Varian woke with his head pounding.
He sat up in bed, fingers pressing into his temples. His bleary eyes wandered around the room. It looked different. He couldn’t place the difference as his eyes adjusted to being awake.
Then it clicked.
He didn’t know where he was.
The room was plain in color—a grayish white—and furniture. There was just the bed he currently lied on, a dark wood desk, and a matching chair. It was dark except for the minimal light coming through the widow on the left of the bed.
Iron bars blocked entry from either side of the opening. The shadows were cast onto the hardwood floor. Dark lines that stretched out toward the other wall like claws.
He heart thudded against his chest. He had no idea how he’d gotten here or who had brought him.
He pulled the thick blanket up to his chin. His teeth rattled. He could barely hear it over the loud thumping of his heart in his ears. His feet were cold, but he was too numb to do anything about it. It was getting hard to breathe. He gasped for a breath, but it was like sucking through a tiny coffee straw.
Tears fell from his eyes without hesitation, without warning, and slid down his cheeks. The bed and the room were foreign entities. Strangers that surrounded him. The fear was a natural response to any human thrust into a terrifying place. He had no clue as to whom or what was outside of this room.
His head was throbbing. It wasn’t the headache this time. It was a spot on the back of his head. Had he been hit over the head?
He couldn’t remember much. He think he remembered camping. He’d been on a camping trip with Hazel and…
His friends. Mary, Kacey, and Padriac. They’d all been together. That was the last thing he remembered.
Had he been kidnapped? Was he drugged or some other crazy assumption? It didn’t seem all that far fetched when there were freaking metal bars on the window.
He couldn’t be sure about any of those ideas. He couldn’t even remember what day it was or what he’d eaten the day before. His memories were frozen on just an idea. He could picture his life before. His friends and family. The idea that he was going to go camping that weekend. They were burned in his mind so clearly and yet they seemed distorted to the point of no recognition.
Stay calm. You’ll figure this mess out. Don’t worry.
The words were rushed and frantic. Of course he wasn’t going to calm down that easily. Freaking out was one of the simplest things to do in a situation like this. Nothing could get better. Things could only get worse.
Minutes passed and he tried to think logically.
Maybe it was a dream. Maybe if he lied back down, relaxed his mind, he would wake up and be in his own room. He would wake to his family waiting for him to join breakfast with them. He’d call Hazel and they’d meet up. Or he’d hang out with his friends.
They would go on that camping trip.
He tried and it didn’t work.
He tried thinking about his family, his friends, anything that would ease his heartbeat and keep his hands from shaking so much. Nothing happened.
The worst thought came to mind. Maybe he wasn’t going to make it out. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking that way, but it was hard not to. The gray walls and the scratchy bed ate at his mind and all he could think about was how the person who had put him in here was going to come back.
They were going to come back and they were going to kill him.
The words set him off and before he could stop them, tears fell from his eyes once more. They streamed down his face and continued even when he jumped off the bed. He screamed and yelled for someone to let him out. Thoughts disappeared as he kicked over the bed and ran toward the door.
He grabbed the handle and yanked on it, but it didn’t budge. He tried again and failed. Each kick and fist he threw at the door did nothing. Every yell dissolved into an echo. At the point of quitting, he ran to the window only to be met with a blocked view.
Not only was the window barred, it was covered by a thick plastic film that obscured any detail that might have helped him locate where he was. The last chance of hope was torn from him.
He stepped back from the window.
Who was doing this? Why?
He fell back against the tipped bed and sighed as the tears on his cheeks dried. None of this made any sense. His memories were no help. He could barely remember anything up until he woke. It was as if his memories had been wiped away by some invisible force. For a reason only God knew, he was stuck here.
No. He was trapped here.
There was no way he had come here willingly and had accidentally locked himself inside. Someone had kidnapped him and locked him up.
