Captured and Bound - 3

She awoke from her slumber and her ears picked up a distant rumbling. Her first thoughts are of thunder, but as she strained her ears she realized that it isn’t an approaching storm. If only she had some hint of where she is, but she has no idea about what is outside her holding cell, except for the light. The light which she realized isn’t the moon or the sun. It was some kind of bulb, and the timings were sporadic so she had nothing to go on. She felt stronger than the first time she regained her consciousness. She could feel her cuts turning into scabs and the throbbing of her bruises lessened. But she knew she would never be strong enough to break out, she hadn’t eaten in days and had no water to drink. She suspected that someone had been injecting her, while she slept, with fluids to keep her alive. She could feel a bandage on her left arm and her right thigh. Whatever they were giving her wasn’t enough to give her full strength, but it was enough to keep her vitals stable. They were keeping her for something and she could only guess what. Secrets weren’t uncommon in her line or work, but she had no clue which secret her captors wanted. If only someone would come and talk to her, make contact, strike some sort of a deal. The entire situation confused her; if they wanted to kill her they wouldn’t be injecting her to keep her alive. If they wanted information they would have tortured and harassed her. And yet, so much time had gone by and nothing.

Every time she woke up, she would feel the same emotions. First she felt slight confusion, then recollection and finally a concoction of despair and anger. She had started counting the number of times she would wake up, to try and make sense of how much time had passed since the first time she woke up in the room. She had a very precise internal body clock, but after a while keeping count became difficult. When the hopelessness set in she would escape to her garden and try to keep herself from yelling and screaming out. She didn’t want to show her slow mental degradation. She had to keep strong and prove to her subjugators that she could keep up with their game. But with each passing minute she could feel herself falling deeper and deeper into a black pit of gloom, with very little to hold on to. The only thing that could possibly help her out of this mess is a miracle. 

Captured and Bound - 2

He shifts the body of the woman to his left side to get a better grip on the door handle, and as soon as he enters the barren, damp room he feels a pang of pity for her. Alas, this is his job and he has to do as he is told, though it’s easier when the body doesn’t have such a soft, pretty face. He places her on the chair placed in the middle of the room and first ties her waist in place. He leaves a little slack so that she has a tiny bit of space to move when she wakes up. Next he chains her wrists to the arms of the chair and while doing so he can’t resist the urge to take her hand and stroke it. At times he wished he didn’t have to do all of this, deep down he’s not a violent person, he was only doing this job for the money and as soon as he had enough saved up he would leave. At least that is what he kept telling himself, but the money just never seemed to add up. After he had tied her down in all the right places he placed her head on her shoulder and with one last longing look he limped out of the ‘dungeon’ as he liked to think of it, and locked the door.

                Dragging his own cozy little chair towards himself, he realized how tired he really was, and when he finally sat down he let out a sigh of relief. He knew she wasn’t going to be conscious anytime soon so he decided a nap would be nice. He made himself comfortable and almost immediately dozed off. It was only when he heard his radio start buzzing did he wake up, the blasted thing always annoyed him. He turned the volume down low so all he could hear was a soft hum. He wondered if she was up yet and got out of his chair to go look through the little peep hole next to the window meant for ventilation. He looked at his electronic wrist watch and noticed that he had slept through the night; the sun was probably just rising outside. Oh, outside, how he missed it so much, he had been stuck patrolling the ‘dungeon’ for three months now. He cursed himself and he realized he had already used his day off for this month and started pining for the April breeze.  He was brought back to the present when he heard a soft groan from the lady inside. He focused his eyes on her and noticed she was finally coming back to her senses. He felt exceptionally bad for her and decided to break one of the small tiny rules; he took his flashlight and shined it through the window. At least she would have some light, if nothing else, he thought to himself.

The man continued watching her for a while but when he’s stomach gave a noticeable jerk he decided it was time to eat. He double checked the lock on the door and taped the flashlight at the window’s ledge. He glanced at her one last time and found that it pained him to see her so miserable. He wondered what someone so beautiful could have done to anger the boss, enough to get her time in the ‘dungeon’. But that was none of his business; he just had to keep guard and make sure the prisoner didn’t escape. Not that any prisoner had ever escaped. The ‘Dungeon’ was nearly 200 feet below ground level with state of the art oxygen supply and a completely natural look; no one could ever tell it was built to look the way it looked.  It was almost as if someone just made a hole in the ground, but in reality it was wired with so many different alarm systems and there were tiny vents blowing in oxygen. They could even control the moisture levels in the air, not to mention the temperature. He was sure there was a lot more he didn’t know about behind the mechanics of the ‘dungeon’ but he couldn’t be bothered to find out, not that anyone would tell him. He wasn’t at the top of the ladder; he was actually one of the bottom rungs. That didn’t bother him at all, as long as he was paid on time and got all the perks they promised him.

As he made his way to the mess, his thoughts made an unexpected leap to his past. He hadn’t thought about his life before working for the boss in a very long time. He was a simple security guard at the mall. He was fresh out of high school, not a cent to his name and living out of his mother’s basement; funny how he eventually landed up in a huge, state of the art, basement.  He remembered his first pay check and running home to give it to his mother who saved it in the ‘new home’ jar. He had never known affluence; his mother was an immigrant from Hungary and was very young when her parents were shot dead right in front of her. All she ever wanted was to move her son away from the unruly neighborhood that took her parents and then went on to take her husband as well. As he approached the mess, he wiped away a tear from his eye, it wouldn’t do well to be seen crying in front of the guys.

