See You On The Other Side [Short Stories]

[Noctavya]

See You On The Other Side - Short Story​
Commissioned Stories by @Grayman44​


Afghanistan, 21st September 2015. 09:30 hours

They never got the chance. The convoy was supposed to be a routine field inspection by the colonel in a sector that had been declared sterile for six straight weeks. Four Humvees, two Afghan escort pickups, twenty-three souls total. The road was nothing special, just another sun-blasted scar across the Registan desert. Then the first RPG turned the lead vehicle into a fireball and everything after that happened too fast to scream.

By 09:37 the shooting was over. By 09:45 the survivors were flex-cuffed and thrown into the beds of two white Toyota Hiluxes that had appeared out of nowhere. By 10:00 the burning American trucks were already shrinking in the rear-view, black smoke climbing into a sky that didn’t give a damn.

The truck slammed over another pothole and the chains bit deeper into Natasha’s wrists. Dust choked the air, thick and hot, tasting of diesel and blood from where the zip-ties had already split skin. She leaned hard into Colonel Olden, shoulder to shoulder, voice cracking, barely audible over the screaming engine.

“Sir, what are they going to do to us, please, I need to know, I can’t just sit here not knowing.”

Olden kept his eyes fixed on the swaying canvas wall, jaw clenched, voice flat as desert gravel.

“Keep breathing, Private. Slow. In through the nose.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying, but I need you to tell me, sir, please don’t make me guess.”

“You already know the shape of it. You just want the words.”

“I want them from you, not from what I’m imagining, because my imagination is worse, it’s so much worse.”

He exhaled once, slow.

“They’ll separate us the minute the tailgate drops. You’ll be the only woman in this load. That makes you rare. Rare gets used.”

“Used how, sir, used how, tell me exactly.”

“Strip search first. Full cavity. Every guard in the yard will watch. Hands will wander. Phones will come out. Then the cold hose, maybe the razor if someone’s feeling artistic. After that it’s whoever paid the most this week.”

Her breath hitched hard, almost a sob, but she swallowed it.

“The videos, the proof-of-life ones, they’ll make me cry on camera.”

“They’ll want tears. They’ll hurt you until they get them.”

“And after the camera stops, after, they’ll, oh God, they’ll rape me, over and over, won’t they.”

“Yes.”

“How many.”

“Five. Fifty. Depends how long the party lasts.”

She pressed her forehead to the rough wood bench, trembling, whispering fast.

“I’m going to beg. I’m going to scream. I’m going to piss myself. I know I will. I’m already shaking so bad I can’t stop.”

“You probably will beg. Doesn’t make you less. Just means you’re alive.”

“I don’t want to give them that sound. I don’t want them to hear me break.”

“Then pick one thing they can’t take. One memory. Lock it behind your teeth. When the pain comes, you go there.”

“What’s yours, sir, tell me yours.”

“My daughter’s eighth-grade graduation. Purple dress. Off-key national anthem. Smell of gym floor wax. That’s mine.”

She nodded frantically, tears cutting clean lines through the dust on her cheeks.

“My little brother’s laugh, the way it turns into a snort, I’m keeping that, I’m keeping it.”

“Good girl. Lock it down tight.”

The truck lurched again, chains rattled, her bare knee knocked against his.

“If I talk, if I give them names, unit, anything.”

“They already have everything. You say whatever keeps air in your lungs one more day. No tribunal will ever blame you.”

“I’ll blame me. I’ll hate me forever.”

“Then hate yourself later. Survive first.”

She leaned into him, trembling so hard her teeth chattered.

“I’m proud I served under you, sir. I just, I needed to say that before, before they take me.”

“Shut up, Private. We are not dead yet.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When they drag you out, eyes forward. Don’t give them your eyes. First thing they want is to see you look at them. Deny them that.”

“Eyes forward. I’ll try. I’m so scared I’m going to look.”

“You won’t. You’ll stare at the wall like it owes you money.”

The engine pitch dropped, floodlights stabbed through the canvas gaps, white and merciless.

She sucked in a ragged breath, voice small, already surrendering.

“I’m not ready. I’m never going to be ready.”

“No one ever is. But you’re as ready as it gets.”

“I’m going to break, sir. I’m going to break wide open.”

“You’ll break. Then you’ll scar. Scars hold.”

The truck rolled to a halt. Boots pounded outside. Shouted orders.

She straightened, chains clinking, eyes already fixed on nothing.

“See you on the other side, Colonel.”

“Count on it, Private.”

The flap ripped open and the light poured in like judgment.



Day 1

The gates clanged shut and the yard emptied of everything except her screams. They started with three guards, then six, then a line that never ended. By the third hour she was on her knees in the dust, voice already shredded, begging in two languages for them to stop, promising anything. They laughed, filmed it vertically, made her say her own name while she took them in her mouth, her cunt, her ass, all at once. When she collapsed they hosed her down and started again.

Day 2

They moved her to the officers’ block. Cleaner floor, worse men. She stopped fighting after the first slap split her lip. Learned fast that obedience only made them harder. They taught her positions, phrases in Arabic, how to crawl without using her swollen knees. She licked sweat from their boots, rimmed them clean after they shat, thanked them when they pissed on her face. Each time she thought it was over they found new holes, new ways. Her throat turned to raw meat; she could only croak, a broken whistle.

Day 3–5

No sleep longer than twenty minutes. Chained spread-eagle on a metal table under a bare bulb. A rota: ten minutes each, no repeats until the circle finished. Cum dried in layers on her skin, crusted her eyelashes. They bet cigarettes on how many loads she could hold before it leaked out. When she passed out they slapped her awake with their belts. She stopped knowing what day it was, only that the pain had levels and they kept finding deeper ones.

Day 6

They dragged the colonel past her door so he could hear. He was already limping, trousers torn, the smell of burned flesh coming off him where they’d pressed a car battery to his testicles until he vomited. They made him watch through the grate while four men took her at once. He didn’t scream; he had nothing left. Just stared like a dead man who hadn’t been told yet.


Day 7

Natasha lies on a stained mattress in a windowless room, legs splayed and trembling, a slow rivulet of blood and semen running from every orifice. Her eyes are open but unfocused, lips moving soundlessly. When the next guard walks in she instinctively rolls to her knees, mouth already parting, because that’s all that’s left of her now: muscle memory and surrender. The guards grin; the prettier they break, the longer they keep them alive for sport.



Somewhere down the corridor the colonel breathes through a mouth of broken teeth, counting heartbeats, waiting for the moment. See you on the other side kid, he said to himself.