Alice’s eyes itched ferociously as the gray dawn washed to a searing pink. She itched ferociously but couldn’t move her arms to get at the worst spots on her neck. She could barely lift her head to see the ripped flesh of her breasts, claw marks across her belly. A white nylon rope secured her wrists and legs to nearby trees. Soul-chilling terror rose at the premeditation of the rope and at her feeble, useless struggles. She was naked, spread-eagled, bone cold even though the skin at her wrists reddened and bubbled in the faint light of dawn. She screamed, but all that came out was a deep, rasping cough, like a lung-shot bear. The slashes on her chest and belly curled out, exposed their gaping slashes to the burgeoning light, and those edges, too, began to bubble. The clearing around her, trampled grass soaked in blood and branches snapped, mirrored the force of a battle she barely remembered.
The skin on her face and hands burned with the light, bone-cold damp replaced now with a flame-thrower. She twitched and squirmed, cringed and thrashed, but the burning intensified. Alice screamed again, but only a dry hiss escaped the gashes in her throat. Her skin blackened and peeled. She couldn’t keep her eyes open against the acid sunlight, but her struggles freed one of her wrists as the skin peeled off. She slapped and thrashed as her body bubbled and burned with a hiss.