Immortal Kane

The night was cold and desolate, the darkness it wreaked covered the wasteland in a thick black blanket. In that darkness, hiding underneath a broken overpass - ruins of the old world - a small fire flickered through the black. Four men were gathered around it. They all wore thick layers of filthy rags worn down beyond recognition. Wretched hunchbacks, all huddled around the campfire, their arms reaching out for its warmth.

“Ya think it’s ready?” One of them asked.

“I’ll go check” Another answered as he got up and walked away from the group.

He went a few paces down the road and inside an old building in ruins. The roof was wrecked, and all the windows had long been broken, yet inside, the darkness seemed darker than outside. Near the entrance was stashed an old oil lamp, he took it and set it alight. The glow was faint, but bright enough to see what he came looking for. In a corner of the decrepit interior was a man lying motionless in a foetal position, naked, cold, and covered in dirt. The orange glow made the man look like a foetus still in utero. His hands were chained to the wall. The floor where he laid was covered in dark red stains, so were the walls behind him. His body was wiry, yet still he looked sickly thin. The other man walked closer and hovered the lamp over him, looking intensely at his naked body. More specifically, he looked at his legs. They had a pinkish hue, and somehow looked less dirty than the rest of his body. He set the lamp down on the dusty floor and walked back outside to the rest of the group.

“Yeah, I reckon it’s ready.” He said to the others as he grabbed a rusted saw from one of their bags.

“Perfect!” Another said, eagerly.

He walked back inside the ruins to find the man, still laying nude and motionless. He crouched down and violently pulled his legs forward, his shoulders twisting awkwardly as the chain attached from the wall to his hands went taut. This woke the man, and he grunted slightly. “Shut up.” The other man said emotionlessly and dispassionately, without even looking at him. The naked man said nothing. He could barely see through his overgrown hair, all matted and dirty with ash and dust. The other man took a brick and tugged it under one of the man’s legs. He then took the rusted saw and pressed it against it, on the upper part of his thigh. Pushing down, he started to move the saw back and forth against the flesh. His movements were quick and eager, not very precise.

“Careful. Don’t cut my dick off.” The naked man said in an unusually calm voice, almost detached from the situation.

Immediately and erratically the other man stopped cutting and grasped the naked man’s throat. “I said shut up!” His tone was aggressive and brutal, the words spitting out of his mouth with drool. “You’re meat. Meat don’t talk. So shut the fuck up!” He wiped the blood off his hands and on his jacket before going back to work, cutting even more erratically than before. Without so much as a flinch the naked man said: “Should I moo instead?”. The cutting stopped, reaching behind his back, clipped on his belt, the other man took out a pocketknife, opened it and slammed it down against the man’s testicles. With rageful hate the man said:

“We’ll try immortal’s balls tonight! If we like it, we’ll cut them off again, and again, and again… You can count on me to pluck them off myself as soon as they grow back! It’ll be a nice snack on the road what do you think? Know what!? We’ll even let you try some! How’d you like it huh? Eating your own fucking balls…”

“If you wanna swallow my cum, be my guest.”

The man pulled the pocketknife off of the floor and without thinking reached towards the naked man’s face. With indescribable rage he said:

“I’ll cut out your fucking tongue! It’ll grow back but at least I can carve in silence!”

Blinded by his hate towards the man, he hadn’t realized how close he’d gotten. The other took advantage and slammed his skull against him, knocking him out immediately.

There he sat on the cold floor of a house in ruins, a half-cut leg, and a torn scrotum. Warmed only by the heat of his own blood. The passed-out body of his captor laying next to him. It wasn’t the first time he’d been caught by cannibals, probably wouldn’t be the last time either. He knew the others would soon check to see why their friend hadn’t come back. If he wanted to escape, it had to be now. He couldn’t wait for his wounds to heal. Quickly he reached as far as he could and grabbed the bloody saw still lodged in his leg, pulled it, and started to cut through his wrists. Though the pain had numbed over the years, he could still feel it; his flesh tearing, his muscles ripping, his bones breaking… Every sensation was still there, he was just much more accustomed to it.

