"Stabbed me!" Poke screamed, pouncing on Emmit and bringing the blunt end of the spear down into him again and again. "Fucking stabbed me!" The shaft of the spear thudded into Emmit's collar bones, his pectoral muscles, his diaphragm. It skated along the edge of his neck, leaving a raw trail of abraded skin behind it. It plowed into his forehead, driving the back of his skull into the floor. Things were getting hazy now; even fuzzier than they had been before. Emmit swung his heavy arms up at the smoky ghost that was pummeling him, but Poke dodged them easily.
"Got you now, don't I?! Gonna BEAT you to death, ain't I?!"
Emmit felt like a wad of tenderized meat, but a strange calm was gently crawling over him. The repeated blows didn't even seem to hurt anymore; they felt like nothing more than small bumps and shoves, like the ones you sometimes got when the crowd at a concert started to get rowdy and everyone was moving, forcing their way to the mosh pit. There was an insectile buzzing in his ears. He took one last swing at the ever-changing formless shape that was Poke leaning over him, missed by a mile, and then he lost his strength and his arm dropped to the floor. His knuckles knocked against something hard, and ordinarily, it would have hurt like hell. But not now. Not anymore. Soon, there would be no pain.
He felt Poke's hands wrap around his head, smelling the rotting outhouse pit odor of his breath. His thumbs found the jellied orbs of Emmit's eyes, and began to press in. Emmit saw brilliant spots of white exploding in the darkness, and twin funnels of fire spiraled into his eye sockets. Poke was going to gouge his eyes out.
Not long now. Not long. Not long now GOD IT HURTS—
He was aware that he was making wild animal noises as he struggled and thrashed under Poke, and the fucker was laughing at him. He could feel himself trying to blink, instinctively trying to quench the searing burn in his eyes, but his lids were trying to close around Poke's digging thumbs like blocked elevator doors. Poke was taking his time, finishing him slow. Enjoying it.
He waved his arms and legs as if he were making a berserk snow angel. He needed something. Anything. And he needed it fast, before his eyes ruptured like water balloons into his skull and he was blinded, truly blinded, and then murdered. What had he knocked his knuckles on? The knife couldn’t have gone far…
His hand scrabbled and scraped across the floor, his nails and stained palms scratching empty wood and sliding in the warm slime of the Rev’s blood. His fingers brushed against something; knocked it out of the way.
The PAIN—
Poke was yanking his head off the floor, wrenching his neck, trying to break his bones and blind him simultaneously. Emmit wholeheartedly believed his eyes were gone now, mashed into jelly inside their sockets. It didn't matter if he was still alive. He would not allow himself to be put to sleep. Poke would have to forcibly take his life, and it would take everything in him to do it.
"You like how that feels, faggot?!" Poke shrieked, his voice sounding muffled and far away. Emmit's hand had a mind of its own, flexing spasmodically, scratching deep gouges into the floor. And then it was there like the big finish of a magic trick, under his fingers as if it had been playing a sick game of hide and seek. Emmit didn't know what it was. Emmit didn't care what it was. It was solid and weighted on one end, and that was all he could have asked for.
"DEACON!" Emmit screamed, and followed the valuable advice Roy had given him on his first day in the frozen apocalypse— he dug deep and gave a swing the mighty Thor would have envied.
He heard a meaty thud, felt the shock travel up his wrist, and whatever he had picked up jumped in his fingers as it connected with some part of Poke. He heard the stinking creature of a man make a choked, startled yelp, and then the weight of him pinning down, the agony in his eyes, mercifully ceased.
Emmit rolled through the congealed puddles of blood, his back and stomach rapidly trading places as he tentatively explored his face with the hand that wasn't clutching his weapon. It felt like touching a mask; a strange leathery disguise that he wore over the face he had come to know every millimeter of. It was lumpy and misshapen— but his eyes still felt round as he rubbed them through his eyelids, his "vision" still bleached out. He didn't see black, but a brilliant and all-consuming white.
He could hear the shuffling sounds of Poke trying to stand, followed by a drunken groan and a loud bump as he collapsed again. Emmit clenched his eyelids tightly and opened them again as wide as he could, trying to get some semblance of vision to return to him. He just needed a little break; a little bit of clarity before Poke regained his composure and came for another go at him. Whatever he had done to Poke, he had done it well. And he was glad for it.
The white veil over his eyes began to dissipate like frost on a windshield, just enough for Emmit to get his bearings and keep a cautious watch on Poke, who had struggled to his hands and knees and was trying to stand again. Emmit could see by the firelight that Poke's tattooed face wasn't a pasty white sneer anymore, but a deep brown scowl. He had opened him up. Emmit looked down
