Short Stories

Character: any

Prompt: One team member in screaming pain for some
reason, and another being driven to distraction by this.

Rating: R

Warning: convoluted logic

x-x-x

For the Mission

It was for the mission. He held his face straight even
though he wanted to flinch with every yelp of pain. It was for the mission, he
kept repeating like a mantra. It was all for the mission.

It was his partner.

No. Not his partner. An enemy spy. An enemy spy he himself
had caught. An enemy spy that needed to give up crucial information.

And he had to torture his partner, the enemy spy, because
both of them were undercover agents and had their own role to fulfill. His
partner to plant fake information. He to extract said information and make it
look real.

That was the plan. Their plan. And his partner was screaming
because everything was going to plan.

Afterwards, when his partner had faked breaking and
spilling, it was going to be his job to fake his partner’s death. They already
had a corpse waiting that bore a close enough resemblance. With a bit of
doctoring, it was going to pass inspection. But until then, he had to make his
partner bleed and suffer, and it had to look real because they were being
watched.

So he made it real.

He clenched his teeth and drew the knife across his
partner’s skin. Again. He was a cold-hearted interrogation expert and wasn’t
distracted by the enemy’s screams. Not now, not ever.

It was for the mission, he repeated after every thin slice
and every flinch and every keening moan of pain. It was all for the mission.