your own needs to be solved and your mistake set right.
  
  You walk back downstairs into the darkness and enter the room. Grayson's body is gone, only a pool of blood where he was. You walk around the room looking everywhere, then you turn toward the wall. Grayson's body-less face opens its eyes, stares at you, and screams.