Shackled, Hanging
The Soldier stands on his toes, trying to relieve the pressure around his neck. There’s a chain tied around his wrists, bolted to the floor behind him, trying to pull him down again.
If he stands on his toes, he can breathe; the blood flow to his head is unencumbered. But it pulls painfully on his shoulders. Even more so on the metal one, where they had been doing maintenance before this. If he stands flat, he’s able to relieve the pain in his arms, giving his toes a break. But it’s harder to breathe, and after some time panic sets in.
He mostly opts for standing on his toes, resting every now and again as his feet threaten to cramp.
The Soldier knew better than to fight during arm maintenance. Especially after a mission not quite gone right.
The mission had been to make the target suffer. Make it look like a suicide. A hanging. But the Soldier hadn’t wanted to watch as the target struggled for breath. Struggling uselessly in the air, trying and failing to get a way. So he had made certain that when the target’s feet were taken from under them, they died instantly.
Thus his own punishment of not quite hanging.
The target had also managed to do some damage to the upper plates of the arm, during their struggle. A letter opener between some of the plates. The techs were to see to it before his punishment. They had pried off the plates, and replaced them. They had used soldering irons inside the arm, torches to reattach the plates, and it had burned. The Soldier knew better than to protest, to try and get away, but he couldn’t stop himself as the pain spread up his neck and down his spine.
He had hurt three of the techs, severely injured one of the guards.
A throbbing shoulder, and an inability to breathe properly is kinder than he deserves.
His right foot cramps badly, and he falls. The rope around his neck prevents him from going far and he chokes. Unable to use his arms to push himself up, he struggles for a minute.
Grabbing the chain between his hands, he uses it to pull himself back, into a standing position. Tilting his head back, standing on one foot, he breathes heavily.
Rotating his foot, he tries to stretch the cramped muscle, switching feet to do the same with the left.
He settles back onto both feet, chin up, arms straining behind him, to wait.