suggestions welcome for future iterations of editing.Note - I don't know why the paragraphs aren't staying in the post. I'll put a space where they should start.
Edit - Corrected spelling. Changed bards to barbs.
Update - Just updated with a few more edits.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lay Awake - Intro - Jeremy A Benson
Introduction
There was no one to hear her blood curdling screams in the dense forest that surrounded her. Only the thickets she was forced in— the ones of thistles like razors, and thorns like barbs, that tore at her flesh— could catch her final blood gargling howl. The silence of the night did so little as to even render their excruciating echos from reverberating throughout the depths of the forest's surrounding expanse. It didn't even have the slightest thought of decency. This place was cursed. It cared not for who entered it, and cared not for who died in it. It, itself, would have murdered her in a fit of rage had it not been for the fact that it had already been done. It's choice— brutal, and unforgiving— would have been starvation, as not so much as an edible berry had grown for miles. Even the creatures of the wood had grown content in devouring one another for that which they cared most for: survival.
The man who had just finished choking the last ounce of life from her twitching limbs grabbed her lifeless body by the hair and drug it from the pool of blood left in the bush. The flesh on her naked heals tore away on the ground as her body was pulled along the forest's surface. One pink heel, busted and useless, lie in the bush she was pulled from while the other had come of several yards away. Trails of blood being left behind were already beginning to coagulate as bits of dirt, and particles of crushed leaves, soaked up their remnants. There would be little left behind for the creatures of the forest to feast upon in the late hours of the night.
The body had been drug for miles, down hills and through ravines. By time her killer had reached his destination, an abandoned shack located deep within the woods, most of the flesh on the backs of her legs had been scraped away. The massive man that now possessed her pulled her up the three wooden stairs to the deck's surface without so much as an excretion of effort. Her heals smashed against each step with a thump, as he traveled thoughtlessly up them. When he reached the top he dropped her at the door like a sack of rotten meat. Her body landed on the hand fashioned deck with a heavy thud. Blood leaked from her wounds down through the spaces between the boards. He cared little for her now. Now that she was dead he had no desire for her, or her body. The only emotion he was willing to show her then utter disgust.
The weathered door creaked like old bones as he opened it. The monotonous drilling of a wood pecker— tata tat, tata tat, tata tat— could be heard echoing throughout the surrounding wood as he stepped inside. The lifeless body of his victim lay upon the deck as he rummaged about the dilapidated shack, preparing it for the work ahead of him. Several crashes could be heard as he worked about his belongings inside. He made no effort to conceal the noises he made. There was no one to care, no one within earshot, and certainly no one within miles. He cared not for the silence of he woods.
Who would miss her? She had no one. After her life had fallen apart the only solace she found was in the pin pricks of the needles. The ones she had pushed into her veins in the back alley of Crows Place were all she had known in the end. By that time she had thought they were the only friends she had. When her life had been degraded to its most meaningless point her body became her only known means of generating enough income to keep a roof over her head. No one would look for her. No one would care that she was gone. Her presence in the world would disappear, and not a single one of her clients would give her so much as a second thought. Her disappearance would echo but once within the mind of any man.
When the rummaging in the shack had dwindled to a stop the beast of a man stepped out onto the deck. He once again grabbed the lifeless body by the hair and lifted it into the air. Without so much as a grunt he pulled her inside, while letting the door slam shut behind him as he cleared it. It made several loud snapping noises as it bounced back and forth in the frame before setting itself in place. The noises echoed from tree to tree until they disappeared into the depths of the lonely wood that cradled the shack.
Within a matter of seconds he had the body placed on a blood soaked table in the center of the room. The table— covered with chunks of flesh, parts of organs, and bits of broken bone which still had bloody flesh attached to them— would be her bed for the night. It was his alter, and work space. The stench emanating from it would have been enough to make any man gauge to the point of vomiting. That's if he had made it through the wave of putrid smell that would have struck him to the pit of his stomach once he opened up the door. The massive man who now stood behind the table, readying himself for the work he loathed, would have been sick had he any resemblance of his human nature still intact. The only part of him that remained was the blackest part. The part that would destroy anyone; he would kill anyone that came his way.
He picked up a handsaw that he had laying on the table and placed it to the bodies right leg. In one forward thrust he pushed it's blade to the bone where its jagged teeth got stuck. Blood splattered up into his face as the blade had severed the leg's flesh. He licked it away as he pulled the blade backwards through the meat of the leg. Its jagged teeth, dulled and rusted, were practically useless for the work it had set before it. It was through sheer physical strength he was able to force it though tissue, sinews, and bone. Using more of his weight on the second thrust he was able to forced the blade through the bone itself. It had sounded much like wood had been sawed, except for the grotesque snap at the end, followed by the moist sounds of tissue being displaced. Only a thin layer of flesh on the backside of the leg kept the nearly severed limb attached to itself. As he begrudgingly pulled the blade towards himself, while holding it flush against the table, the limb was severed.
