Photo by Nik Owens on Unsplash
Photo by Pablo Pacheco on Unsplash
Links to the original post and the story so far (in order) can be found in the Tale of Two Pizza's Collection Post
This week Tale of Two Pizza's continued to progress with 
Winners delivery pics
Barry's flayed body hung by the wrists from an overhead beam in the main hall in Grove. Blood dripped from the hundreds of miniscule cuts that covered his arms and legs. His head and scalp was a mess of scabs from where they had torn the hair from his head in tufts. The crusted blood had flown freely down his face and dried, sealing his eyes shut. He had suffered tremendously at the hands of Dionor, the child that had tricked him into returning to Grove to save her non existent sibling. Yet he still lived. He drew shallow breaths broken by soft moans as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
The tiny creature that stood in the drying puddle of blood below him continued to torture him regardless. The hundreds of cuts and pain of hanging by his wrists were enough to make him whimper and twitch when he was conscious. He was blinded by his own blood and constantly in fear of fresh torture. Dionor did not need to inflict more wounds for his suffering to continually increase.
Whenever Barry passed out from the pain, she made sure that he suffered even while he was unconscious. Wisps of black mist shot out from her fingertips and stretched up towards him each time he lost his grip on the living world. The wisps of mist caressed his face and eyes and he convulsed and shook from the intensity of the dreams. Before long he would wake again, groaning. He could no longer tell the difference between the living world and his tortured dreams. Dionor seemed to drink in his suffering and torment.
Sheila, the older woman stood to one side watching hungrily, as she had since he had first been hung over the rafters. She too reveled in the pain and suffering, though she seemed impatient. Her hands twitched each time she saw the mist rise from Dionor towards Barry.
The tableau seemed frozen indefinitely, the only noise Barry's tortured groans and the clink of chains as he writhed. To Barry an eternity had passed, yet it had only been a day. Sheila dared not interrupt Dionor, Selene had been very clear on that. Dionor would not stand for it anyway and far outranked Sheila. She was grateful for the little eddies of pain and emotion that drifted towards her from the hanging human, still she lusted for more. Dionor probably let those wisps escape her on purpose just to tease her. She did her best not to let it show. She was used to waiting for more powerful demons to sate themselves before her turn.
With an enormous crash the double doors to the great hall slammed open and Selene strode in, surrounded by a cloud of malice.
"DIONOR! We don't have time for this! Stop playing with your food! We must bring the villagers back and prepare to move to Slickville! You've had more than enough time to drink your fill." She strode forward to where Dionor stood with tentacles of mist extended towards Barry once again.
Sheila scurried back into the corner of the room. Dionor was powerful, nearly as powerful as Selene. No demon would stand for this kind of interruption. Selene had given Barry over to her, it was Dionor's right to feed as she wished! A fight was almost inevitable.
Dionor turned to face Selene, the wisps connecting her to Barry remained, playing gently over his face as he twitched in unconscious agony.
"You dare to interrupt me Selene? You dare to disturb another's meal??" Her eyes blazed and she stood defiantly facing her mistress while poor Barry's writhing intensified.
"You've taken a whole day to torment that pathetic wretch Dionor, and Sheila still must feed as well. You are wasting our time. You will eat your fill NOW! DO NOT TEST ME!" A cloud of mist suddenly exploded out of her, whirling turbulently and filling the entire hall with darkness. Selene stepped forward in the dark and slapped Dionor hard on the face. The spinning misty darkness suddenly condensed back toward Selene and disappeared. Sheila remained cowering in the corner. Even she could see that Dionor was cowed by their mistresses strength and malignant intensity. Dionor could not match Selene's ability to project so much of her true self while keeping control of her body.
"Yes Mistress. I will let Sheila have her turn shortly." Additional tendrils of mist began to creep towards Barry from all Dionor's body as she spoke. She was grateful that Sheila had not been able to see the slap, and her eyes blazed with defiance and rage as Sheila approached.
"This human will not last much longer. I will drink his suffering quickly... You had better be ready Sheila, there will not be much left." The tendrils she had projected all connected with Barry at once and his eyes jerked open despite the crust of blood. Dried flakes showered down around Dionor and she smiled as Barry began to scream.
The rules for this week remain the same as previous weeks!
I'd like to continue building on the story of the Pizza Baron and his post apocalyptic world. Each week I'll pick a winner that becomes the next piece of the story and wins 20 $PIZZA and a 2 SBI sponsorship from me. I may award additional prizes if I feel multiple entries expand the story well.
Each week I'll write a post announcing the winner and then I will write another chunk of the story and open it up again for the next weeks competition. I'll compile the winning entry for each week. If we reach a conclusion of the epic tale of the Pizza Baron I'll divide another TBD amount of PIZZA among all the winning entries throughout the whole story and publish the finished story here on Hive with all the contributors as beneficiaries. If this goes well we might have the first open source blockchain novella on our hands! 😂
The first weeks contest established a secondary storyline that may be tied back into the main plot if you so wish!
Bear in mind this is an experiment as well as a competition so we will see how many entries I get and how well it goes!
Rules:
Entries must be more than 200.
Entries must use the hivepizza and scholarandscribe tags.
Entries must comment on this post with the link to their entry
Entries must fit in the world/scenario that has developed from the previous weeks contest(s). You are free to develop characters, introduce new ones, invite aliens to the feast, I don't care as long it makes some kind of sense in the context! The Pizza Baron should remain relevant to the plot!
(I've named it a Tale of TWO Pizza's for a reason HINT HINT)