24) Screaming//Sacrifice
Bonus 11) Torture and 22) Survivor’s guilt
Disclaimer: this blurb is set in the SCP SBI AU I have called Fault. No specific part of the timeline, summoning sessions happen so often it doesn’t matter. Explanation of AU; tldr.
You’re not supposed to scream.
That had been one of the hardest lessons of the summoning ritual for Tommy to learn. Screaming was a form of manipulation. It was a horrible, nasty trick to try on the humans, so of course a rotten monster like him had to be taught not to. He wasn’t supposed to exploit their mercy like that, and yet for some reason Tommy couldn’t manage to stop for the longest time.
But given enough time even the most basic of instincts could be broken. Lessons beaten so deep even the terror of mortal panic could not override the need to obey. Little rules built together, each lesson learned a little harsher, until eventually Tommy was the perfect docile altar lamb.
He learned to throttle his screams before the humans could do it for him. The whimpers, too, stifled alongside his sobs. Begging was forbidden, though that was easier to abandon given talking was already harshly discouraged. Tommy turned instead to silent, desperate pleading for salvation. He didn’t know if The Blood God listened to prayers.
He listened to pain, though.
A flinch jolted him at the brush of contact upon his throat, and at once he tried to smother it, shoving down the instinct. Tommy very carefully didn’t move, holding rigidly still as uncertain fingers prodded at the bruises already there from last session. His breathing hitched, heartbeat slamming against the hands resuming their place ensnaring his throat. The Blood God would be summoned right before Tommy drew his last breath and not a second sooner.
He’d lost count of how many last breaths he’d taken. The familiar burn of his lungs, screaming at him to save them. That instinctual thrashing against the countless hands pinning him to the floor, a dance well memorized by his worn body. Minutes passed, the convulsions beginning as his diaphragm desperately compressed and contracted, trying to force air down. Writhing as fire ate through his chest, screaming for release that would never come, could never be allowed to come.
Black ink pooled in the edge of his vision, death approaching. He didn’t fight it. He wasn’t allowed to. Even on the verge of his own murder was obedient, the lessons engraved into him. It was a resistance long broken in him, long before the current summoning session. First, still the want to fight. Things like swinging and kicking at the soldiers were discouraged quickly given their meager effects were repaid tenfold. Things like biting or scratching at the hands upon him were not approved of, though they were mostly reserved to occurring during the throes of panic when he had little awareness left. Still, enough punishment and even that stopped.
He had one act of rebellion, though. Eventually, they’d stopped caring enough to punish it, and Tommy clung desperately to the one piece of the ritual that was his. At the very start, when the soldiers dragged him into the summoning room, before the session began. Tommy stared every one of his sacrificers in the eyes. He couldn’t remember every face, they blurred together after so long. Still, it didn’t feel right not to try. Someone had to commemorate them, and if they succeeded Tommy would be the only one left who could. So Tommy locked eyes with each of his torturers.
And then he apologized to them.
He had to do it at the start, when he could still speak. Sometimes he wondered what they were told. Were they told how awful he was and know exactly how deserved this was, or did they think him some poor yet necessary cost in the name of countless civilian lives? Did they know they would be the ones to chain The Blood God once more? Were they simply following orders? Did they know nothing at all?
Surely no one told them Tommy wasn’t the only sacrifice in the room.
Or maybe they knew. Maybe they’d accepted their roles, just like he’d accepted his. Maybe they were willing, enthusiastic even, ready to become martyrs for the sake of humanity. Tommy didn’t know. He couldn’t ask. He was permitted his apology and no more.
Tommy forced himself to remember the details of the person choking him to death. The curve of their nose, the few strands of hair escaping the biohazard face shield that was splattered with scarlet. The features blurred as darkness swallowed his vision, but he caught the flash of fear as the pool of ruby haloing Tommy rippled unaturally and surged outwards. Ruby runes carved themselves across the padded cell floor, smearing The Blood God’s name into existence.
In the hesitation of confusion-awe-terror, the vice on his throat eased just the slightest. Tommy gasped, only for the grip to immediately tighten, gloved fingers clawing into the mottled bruises staining his neck in the dark shadow of a noose. Pulverising, and Tommy’s panic spiked. They should’ve let go, they needed to run. But the human was determined to finish the job even as scarlet light blossomed around Tommy.
The strangulation abruptly stopped as The Blood God tore the human off him. They were ripped apart in seconds. Death fell upon the room, swift and brutal in his conquest. Tommy couldn’t save them, simply curling into himself where he lay in a pool of crimson. Each sucked down rasp of air hurt. Greedy, given the growing plethora of last breaths claimed by The Blood God. He alone would continue to breathe out of all of them. Each one hurt.
Only once the last of them were dead could he speak again. The same words, over and over, no matter how it felt like choking out broken glass. The mantras Philza had given him to ward off the guilt of what he’d done.
You didn’t choose this.
They deserve it.
It’s not your fault.
Tommy began to sob, and it was just as suffocating as the strangulation had been. The blood of his fellow sacrifices tangled in the glowing sigils of the summoning circle radiating out from him.
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