Where There's A Will: Epilogue
Epilogue ONE YEAR LATER... The dim light of a single, flickering bulb cast jagged shadows along the damp stone walls of the manor's basement, a subterranean chamber thick with the acrid scent of antiseptic and decay. The workbench was littered with jagged needles, rust-flecked scissors, and suturing thread pulled taut across an obscene creation. The figure hunched over it, hands steady despite the tremor of fury rolling through his ruined body. A pig’s head—severed, skinned, its hollow eyes unblinking—lay before him, split open like a cadaver, its flesh preserved and glistening under the glow of the bulb. The figure’s breath hitched as he guided the needle through taut muscle and gristle, pulling thread tight, one careful stitch at a time. His fingers, gnarled and scarred, worked with precision, as if each tug of the sutures reassembled the broken thing inside him. The agony of what had been done to him in the manor—humiliation, mutilation, a slow and savage ruin—boiled within his ...