Managing to cut clean through his left wrist - his hand falling limp on the floor - he tucked the blade between his teeth and started to cut the other one. Only the position he was in, and the fact the blade was covered in wet blood, kept him from cutting through much of his bone. He decided instead to push on his arm with all his weight in hopes to break it. After a few tries he managed to break it off completely. There was only a small strand of flesh remaining. He pulled as hard as he could and managed to rip his arm free. With all the manoeuverability he had left, he took the pocketknife from the floor and plunged it underneath the jaw of the unconscious man before leaving the building.

A few minutes after he left, still naked and hiding in nearby ruins until his wounds healed, he heard the surprised screams of the other men as they discovered the body of their dead friend.

An hour or so passed, his wounds healed, and his hands were almost completely grown back, when he looked over by the camp again. On the fire was roasting the severed legs of the man he had just killed. It didn’t surprise him. Cannibals don’t tend to waste anything, friend or not, meat is still meat. They probably ate his severed hands too while they were at it. He looked to see if there was any movement from the camp, and from his perspective, all he could see was one man, waiting by the fire. The two others were probably out looking for him. Afterall, for a cannibal, immortals are a lifetime supply of infinite meat. A priceless possession. These three wouldn’t stop looking for him. If he wanted to truly be free, they had to die. Plus, he needed to get his clothes back somehow.

As soon as his hands were fully grown back, he walked towards the camp. Having nothing on him but the pocketknife he stole. In front of him, the cannibal was looking at the fire intensely and at the legs roasting, the skin turning crispy red. He held the pocketknife strongly in his newly regenerated hands, before plunging it in the side of the cannibal’s neck. He pushed the knife forward, slashing his throat open. The blood sprinkled over the fire and the roasting legs. Black smoke and red was the last thing the cannibal saw before he bled out on the dirt.

Quickly, the man looked through the camp, looting bags and backpacks, searching for his clothes. He couldn’t find everything he used to have but still managed to find a comfortable set of clothes. Old dark grey workpants patched over the knees, leather brown hiking boots, a light grey sweater, and his old jacket. A duster he wore since as long as he could remember. Long, dark brown, made of leather and lined with wool. Unlike him, it couldn’t regenerate. So, it wore all the traces of the wounds he received over the years. He kept it in a wearable state however, sewing and patching it so much the original leather barely covered it anymore. It was wrinkled, stained, and weathered, but it was his. The only thing he had left of the old world.

In one of the cannibals backpack he found a revolver. Out of the six rounds it could chamber, three were full. Three bullets, two enemies. “Good enough.” He said to himself as he stashed the gun inside his jacket.

On the outskirts of camp, hidden behind a fallen billboard, he waited till the others came back. It took only a few minutes before he heard shouts.

“I told you we should’ve waited till morning to go after him!”

“He would’ve been gone by then you idiot!”

“Jared is dead because of you!”

“And Keith is dead because of you! It was your turn to cut you fucking coward!”

There was a moment of silent tension between the two, until they continued arguing. Their shouts echoed through the wasteland. The man took this moment to strike.

He walked out of the darkness and near the glow of the campfire, his revolver drawn on the two men. Before they could see him and draw their own guns, he took two precise shots. The first went straight through the head of one guy, killing him instantly. The second shot through the neck of the other, he fell on the ground gurgling on his own blood. Standing over him, watching him die, the man said:

“You know… I don’t blame you. I’d do the same if I were you. But before you die, I want you to know that I didn’t choose this life. It was forced on me. Trust me if I could die, I would’ve killed myself years ago.”

He stashed the revolver back inside his jacket before reaching for the pocketknife. Laying on the ground, clutching at his throat and coughing up blood that splashed back down on his face, the dying man tried to plead but only gurgles could be heard. Before slashing his throat and ending his life for good, the man said:

“By the way, not that you ever asked but, my name is Kane. Remember it.”