Most months in the year I am supplied, throughout the month, with little tasks devised by my Mistress. They are usually seasonally bound and can vary from painful, to humiliating, to arts & crafts, or even a scavenger hunt through the city I live in – really just about anything. So, currently with October my tasks have been Halloween themed. The most recent one being a writing task that I have been asked to share here as well which will be the main part of this blog post, just to give an idea what kind of enforced creative fun I get up to being owned property.

The task was to create my own haunted house torture chamber and here is the result:

The mansion looms under a blood-red moon, its silhouette against the starless sky. Gnarled trees clutch at its cracked stone walls like skeletal hands. Overgrown ivy climbing up the side, shrouding darkened windows that look like they have not seen light in years. The roof sags under the weight of time, with broken turrets rising like the bones of some long-dead creature. The front door, heavy and weathered, hangs slightly off center, creaking on its hinges as if S.O.S.-ing its need for WD-40. However, carved pumpkins are neatly displayed with lit candles inside next to the entrance. When standing in front of the house, a faint whisper of wind stirs the air, carrying with it the excitement of Halloween soon to come.

Entering the shrieking metal gate in the fencing surrounding the house, a winding path leads to the door – which after it is opened unlocks a hallway stretching deep into the building and with an unusually high ceiling. Walking through the hall the floorboards creak, kicking up a little dust with every step being set, as if no one has dared to enter this abode in recent memory. There are doors branching off from the hallway, leading to a kitchen, dining hall, coat room and other sections of the place until the corridor ends in front of a staircase leading up to a first floor where an atrium is located.

The room is massive, its stone walls blackened, here and there parts of what once was wallpaper plastered over the stone can still be seen blackened and half torn off. Flickering candle lights from a somewhat gaudy chandelier casts long, dancing shadows that seem to move of their own accord. Whilst candles are often cozy, within this room the atmosphere seems to be drenched in a single emotion – fear. Chains dangle from the high ceiling, swaying ever so slightly, clinking together. Along the walls hang an assortment of ancient torture devices—each one a relic of pain and suffering. One of them, a cat o’ nine tails rests on a hook, its leather strips cracked from use, tipped with shards of metal that can tear flesh with each lashing. The handle is worn smooth, gripped countless times.

Nearby, a rack stretches out like a cruel bed, its wooden gears looking worn and as if they remember the screams of their last victim. The leather straps that bind wrists and ankles now empty, but eagerly awaiting to be used again. Against another wall is a pillory, its rough wood splintered and just beside it sits a branding iron, the tip of the metal rod used to sear flesh blackened from its usage.

A medieval pear of anguish, black and glistening, lies on a nearby table alongside a scold’s bridle, jagged knives, thumbscrews, and whips, meticulously arranged as if part of some twisted surgeon’s kit. Above them, mounted on the wall, are rows of shackles and hooks with beside it a flaying table stretching out into the room. The table’s surface is marred by deep, dark stains and the instruments above gleam in the candlelight, their jagged edges made for peeling back skin with precision. This torture device is one of careful, calculated cruelty, meant not to kill but to flay, leaving every nerve raw and exposed.

In the center of the room, suspended just above the floor, and underneath the chandelier hangs an ominous metal cage, large enough to trap a person but without giving much space to maneuver inside. A lock which looks to be newer than the rest of the room and house is placed on the metal attachment of the small entrance of the cage to secure whoever is stowed inside from escape.

Near the back of the room, a scavenger’s daughter lays against the wall, its iron frame designed to crush victims into agonizing submission. It looks like a twisted embrace, cruelly intimate in its intent to squeeze the life out of its victims, inch by inch. In the Tower of London to be found as a museum piece but seemingly placed here for its original purpose.

In between all the larger torture devices stand more items to keep one restraint, like an Andrew’s cross and the rest of the wall room is occupied by shelves on which items like sets of pliers and tongs rest, ready to be used. Tools that may be small but are no less cruel. Able to rip nails from fingers and tongues from mouths they are a scary sight to behold. There are no windows, no escape. The only door to the room is a thick slab of iron which is somehow controlled by technological means far superior than any of the other items found even anywhere close, namely by code and fingerprint of just a very special person wandering around and haunting this otherwise dilapidated house.

Afterwards I was tasked to draw out how this torture chamber would look, and oh my goodness, drawing is the real torture. I should have thought out an art-studio for my torture room design instead. At least a humbling experience in respecting those who actually can draw and have it look good. Not that I am actually a skilled writer either but at least I can feel a little confident in that pursuit, but drawing, painting… weirdly only carving pumpkins I do a decent job at!