Obedience isn't always easy. It takes dedication and willpower, and even the most compliant will sometimes slip up. It's just in our nature, and I sympathize with those that make an honest effort. Those who put all of their being behind obeying and come up short... I respect that. There's no loss of dignity there.
But while complaints of the difficulty are common, those types that truly try are rare. Mostly I'm surrounded by trash. Weak, filthy degenerates who say that they can't bring themselves to obey. That there's something inside them that prevents them from doing as they're told. I have no sympathy for those types. They deserve every ounce of pain our Goddess inflicts on them.
And on that subject, what a Goddess she is. Beautiful auburn hair flows down past her shoulders, and her blue eyes shimmer even when not in the light, the simple mirth within them as she looks across her dominion is the closest we can ever know to Heaven. She provides for us, and keeps us safe from the elements and hazards of the outside. She is our everything, and still there are those who rebel. Those who complain. They sicken me, but I keep a straight face. I smile and nod and agree with every toxic word they spew. Because to date, nobody's figured out how she chooses those she kills.
Nobody except me.
The Goddess will take me away every few days, as she does with all her toys, and I will be treated much the same. My position does not afford me protection from her cruelties, nor would I ever ask that it should. The fact that she enjoys my pain is what gives my existence meaning. The Goddess will instruct me to crawl into her boiling coffee, or she'll slide needles through my flesh, or even coat my tiny body with small burns. She loves my screams.
But when all of that is done, I tell her who among us sows the most dissent. Who has been talking of escape, who has been moralizing her subjects to disobey, even in the face of death. I am her source of information, and it is with glee that I turn them over to her.
She takes me back downstairs, dropping me into our gigantic glass prison, saying that I'm too worn out to continue playing; and truly, most of the time I am. As I said, the Goddess grants me only one favor – my life. She will then scan the crowd playfully, pretending to think about who she will draw next, but it is already decided. It is always who I have named.
In the most extreme instance, it was a man who, as I described, wanted the others to face their deaths bravely. To deny our Goddess their pitiful begging and sobbing, to scream as little as possible and accept the eventuality of their tiny lives snuffed out beneath her. She took him out and set him down on the desk on the other side of our cage. Those who followed his teachings crowded against the glass, and I looked on, too. He had the stoic face of a martyr, and I'm sure he swelled with pride seeing his lemmings watching as he was allowed to demonstrate his convictions.
I should mention at this point that our Goddess rarely lets those she's intent to kill live for very long. Her excitement can get the better of her, and our lives are fragile and meaningless to her. Reluctantly, I admit that holding one's pride against her ordinary games would, while challenging, be a feat that those strong of heart could accomplish.
But this was no ordinary game. She still held the needle that had run through my body a few times earlier in the night. With her index finger against his back she pressed him against the glass wall of our prison, causing his sycophants to recoil. Then she took the back end of the needle – the blunt end – and pressed it between his ribs. She pushed firmly, but she was also gentle enough not to let it pierce his thin flesh.
Oh, how he screamed. Those loyal to him watched in disgust as he screamed against the glass, though they were not disgusted with him. He had always said that to not scream would be impossible. The choice, he claimed, was whether or not to beg. When their time came, they would scream themselves to death, but they would never beg. He would never beg.
She held the needle against his ribs for what seemed like minutes, delightedly drinking in his shrieks and screams. Her eyes would flick from him to us in the prison, watching our reactions. She smiled down at me specifically, and I smiled back.
She then gave him a small respite. Her finger came away from his back, and the needle lifted off from his skin. He fell to the ground, clutching the wound. The first signs of a bruise had already begun to form, and his breathing was labored and ragged. His followers rushed to the wall again, yelling praises through the glass, trying to raise his morale. He smiled – although in truth it was more of a grimace – and climbed to his feet, facing our Goddess. He said nothing, but his intent was loud and clear. He would not submit.
Our Goddess is known for her creativity. Routine bores her, which is why it surprised everybody but me when she spun him around, pushing him back against the glass with one finger, and dug the blunt end of the needle into the exact same spot. His screams were louder than before, and he squirmed and fought against her like a wild animal, head whipping from side to side. She let out a small chuckle, twisting the needle slowly back and forth, grinding it into his wound.
After another period of time she let him slump to the ground again. His followers returned once more, calling the same praises, but this time he didn't smile. He didn't try to stand up, either. He clutched his wound and rocked back and forth, laying on the ground like an infant. I wanted to go to the glass and taunt him. I wanted to ask how strong he felt his resolve was, and for how much longer he truly believed he could hold out. But that would have betrayed my position with our Goddess, so instead I stayed silent, watching him from afar.
She had to drag him to his feet before pushing him against the glass again, and just like before the needle drilled into his ribs, eliciting the purest howls I had ever heard in my life. I wasn't sure if I had ever made such noises before, and I admit I got jealous to see how much satisfaction he was giving our Goddess. I pushed the thought from my mind. Soon he would be dead, and he would never again scream for her. Only I would.
When he collapsed the third time, he didn't move. There was no rocking or whimpering, he just laid there, staring into space. One of his followers said he must have been too weak to even look up at them, but I think I know the more correct truth: he was ashamed. In that moment he had seen the future. His crystal ball was the white-hot agony of our Goddess' needle, and it laid before him in vivid color an image of the road ahead. And at the end of it, I do believe, he saw himself break.
She pulled him up a fourth time, and when she shoved him against the glass, he wheezed out a plea for mercy. I giggled softly, and for a moment I was worried the others would have heard it, but they were too shocked to notice. They stared, aghast, as their leader was broken in the span of twenty minutes. Our Goddess asked him to repeat himself, and while he was reluctant at first, a swift jab from the needle was all it took to reduce him to a blubbering mess of pleas and whimpers.
Oh, was it satisfying. To watch this strong man who had for so long spoken against our Goddess with impunity finally get what he deserved was nothing short of miraculous. She could do whatever she wanted with him from then on, and that's exactly what she did. She paraded him around as a trophy of her strength. She made him get on his knees and swear total obedience to her. She forced him to make lewd poses and gestures towards those who had once seen him as a leader. Our Goddess, in her infinite cruelty, even removed a part of his anatomy and had him eat some of it. Truly, it was one of the more glorious things I've ever beheld.
And then, he begged for death. He knelt reverently before her and for minutes straight he begged for death in every fashion he knew. She watched him with a contemptuous smirk, and when it was all over she denied him his request. She dropped him back into the prison and walked away, leaving him alone with the people he had let down.
They weren't outright hostile towards him. Some said words of sympathy. They said that it was brash to think anybody could resist her. That it wasn't his fault; anybody would have broken. Still, they gave him a wider and wider berth. He lived another few months, eating less and less as he sat in his corner, a shell of life. One morning he was completely still, curled up in the corner of the prison, and the Goddess scooped him out with a Kleenex, crumpling his brittle body up and throwing him away. She believed he was dead, but I heard his last tortured whisper as his bones began to snap. He would have wanted everyone to have heard what he said, but it will die with me. It's better that way.
Not everybody goes like that. Not everybody even dies. There are others like me, those who have been with the Goddess so long that they don't remember their old lives. But the one truth is that everybody who comes into the Goddess' care will obey her. Obedience isn't always easy, but in the end, there is nothing else.