The Bible is collective for adaptation. I don't own the Passion. Mel Gibson does.

Minutes pass. They shred through the skin, and rip through the muscle. They sever the nerve endings, sending shock waves down my back and chest. They continue until they are down to bare bone and flesh. Consciousness is ebbing. I'm fighting to stay awake. Water, Cold. Ice flames into the wounds. I've slumped forward. They pull back my hair, my eyes roll to the back of my head. I'm gasping. Trying to get air.

Cut him loose, says a calloused voice.

A knife cuts through the only thing that has kept me from falling. They push me, but there is no need. I fall to the ground, smashing my face on the cobblestones in blood. Blood streams down my cheeks from where they have beat me across the face. My flesh hung in ribbons, and blood trickled down my back, and chest. forming a pool at my feet. Tongue parched. I am dehydrated. I gasp, pushing on my palms. I gaze at my hands. Not yet pierced, but cut. Calloused knuckles. I push myself up, still struggling for air. Cold salt water shot down my back, splashing on my shredded shoulders. Sending pain through my body. A robe's thrown over my shoulders. And the soldier's voices. My humanity wonders why they won't just leave me alone, but my divinity knows.

"Basilinda. The Game of the King."

"Hey, King!"

"He's a king? "

"Of course you dumb rat. He needs a crown, dumb &#!"

"You #& idiot!"

"Use those thorns! They're poisonous, they'll cause him pain."

Laughter. I winced.

"Damn you, Cassius, I pricked my finger!"

The soldier, who I knew would forever unnamed by history, soon returned. I knew his name though. Brutus. One of the cruelest soldiers in the garrison. Reputation for cruel jokes, and killing the women he slept with. Poor child. Abused by his father, carrying a crown of thorns. Made for the purpose of first and foremost, torture. The second was mockery. I heard them, and then I looked at it. Out of my bruised eyes. I saw it. Twisted and ugly. Meant to inflict pain. Not long, but poisonous. I winced again, but I bowed my head, accepting my role in their game of cruelty. Acceptance of their pain, their mockery. Pain and mockery they deserved. One soldier pulls back my hair. Pain shoots down my neck. I do not close my bruised eyes. I do not cringe. The crown is raised for a moment of cruel irony. Then shoved hard upon my head.

Pain! Pain like lightning shot down my back, piercing new wounds. I heard a groan from my lips the pain shot through my head like a razor I gasped couldn't breathe couldn't think couldn't move I reached up trying to touch the tips of the thorns. A human reflex to relieve the pain in my head.

"Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic videri? How do you get your hair to do that?"

They taunted dragging me backwards sending spikes through my back and legs I was roughly set on a stool made of rough wood a tear was forming in my eye I loved each and every one of these soldiers I knew their past knew their pain.

"Quando podeces te regi eorum fecerunt? When did the & make you their king?"

Drowning in their hate and relishing the moments of torture.

"Hic puer est stultissimus omnium! This boy is the stupidest of all!"

Jeers were my response as I groaned softly. Oh! The pain of it – slicing piercing thorns – blinding the world distorted into shock searing pain…. as the poison rapidly spread through my system, wracking me with waves of …agony. Every nerve exposed screamed for relief, the relief of unconsciousness. As my face began to swell from the fresh wounds – the thorns were long, the cuts went deep. As sin does when in pierces my heart. Every nerve screamed in agony…my body quivered with pain… My mouth hung open as I gasped for air. I don't protest don't resist as the rod is taken from my shaken hand, and I am struck across the face… shattering pain as it drives the thorns deeper into my head my vision blurred. Still in all this, I would not stop thinking of the soldier who abused me, loving him, forgiving him. They file past, each taking their turn to strike me across the face, and to heap their insults upon me.

"King….some king…."

I knew Cassius, the prickly one…battle hardened, suntanned, and calloused…that one night of horror as a child had changed everything.

"Healer of men…heal your wounds!"

Brutus …drunken and cruel, lost his mother at a young age, abused by his father, hurt so deeply, that today he would gladly wield hammer and nails…

"Where's the centurion, he's gotta see this…."

Marcus, the absent centurion…always kind, and yet so afraid, would wield a spear and unwillingly command…

"Take this, Jewish King…"

A gritty palm struck me across the face…my face was swelling….Julio, rejected by his highborn parents, normally indifferent to the crucifixion process…today stained his hands with blood…pain was shooting down my arms…

"Look at him…he's not even human…he looks like an animal…"

Janis, the timid one, they had had to bribe him to scourge the first time, today laid the whip with pleasure….

"They call you the rose…surrounded by thorns!"

Quintus, the guard sergeant…each I thought with love and affection as a father would feel for his malignant children or as a brother would for his reckless siblings…the pain of their insults…their punching…my throbbing head…my thoughts became disjointed, slower…as the poison continued to spread. It was not such poison that could kill once it entered the bloodstream; rather it was confusing the cells causing them to fight each other, slowing the process of certain death, prolonging the agony, intensifying my pain. My head was still reeling from it. I allowed myself the disorientation. The pain was worse then. I couldn't find a face to focus on. Just repeated pounding in my head. Blood cascaded freely down my cheeks just as flesh hung in ribbons down my back. My head hung I couldn't lift it even if one were to just lift it forcibly would relieve the pain in my shoulder for just a moment. Another blow, viciously cruel, and it drove a thorn from my crown dangerously close to my eye. Another blow… this time Brutus struck true and it pierced my eyelid fire pain blood red in one eye blackness in the other I blinked as he struck me the third time and this time it pierced my eye. The pain. The agony. it hurt, my head was throbbing to the beating of my racing heart with every throb in my eye the agony shot through my head, sending fire and again. Another tear rolled unbidden down my cut cheek. My blood spurted in his face. My reward was a strike to my cheek and more spit in my face. Sudden, unbearable thirst engulfed me. I lick my injured lips, tasting blood, tasting their spit of sour wine and swallow against my swollen throat only a little water would have temporarily relieved my new agony.

"Stop this, the Governor wishes to speak to him.

They force me to my feet, seizing my shoulder. Ahh, I wince. Their nails dig into the torn flesh, and as they force me into the hall of the governor…for condemnation.

Why did I choose this for my destiny? Because I love you. Forever.