The torturer lashes harder, trying to make Melissa react to the whip, once over her breasts, once over her face.

It is not cruelty this time, but pity. He wants her to confess. It is not his pleasure to continue with the nun. The fear of God engulfs him. He suppresses his desire. If the priests knew he had feelings of that srt for this nun. But if she were guilty...

He hits harder, hoping that she will plead for a confessor.

Somehow it is difficult for Melissa to take that one step out of her pain and into the arms of the blackness drifting over her.

At times, all sound disappears, a muffled silence accompanied by ringing, the pain something from the past, like a dream.

She feels herself hovering some distance from her body. She feels her soul flee the pain, but her body pulls her back in when the whip cuts her lip.

Red Feline can hear the hissing sounds Melissa makes. She feels helpless, impotent, a pathetic witness. If she could only free herself from her shackles, they would know her anger.

If she ever leaves this place alive, she will seek revenge. But she knows, deep down that she will not be freed. One loud gasp tells her that Melissa has reached the end of this ordeal.

Melissa feels the numb sting of the lash as she gasps for air. Her tortured body fades away in the face of her suffering.

She can see her own head, from the outside, as it slowly falls forward again, heavily. Very little air is going into her lungs, her hands are not moving any more and her legs which until then were hard with tension, suddenly fall slack. Her limp body is held up by the chain around her waist and between her legs. The neckbrace holds her head.

The black shroud is upon her. Her hissing breathe slows almost to a halt.

The lash keeps crashing on her breasts, but there is no response from Melissa. Her fingers are still, the chains around her wrists no longer rattle.

Red Feline sees the woman's body stop its jerking and thinks that she is dead. A pain she hadn't felt before shoots into her heart. She pities the poor nun. She feels sorry for herself as well. She turns away from the madness and into her own broken soul.