He was strapped, lengthwise, arms above his head and stretched. There was silence in the room.
Skyte motioned to the four to begin. They each busied themselves. Electrodes were attached first to the testes and penis. A black cable was produced from a side room and a bucket of water appeared and was splashed around Kratz genitals.
Kratz closed his eyes and took control of his breath and his body became still. The cable was attached to a black wooden box, the arm was wound and the charge applied. Kratz's body became taught. His back arched. His vein became a deep blue bulge. His skin tauten. His teeth clenched. His genitalia began to smoke. The room was filled with the cooked smell of flesh. His throat let out a long dreadful groan. His eyes kicked to the back of his skull, the white streamed red. His penis and testicles began to bubble. And slowly the battery began to loose its charge and the man's body loosened, but not to its former self. Kratz's figure retained a twistedness. Odd muscles cramped, a buttock, a thigh, a forearm, angular and pinned. His chest rose and fell sharply, erratic and out of kilter.
The battery was re-wound and the charge re-applied. Kratz's body snapped back, the skin to his stomach translucent, tightened like a drum. A flame appeared along the rim of the penis. A tight rasp almost split his adams apple. His fingers were clenched tight into the hand which shrank to a skeletal remnant and once more the charge subsided but this time Kratz's body riddled and writhed.
Skyte indicated that the flame that still lingered be doused. Kratz's penis was black and his scrotal sack crisp salted chicken skin. Skyte stopped the third charge from being applied and motioned that the others should leave. And the room became dark with his solitary presence. In the vacuum time slowed and Kratz's body slowed and stopped and his breath had a rasp. Skyte tipped the chair of Kratz's clothing which fell untidily to the floor. He placed the chair beside Kratz's head, sat gently down and waited patiently for Kratz to regain consciousness.
There was a long silence. Skyte watched Kratz's face. As he watched he gently breathed. In his breathing he followed the rhythm of Kratz. The two men were inhabiting the same space of time like opposing magnetic poles, which now conjoined made them one.
Kratz's chest jerked up and his eye's tore open in a gasp. His hands fought within their bounds.
Kratz, my fallen comrade. My fellow, my man, said Skyte, as he placed his former fellow's hand to his. He took a short folded blade from within his gown and cocked it. It was shaped like a scimitar, rounded and razored and he drew it softly in a line from Kratz's adams apple to his groin. And with a swift cut he removed the man's cindered genitals. Blood shot in a wail to the wall opposite. Kratz's hips cracked and popped in writhing agony, his eyes bulged and he bit his tongue in two. Skyte rose and reached for the rag lying on the table against the wall and wrapped it around the tip of the truncheon. He held this tip for a moment in the stream of blood. To dampen the cloth. He dipped this end in the bowl so that it was heavily sugared in the magnesium. Childishly daubed. Metallic sherbet. Finding a match there too he lit the rag into a searing white flash of solaric light and used it to seal and cauterize the poor man's now sexless wound.
End, said Skyte? There is no end.