I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

Jacky was sitting.

The chair had broken, inexplicably.

Queeg had started speaking to him again.

"So, you think you've won?" Queeg said to him.

"I wouldn't say my life is perfect. My peers don't respect me, I am a liability to them and to myself, and I am going slowly mad from stress. But in this situation, you've failed and I've won. I cannot be killed in your little trap." Jacky said with an air of smug.

"I gave it some thought." Queeg said. "You haven't won. You've made it worse for yourself. Have you ever read the story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream?"

"I have." said Jacky, with an expression of hidden panic.

"Remind me." said Queeg. "What's the story about?"

Jacky gulped.

"In the far off f-future..." he stuttered. "Only 5 members of humanity are left alive..."

"Go on."

"They are kept alive forever by the computer AM... which uses them as playthings to keep them suffering." Jacky choked out.

Queeg let out a sigh of pleasure.

"Now..." Queeg began. "Doesn't that sound familiar?"

Jacky's seat was forced back, so that he was lying down. He couldn't see in the darkness, but a blanket was being wrapped around him. Tightly. He was being strapped in.

"No. Please, Queeg. I'm Claustro-" Jacky tried to say, not finishing due to an unseen force stuffing something large into his mouth to gag him.

Jacky began to shake and panic. His chair was stood up. The feeling only made things worse. Then he felt a moment of weightlessness.

Oh my god, Jacky thought. I'm being lifted up.

Jacky was suspended in mid-air, bound and gagged. He was throwing a heavy panic, wondering how it could get any worse.

Drip

He wasn't.

Drip

He wouldn't.

Drip

He is.

Drip

Jacky's secret irrational fear had been realized.

He was being put through Chinese water torture.

He would have screamed if he could have.