Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language.
“Wakey wakey.”
Everything was blurry. Finch tried to open her eyes, screwed them tight, then opened them again. There was a cold floor under her knees. She was in a room, illuminated by a solitary bulb, silhouetting… someone standing over her.
Finch yelled, went to stand up – and was jerked back down to the concrete, held by what she realised were manacles around her hands.
Candine grinned at her and kneeled down. “Hey, Claire.”
“What the f-”
“Yeah, you got caught,” he said. “Turns out you and your buddies weren’t immortal after all.”
Not… immortal? What-
“Where are they?” Finch demanded. “Bone? Terrier? Jay? Dee?”
“You mean Christopher Silverstone, Terrence Grant, John Kelly and Davis Barrister?
Her face blanched.
“Where,” she said, trying to keep her trembling voice level, “Where are they?”
“Dead,” Candine answered. “Got shot real good.”
Finch screamed and helplessly tried to move again, getting her knee underneath her and pushing against the floor, determined to either shatter her chains or break her kneecap doing it-
“They were the lucky ones, y’know,” Candine said. “I don’t envy what’s about to happen to you.”
Finch stopped and stared at him with red eyes, praying with all her heart that the bastard would trip on his big head and die. “What’re you going to do?”
“What am I going to do? I didn’t mention anything about me being involved-”
“What the fuck are you going to fucking do to me?”
“Whoa, now. You should stop that yelling before I have to ask my buddy there to gag you,” Candine said, and for the first time Finch noticed the man standing behind her captor. Blinking down tears, she gritted her teeth and forced herself into sullen silence.
“Good,” said Mr. Piece-Of-Shit. “Now, uh, the government’s gone through a bit of a fuss debating what to do with you, what with launching the entire world into nuclear war.”
“We were trying to-”
“Uh-uh,” Candine interrupted her. “I’m talking.”
“Fuck you, asshole – you know that we didn’t-”
“One more word and you’re gettin’ the gag.” Candine waited for her to talk, and when she didn’t, he smiled. “Good. As I was saying – We didn’t really know what to do with you, since the death sentence is, unfortunately, banned. We could just put you in a life sentence, but let’s be honest-” Candine let out a stupid little laugh- “Nobody here wants you alive. Thankfully,” he said brightly, “I came up with a suggestion! You can ask me what the suggestion was now.”
Finch took in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and exhaled. “What,” she said, “Was your fucking suggestion, Sir Fuckface?”
At her words, Candine let out his widest grin yet. “Tell me, Claire-”
“You don’t get to call me that-”
“-Do you know what a lobotomy is?”
She froze.
“Surprise!”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“It’s happenin’.”
“Fucking God fuck – that’s the same as fucking murdering me, you fucking god damn mother fuck-”
Finch could say no more as a rough gag was shoved into her mouth, cutting her words where they stood, leaving her able to only emit muted screams.
Through a blurred veil of tears, Candine was still smiling. Holy mother of assholes, he was still smiling. “Surprise number two,” he said. “It’s happening now.” He took a moment to grin at her one more time before he stood up and his assistant unlocked her chains, roughly grabbing her by the armpits, hoisting her onto an emergency bed.
-
The overhead lights of the prison flashing by were the only thing she could see, besides the men escorting her and fucking Candine. Finch screamed into her gag all the way.
This is not it. This is not the end. They are not dead. They’re going to come for me and Jay’s gonna shoot Candine in his stupid fucking mouth and we’re all going to live.
Her heart was hammering against her chest, sweat coming down her brow, and Finch realised her hands were shaking. Candine had to be lying. There was no way. Bone wouldn’t die to a couple government shitbags. Dee wouldn’t get caught. There was no way. They had to be alive. They had to be. Because if they weren’t, then…
Please God no.
The lights suddenly stopped moving. Candine came into the centre of her vision, that smile not able to leave his fucking face. “We’re here.” He stepped away for a second and came back with what looked like a circular glass, like the ones dentists used to shine light on your teeth. “Thanks to the miracle of modern technology,” he said, “We have machines to do this nasty stuff now. Quick, easy, none of that Neolithic head-opening business.” Candine put on a pair of lab glasses. “Though it’s still gonna be a little painful,” he added.
Finch felt the gag being stripped away.
“Don’t want to miss your last words.”
She could feel her shuddering breath going in and out of her lungs, the cold air on her face, the cloth of the bed under her clenched, trembling hands, the wetness streaking down her cheek. It was happening. Candine was going to effectively erase her – her memories, her brain functions, everything. She’d be reduced to the mental capacity of a drooling child.
