Page 33 of Mysterious Teacher : Arrival
Break it.
“Yes. Yes. Smash the window and run the hell out of here,” he urged himself. He swung the poker as hard as he could into the glass. It barely cracked and the vibration from striking the unyielding glass shook his arm all the way up his shoulder and reverberated in his head.
“Damn.”
He swung again. A tiny chip flew off.
Again and again, he hit the glass with the poker. “Come on. Come on! What the hell are you made of.”
But it was futile. The glass was too thick, too strong. Then, to his dismay, he realized that the glass of the windows was reinforced with a metal mesh.
“Great,” he said as he looked around the room a little dejected.
He looked at the door with the frosted glass. He would have to go through that adjacent room to get out. Taking a deep breath, and with a firm grip on his poker and knife, he rushed into the room, hoping to catch whoever was in there off guard.
Instead of being greeted by one of the feeble women, he was met with the face of his beloved leader, Stalin.
He immediately stopped running and saluted. “Supreme leader... Ah!”
As searing pain throbbed up his leg, he dropped the poker and fought to remain upright. He’d been struck in the leg and before he could find the source, he was struck again at the back of the head with a heavy, blunt object.
Crumbling to the floor, he passed out.
But his reprieve from the pain was brief. He opened his eyes to find himself lying on a stainless steel table, a bright light directed straight into his eyes. He tried to sit up, but the restraints at his wrists prevented him from moving freely.
He looked around for his knife and saw it lying there on the nearby table, far, far out of reach.
The mechanical saw revved up again, close...too close.
“Who are you?”he cried out as someone came to stand at the side of the table.
“Does it really matter?”came the calm and amused response. The voice was definitely that of a woman. But her face was obscured by a gasmask, one that he’d seen many men wear during the war.
“Who are you?”he asked again. “Why are you doing this?”
She ever so briefly raised the mask from her face and winked at him before setting the mask back down.
Sonya. The prim and proper teacher. How was this possible? How had she found the strength to knock him out and to then pull him up on the table?
“What are you going to do to me? What have you done to Boris?”
“Nothing compared to the horrors that the likes of you have perpetrated on so many...so many innocent lives. Tell me, did you look into the eyes of those that you tortured or killed? Did you feel an ounce of empathy? Do you now feel any sense of regret at all? No. I’m sure that you don’t.”
She revved up the saw and slowly brought it down over his wrist.
“No! Please. Tell me what you want.”
The saw reached his skin, shaving off one layer at a time.
“Please. I’m begging. I’m begging for mercy.”
“Is that so?”Sonya said. “Tell me Igor, how merciful were you? How many lives did you spare?”
“I... I... I am a mere soldier,” he said through labored breaths.
“Right.”
She brought the saw down hard making quick work of detaching his hand from his arm.
