Hehe, thanks! I had that final image of skin stretched on a frame, and everything else just sort of fell into place from there. :)

I had flashbacks to that one level of bioshock.

Sadly, I haven’t played that game, so that reference is completely lost on me.

@Concerned Reader: I didn’t see it that way, but now I can’t get it out of my head.

Very… dark.

See, now I’m going to have to break my Bioshock embargo and actually play the game. :)

this takes honor killing to a whole new level… amazingly gruesome and yet completely fits the challenge.

It’s definitely an extreme method of proving a point. :)

Random thoughts in my head after reading this:

This punishment seems extreme.

What models will go through for that stick thin figure!

Don’t wear it Dad, you’ll stretch it out!

I can’t help but think of this as nothing more than shock value and an attempt to present the most fucked up thing imaginable. On the plus side, you clearly made a strong effort at putting some story onto the “shock framework” of the tale.

Admittedly, this story spawned from the image of a psychopath skinning someone alive, but my goal was not to shock so much as to tell (imply?) the story that led up to this moment, to convey a little insight into the MC’s nightmarish motivations. I never tell shocking stories just for the sake of the shock value, mostly because I don’t enjoy those kinds of tales. The splash of gore is rarely ever my objective, merely the spotlight on the character(s).

In this case the story presented itself to me and I passed it along to the reader.

And just to be clear, I’m not at all offended if someone doesn’t like this story or interprets it differently than I intended. I’m not that kind of writer. :) I realize that not everyone will like my writing, especially the dark stuff, and that few will like every single one of my stories. I just write the things I see in my mind’s eye and hope that I do justice to those visions. :)

I don’t know if you know this, but it reminds me of Cassandra, the last human from Doctor Who… she was so obsessed with staying alive and keeping herself in skin that as her body decayed she had her skin stretched over her frame with her face in the middle, powered by a life preserving machine… her vanity kept her in that state. The concept of that always kind of scared me and this gives me the same feeling. Scary.

I’ve never quite gotten around to watching Doctor Who. I’ll have to scope out that episode, though. :)

Creepy but engaging for something so short. :D

I always go for more bang for the buck. Sometimes it even works. :)