No.
“Kill me,” Finch said.
Candine frowned and put up his glasses, leaning in. “Sorry?”
“Fucking kill me,” she repeated.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Candine said.
“Do it, you fucking asshole.”
“Nope.” Candine moved out of sight again.
“Candine, kill me. Kill me. Fucking kill me.”
“Weren’t you guys the ones who had the death sentence removed in the first place? Something about it being inhumane to murder a human being against their will, I recall.”
“I want to you to kill me. I want to die, Candine, do you fucking hear me? I want to die.”
Something entered the inside of her elbow. Numbly, Finch moved her head down to see a needle.
“I lied about the pain part,” Candine said cheerily. “Regulations require me to give you anaesthesia – but there’s nothing about knocking you out entirely. Besides-” He leaned by her ear, reducing his voice to a hiss- “I don’t want you to get distracted.” With that, he gestured to people out of sight to come. Strong hands went on to her shoulders and knees, pinning her down, and Finch convulsed.
“Kill me. Kill me. Kill me, Candine - fucking smash my head in with a hammer, I don’t care, just-”
The lobotomizing machine was being readjusted, aimed right between her eyes-
“KILL ME! KILL ME, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! ISN’T THIS WHAT YOU WANTED? FUCKING KILL ME, I AM FUCKING BEGGING YOU PLEASE GOD DON’T FUCKING-”
“It was fun,” she heard him say.
“NO! NO, NO NO – PLEASE! PLEASE, CANDINE, I’M FUCKING SORRY – FOR THE LOVE OF FUCKING GOD PLEASE-”
Zap.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,805 Reviews
This is Kaos here for a review!
This is a nice start to the last part (chapter?) of your future book. I like the description you use to start us off, like the cold floor being under her knees and all. The only problem or thing you could fix is the ellipses after "silhouetting" which I found didn't really need to be there and just felt rather awkward.
I think that it's rather awkward for Finch to roll call all of the seemingly main characters, and that a "Where are they?" would do it better. I think it also adds to the character of Candine for her to give the reader a roll call of all the names.
Finch is sassy even in the face of death, which was odd for me to read. It fit her character well and really showed what kind of person she was. Despite her pleading for death, I felt this wasn't what she really wanted. This feels like some sort of story that had started out happy and then becomes a sort of "what have I gotten myself into" type of thing.
The ending, if you don't decide to change it, is quite weak in my opinion. You can't just have a character be that emotional and then just end it with a zap. There was no payoff of all the buildup and it seemed rather anticlimactic. At least end it with something that will make the reader feel more emotion. If you're going to go with an ending where the main character/narrator is going to die, you have to do something more for the book.
I felt like the ending was sort of unexplained. Why would Finch be in belief that her and her friends aren't immortal? This being the ending for your future book, a lot of stuff is unexplained to the reader currently. The reader doesn't know everything that you do about the characters, rather only knowing what is told in the story, be sure to remember that.
I hope this helped and have a great day!
Whoa. Cheery.
Okay, this isn't much, but here we go.
Overall, I thought this was pretty good. Without reading the rest of the story (which, I take it, doesn't exist yet, as this is an "ending for a future book"), I have a decent sense of the way it must have gone: a spiraling rise and fall of hope and despair, characters desperately trying to change the world they live in, sometimes making victories that feel like a move toward the eventual realization of their dreams, only to later get crushed. Oh, man. I can picture ridiculous amounts of suspense in this story.
I also get a decent sense of Finch's character, with the way she keeps swearing and is even--er, aggressive, yes, but also kind of sassy? but that's not quite the right word--like the way she thinks of Candine as "Mr. Piece of Shit" and actually calls him "Sir Fuckface" out loud to his face. Oh my gosh. And how she would rather die than be lobotomized.
Although, really...I have a hard time imagining I wouldn't want the same thing, if those were the only two possibilities.
The only moment that was a little weird for me was this.
Of course, since this is an ending without a story, without this we wouldn't actually know happened to bring Finch to this point. But! presumably when you actually used this at the end of an existing story, we would know why she's here. Thus, the "what with launching the entire world into nuclear war" felt a little forced, like you were trying to let readers know what happened since there's no story for them to read.
So that was the one thing that got me. You could probably just delete that part of the sentence--at least if you ever write the story attached to this ending.
Ohhhhh my God. Holy...wow. Just wow. This was fantastic! And sad.
Well, really two words explain this--very moving. I can imagine this being some sort of movie! It has to be. No choice. It's gonna be a movie some day. I've GOT to see this!
tenouddaten