The only question was why. Why would someone want to do this to him? His family had no money, not much to gather for a hefty ransom anyway. Things like this didn’t happen to him. How could it when he was a normal kid. He had friends and family. There was really no one that hated him or wanted to harm him.
Or so he thought.
Who was it?
He gripped his hair in frustration. A cry of fury irrupted from deep inside of him.
He wanted to go back home, back to the place that he’d grown up in. Back to the place that he knew he was safe in. The picture of all his love ones—Hazel, Mary, Padriac, and Kacey—flashed in his mind. His friends smiled at him and his mother was laughing at something he said. Then it was a memory of him and his dad working on one of the puzzles of the many that his dad kept around.
The tears streamed faster. He choked.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
The tears blurred his vision.
“Of course they can hear me,” he bit out.
“I just want to go home!” He screamed once again and yanked at his hair. Cursing at himself, he realized how weak he sounded.
His thoughts chewed at him, telling him how this was exactly the kind of reaction they wanted from him. This person was only doing this to him to feel powerful.
They loved how scared he was and the way that he was panicking was probably just getting them off.
He hoped it was just that simple. He hoped they weren’t after anything else.
His eyes frantically swept over the room. What he was looking for, he had no idea. Finding a way to escape this hell wasn’t going to be easy and the only two ways out were clearly on lockdown. But as he assessed the room, he noticed something very unsettling.
In the far corner of the room, where a desk and chair were pushed up against the wall, was a small black camera.
He wasn’t sure how he’d missed it at first glance. Maybe because he was in full panic mode and was too busy pulling out his hair than actually paying attention to small details.
It wasn’t hidden well, as if the person who installed it had meant for it to be obvious. Though it was small, if one were to look straight at it, one would be able to see it. And that was what Varian was doing at the moment.
His tears dried up almost instantly. His fear turned to shock and then to anger. He felt beyond pissed. The change could have something to do with the adrenaline rushing through his veins or how his mind seemed to bounce along the walls. He couldn’t stay focused on one thing and that was finding a way out.
He glared up at the black camera.
He could feel the eyes behind that lens, could feel the way they stared straight into his soul. It was the scariest thing he had felt in his life and the most brilliant. It zipped down his spine, electrifying every nerve ending inside of him.
He remembered this feeling somewhere. He couldn’t quite place it.
What was even more scary was the way his heart seemed to skip at the horrid and dangerous thoughts. It wasn’t a skip when one was frightened for one’s life. No. This was something completely different from that. This was a feeling of longing. As if he was missing a part of him.
He knew that he’d had this feeling before. His head hurt trying to conjure past memories. It was his mind that was bruised, the thing that needed to help him to remember what had happened to him. But it was too fragile. It was too weak to help him.
The high swept through him from head to toe. It was sick. It was revolting, but he couldn’t help it. He shook his head. These thoughts that were in his head, they were sin. He shouldn’t think this way or he might lose his sanity.
“Hello.”
His head turned to the direction of the voice. It was coming from above him. With a frown, he stole a glance down at the camera and then looked up at the ceiling. It would seem he was terrible at noticing the obvious. He hadn’t only missed the camera but also the speak right next to it.
“Are you feeling well?”
Varian had to hold back a scoff.
“I want to leave.” He hated how he couldn’t shake the quiver from his voice.
The voice let out a soft chuckle. It was mechanical and he couldn’t tell if it was a woman or a man behind the voice. Either way, it sent chills down his spine. He couldn’t decide what to think or feel. Mad, scared, drained. They were all running together, becoming something ugly inside of him.
“I’m sorry, Varian. You’re not going home for a while.”
At the haunting sentence, he bit his lip to stop the cry from ripping straight out from his chest. He repeated the calming words in his head, hoping that it would be enough to calm him down. It wasn’t.
Don’t break down. Don’t show weakness. Just remember this is what they want from you. They want you to break down. Don’t let them get to you.
For once, his thoughts were right. He had to fight this. Whoever was behind his kidnapping, he had to fight against them. It would be the only way for him to survive and to escape.
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