For a month, things seem to have gone off without a hitch.

The media frenzy about the dead actress — and the images of her bloodied limbs and her slit belly, circulated in darker places — actually work in his favor. Their contentious relationship ensures that when someone thinks of her, they also think of him, and plenty of people are thinking of her lately.

He is asked about her, again and again, because everyone loves that little moment of redemption, of shared humanity in the face of inhumanity overcoming the petty squabbles of the rich and famous.

He's so grieved, of course. One of the finest actresses of her age. Cut off in her prime. What wouldn't he give. He knows his lines.

She haunts him. Not literally, which would have some poetry to it; in the back of his eyeballs, projected out where she doesn't belong. Madeleine McBride, larger than life, all over his world, and he doesn't care for it. This, he supposes, is why death brings such fame. Someday it will be his.

As he leaves a rehearsal late one night, there's a sudden gentle prick in the side of his neck.

Someone kneels on his back, hand over his mouth, until his consciousness fades.

Ah. Now he feels important.

When he wakes up, the room is dim. The light is above him — the edges of the room fade into shadow.

He is sitting up — or, at least, he's in a chair, held upright. There's something around his neck, holding him in place. Something tight on his shoulders, on one forearm, on the other wrist, on his ankles. Something close to his face, reflecting his breath.

He thinks his sister has thrown her arm across his neck, for a moment, before he orients and goes still.

This is it. He knows this style.

More details resolve into view.

There is a television monitor in front of him, barely visible, off. A mesh screen below his face. On the rim of the screen, two of something, pointed at him.

One of his arms is looser than the other. It feels like the cuff isn’t quite secure on the chair, like he could pull it free.

Good. All right.

He's memorizing, mostly, mapping out the shape of the room, as he begins to work his arm free.

When he lifts his arm, the pin pulls.

The CRT monitor flickers to life, and so does a timer, bright red digits floating in the blackness.

29:59.

29:58.

hi, jean.

The speech is clipped. The voice, even transformed, is flat and cold. The face, unmasked, is blurred unrecognizable.

i don’t like copycats. not when they don’t get how this works. you don’t get it.

you have to give them a choice. they live, or they die. you didn’t give her a choice.

i don’t want that on me. that’s not fair.

you’re not gonna die today. can’t confess if you’re dead. but i’m gonna give you a choice. so you get it. 

you’ve got a lever next to you. every time you pump it, some of the stuff in that jug — look up — pours out on your chest. you get half an hour before whatever’s left comes out those sprayers by your face.

you can get it all out if you try. i checked. you check, if you give a shit.

make your choice. see you in an hour.

No.

Jean begins by struggling: systematic, not random, testing his bonds. He wouldn't care to dislocate a thumb or a shoulder, but he will if it helps him. Perhaps his captor has been careless.

Jigsaw is not careless. Jigsaw is very careful.

The ankle cuffs are locked down tight, and the straps cinched down on his shoulders and across his collarbone combined with the heavy metal collar locked on his neck keep him quite firmly fixed in place.

He could, probably, tear the ligaments of his thumb to pull out of the metal cuff around his left wrist, if both upper arms weren’t kept in place with leather ones. He doesn’t have enough freedom of movement to reach his other hand, and even if he could, and could get enough leverage to pull and pull and twist and crack, he couldn’t pull his arm back to escape.

His torso, at least, is mostly free to bend, below the shoulder and above the ankle.

The chair itself appears to be bolted down to the floor. His movements pull at the assembly of chains and tubes above it, and the jug rocks above him, its contents sloshing behind the translucent plastic.

27:20.

27:19.

He can guess at what's in that jug.

(Not his face. Not his beautiful face.)

It's a simple motion, really, to pull the lever.

A pump shifts, somewhere behind him. Liquid runs down a tube, and down a short, widening chute that looks much like a dustpan, and then splatters on his chest.

For a moment, the acid feels like nothing at all. Then it itches. Then it burns.

It’s dilute enough not to eat through to muscle, or even to fat, with the first splash. But it strips away the top layer of skin quite efficiently, and leaves it raw and glistening and red.

There’s quite a lot of it in that jug.

Jean is very still, while it eats at him.

(His beautiful face. This mustn't touch it. It's his bread, his canvas, the best part of him.)

He must do it again, and so he does, and he knows it will hurt.

Acid splatters his chest again, runs down to his navel.

Where his skin was untouched, it itches, then burns. Where it was already raw, the pain comes right away, blinding and inescapable, persisting long after the splash. Hairs are singed away. Beads of blood well up where the skin hardens, contracts, splits.

He doesn't scream. He doesn't move at all.

After a moment, he breathes, because if he loses consciousness his timer will run out. His chest moves with it, and it brings fresh pain.

He must do it again.

This will damage him. He will bear the scars of it for the rest of his life. He --

The pain continues. It intrudes on his thoughts. It isn't relevant.

He'll never be able to appear in the nude again. His dress will be restricted. His motion will be restricted, with scars that bind and pull.

He must do it again.

He does it again.

This time, the pump has been well-primed, and there’s more. It splashes on his chest and his belly and it runs down his sides.

The little droplets that fly towards his face are caught on the mesh, and go no further. Because Jigsaw is very careful, and he is fair.

The remnants of skin near his breastbone bubble and blister and bleed. Vivid lines follow his rib cage. In his navel, liquid has begun to pool, and it bores into him like a nail.

It doesn't occur to him to scream.

Breathing. He must breathe.

There's nothing but that, for some time: the pain, and the breathing.

His beautiful face.

The pain.

The timer.

(The pain.)

His face.

Jean pulls the lever. Gently; as if it will help.

It pours over him again. Every time, worse.

The very center of his chest, over the bone, has stopped hurting.

Acid runs onto the tops of his thighs, through the metal grill of the seat.

The light shines much brighter through the jug, less occluded.

He can smell himself, dissolved.

Pain.

Worse: damage.

For a time, it is impossible to act.

The sprayers watch him, as he watches the timer.

It would be easy, he thinks, to let it blind him. He'd never have to see his face.

19:34.

19:33.

15:48.

15:47.

8:20.

8:19.

It is possible.

It has always been possible. He knows precisely how to move his fingers; he can activate each muscle individually.

For love, he thinks, for the love of the stage, of beauty; for the sweet sound of applause, for the curtains and the music, for the camera and lights, flowers, laughter.

How can he choose this? Don't make him choose. It will hurt.

7:15.

7:14.

3:30.

3:29.