He nodded his head and smiled politely as he passed by some of the men closer to the boss, or as he liked to call them ‘suited monkeys’. He got his tray of eats and sat alone, he didn’t feel like wasting time talking to the guys, he wanted to get back to the woman to make sure nothing went wrong, but most of all to see if she was okay. He gulfed down his food, avoiding any kind of eye contact. Within three minutes he was done with everything on the tray. He grabbed his bottle of juice, wiped his face with a napkin and nodded his goodbyes to the guys. It was uncommon for someone to dine and dash, no one got offended if you didn’t sit with them, no one started a fight if you didn’t speak to them. Professional life was so much better than high school, and his job at the mall. He couldn’t believe it has only been 5 years since he had nothing. And now, he has his own house, in a neighborhood his mother approves of, she lives with him and doesn’t have to work anymore. Of course she wishes he would be home more often, but he tells her that soon enough he will be home all the time.

He finally gets back to his post and peeks through to see that she is now fully alert, part of him cheers victoriously that she is awake and the other part is worried about the part that is cheering! He reprimands himself for spending so much time looking at her and scuttles over to settle down in his relaxing chair. He tunes his radio to his favourite station and thanks the boss that the ‘dungeon’ walls are sound proof. He listens to the calming music and realizes he’s left the flashlight on. He glances over and decides to leave it there till night fall, it’s the least he can do for the angel face trapped in the ‘dungeon’.

Captured and Bound

      Her eyes flutter open and she slowly regains consciousness. She lifts her head and her eyes immediately follow the single ray of light that falls into the room, she looks towards the window and realizes she is underground. Her thoughts are sluggish and she feels sick, her first instinct is to get up and run, but as she tries to move she finds that she is bound to her seat. There are chains on her feet and her hands are tied to the arms of the chair, she pushes herself forward to find even her waist is locked down to the chair by a tight leather cloth. The stress she applies to get out of the chair is too much for her and she has to stop lest she becomes unconscious once again. She takes a long deep breath only to find that the air makes her lungs burn and she coughs up a combination of blood and bile. She feels like screaming, kicking and crying but she knows she must remain calm.

      She decides she has to take in her surrounds and try not to fight. She looks back at the window and watches the solitary ray of light quickly disappear. Suddenly the room is pitch black, a black that is blacker than black. It’s as if the air around her is opaque, not a single bit of the sunlight has been absorbed by the room. She closes her eyes and finds that the darkness she feels with them closed is more comfortable. She concentrates all her strength to her ears and listens hard. Somewhere in the room she hears a muted trickling of water, and even the scuttling of insects, which further confirms her thoughts of being underground. She focuses more on her ears but unfortunately that is all she can seem to make out. Once again her head becomes dizzy and she stops herself from overstraining. Now that her adrenaline has dimmed down she starts feeling pain in various places, her arms throb and she thinks her ankle may be twisted. Even though her back is pressed against the chair she feels a sharp sting across it. The pain makes it harder for her to think straight but she needs to keep her mind agile. Next she puts her nose to the test, the sharp stench of human feces enters her nose and she can only conclude that she has made a mess, considering the state she is in she doesn’t even feel disgusted with herself, in fact she is relieved that her body still works normally. Despite the smells of human waste she catches a whiff of mildew, and knows for certain there is water close by. Her tongue is dry and her mouth tastes vile due to the blood, if only there was a way she could get to the water. She knows by thinking of it her dehydration will only get worse. She thinks of a nice cool glass of cranberry juice to get her salivating, and as soon as she builds up the slightest amount of saliva she swallows, bringing a small amount of relief to her throat.

      The pain keeps building up and it reaches a point where she feels like she would rather die, but then she recalls her training. She brings up an image in her mind, a beautiful lush meadow. There is a stream running through the green grass and flowers scattered all around her. She just has to concentrate on this image and she will make it through. She knows there is no point in trying to escape, she has lost all her energy and must build it up before she can try anything. She forces her body to relax and concentrates on the serenity she has managed to conjure up in her head. She is lying on the grass as a butterfly comes and sits next to her. She walks to a tree and picks up a ripe apple lying at its base. As she pictures herself taking a huge chunk of the apple her mouth salivates once again, and she can almost taste the juicy red apple. She continues her mediation and slowly but surely the pain dulls down, she can feel herself rejuvenating. She keeps her eyes closed and slowly moves her fingers; she doesn’t want any sudden shocks of pain. Thanking her stars she finds all her fingers are intact and none have been broken or cut off, which she knows is common practice when it comes to torture. She imagines herself petting her little puppy back home which brings a slight smile to her cracked lips. That smile however has cost her, her lips start bleeding profusely and her mouth is once again filled with the taste of iron. She sticks out her tongue in hopes to capture any moisture that may be in the air, and she finds herself lucky when she retracts her tongue to find it isn’t dried up. Feeling hopeful, she slows down her breathing and tries to hold in as much oxygen in her lungs as she can. She must awaken all her brain cells if she wants to devise an escape plan.

      She stays in her little world for what may as well be an eternity; she thinks she has no concept of time. When it dawns on her, she has forgotten about the window, she glances over and notices the ray of light is back. But it couldn’t possibly be the sun, she would have seen moonlight if it was; unless of course it’s time for the new moon. She shakes her head, none of these thoughts matter right now. She sticks to the belief that a night has passed and decides she is going to keep count. One night, one long night has passed since she regained awareness. She stares at the window, trying to soak in all the light she can through her eyes. That little bit of light is all she has to hold on to right now, the only small wisp of hope that she will once again be able to bathe in the sunlight.