Prologue

The world was blurred at the edges, everything span for a sickening moment until through the haze a face was visible. It was smiling at him, a woman's face he recognised at once. Usually recognition was a positive thing, but not this time. Her face slowly came into focus and he could only stare at her as she began to speak.

"I'm sorry baby, I told you I wasn't interested in your scheme..." He remembered her voice and the way she had spoken those words with playful cruelty. It was just like he was there again strapped to that table in that dark room unable to move an inch. He saw again the doctor advancing upon him with that spinning device in his hand. He couldn't look away from that device; it was the same one that had haunted his nightmares every night for six months. As it came closer he struggled and fought but there was no escape, not this time, not any time. Suddenly all he was aware of was the pain, he screamed and when that didn't work he begged, he pleaded and then he screamed again until he could think of nothing else but the torture. The world went red as the pain continued unrelentingly and then darkness fell, a darkness that would never end.

He woke up screaming, the pain still tearing through him. He would sit bolt upright every night with sweat pouring down his face as the pain faded. At least in his dreams it faded quickly, at least in his dreams he could escape the sound of his own agonising screaming. He heard his own broken breathing, uneven and ragged. He began to shake violently, he would not sleep again that night.