The Cave

Musty air permeates the room and settles deep within your lungs. It chokes you while you strain against every trembling breath. Something metallic coats your tongue. Is it blood, or something else? You lick your dry, cracking lips, and the iron seeps deeper into your taste buds. It dribbles down your chin with every attempt to spit it away. You swallow hard instead but are met with what feels like needles lining your throat. It makes you cough hard into your hand that comes away coated crimson.

That's when you notice them. The shackles bolted firmly against your wrists. Everything about where you are begins to seep in. Dark grey walls on each side. A single dim light lulls back and forth across the room on its cord, barely hanging to the ceiling for dear life. Watching it sway is almost mesmerizing. You almost allow yourself to be lulled back to sleep. A darkness seeping in through the corners of your eyes...

You snap awake at the spur of another coughing fit. 'I need to get out of here,' you think to yourself. There is a lone door that looks made of steel against the far wall, with no handle and a small, barred window nestled near the top. It is the only way in or out of the minuscule room. Your muscles groan in protest as you try to move closer, but the chains barely allow you a couple of feet. They rattle and pull taut, digging harder into your wrists.

You slip against the floor, and your body slaps hard against the cold concrete. It is then that you notice how bare you are. Stripped down to your underclothes and left to lie there alone in the sliver of light provided to you. You try to hug yourself for any sense of warmth you may be able to conjure for yourself, but the chains rest against your bare skin, making you shiver still. There is a hitch in your breath that you cannot control. Dry eyes try to cry tears that will not fall.

A door clicking shut echoes down to your door, and you still. Someone is humming a lively tune that is deep and guttural. It vibrates in your ears and raises goosebumps along your arms. You recognize the baritone in his voice. He was someone you trusted. Someone who promised to look after you. Heavy footfalls click, click, click along the floor, approaching the door in front of you. There is the jingle of keys on a ring and the clunk of a heavy padlock coming undone. More chains rattle before the door in front of you swings open, ever so casually revealing the man before you.

"Hallo, mein Schöne," he drawls.

You notice the syringe in his hand and try to shrink yourself further into the corner. A scream builds in your lungs but catches in your throat. It feels like glass as a horse croak escapes your lips.

"Do not worry, meine Liebling. You are almost ready..."

You are helpless as he drives the needle through your fragile skin. The plunger presses, and your mind slips away from the reality you try so desperately to cling to. Your body relaxes while the world around you fades into the furthest shadows of the abyss.