Fight For Your Life (Pt. 1 of 10)
Stack awakes engulfed in darkness. His lungs explode with every breath and his head feels like it had been run over by a car. He opens his eyes to notice a bag over his head, its straw threads bouncing warm breath back into his face. Through the threads he sees a dark room illuminated by a solitary light hanging from the cement ceiling. The room is cold, yet Stack's face burns between breaths.
The pain hits. Sharp pain wrenching his abdomen. A moan squeezes through Stack's lips as the pounding sweeps across his skull. He fights the bloody cramps poking his sides and tries to assess his condition. "Where am I? What's happening?" He finds himself unable to remember through the pulsing of blood in his head--as if his heart had been smashed behind his membrane. Leaning forward to release the pressure, he feels the blood shift through his veins, synchronized to the beat of his throbbing sides.
He tries to touch his forehead and discovers his wrists tied behind the back of a chair. Shooting pains shock his shoulders as he tries to pull free, and he eventually submits, surrendering to his situation. His feet feel distant from his body, dangling lifelessly from his knees. They are also fastened to the chair he sits in. After struggling with the tightened ropes and injections of pain, Stack loosens his muscles. Suddenly, a wave of clear-mindedness snaps Stack from this dream. He realizes his position. An unknown fear injects into his body, and he finds himself very cold and alone.
A rattling noise behind Stack snaps him back to attention. A metal garage door grinds open, the sound spiking his ears and sharpening his diligence. As he turns to see through his woven veil, his neck strains and tightens. Suddenly, the bag rips from his head and cold air slaps his face. A welcome breath of fresh air is quickly followed by a wave of piercing in his chest. He coughs, opening his eyes to the dank room surrounding him. Another turn of his neck reveals a large man walking away from him, coarse fingers gripping the woven bag. Stack painfully rotates in his neck and scans the room. A staggering gasp confirms his fear. "Oh shit," he whispers.
Stack has been in this room before. For the past months he had seen horrible things happen to innocent men in this room. An old storage facility in the basement of a garage, this room harnessed four cement walls to silence any cries for help. This room is one without help. Without salvation. Without mercy. If you entered this room, and you sat in this chair, you had signed your death sentence.
Stack springs a glance back to the large man behind him. His awkward stature makes him walk as if a weight rested on his back. Hunched over and appearing permanently constipated, the man resembled a caveman. Long hair brushes his shoulders, and his white shirt can hardly contain the dark, tan muscles rupturing from beneath them. It was only two weeks ago that Stack was the one standing there, watching in silence as another man was slaughtered.
Stack faces forward again, half to rest his cringing neck and half to look for what he fears the most. There, against the far wall, stood an aluminum table, draped with a bed sheet. The sheet was the grimy yellow of shoddy laundry and tainted with orange bloodstains. A mountain range of bumps rose from under the cover, hiding what Stack already knew existed. Tools. Above the table hung a window, the smudged glass obstructing any light or sound. This was the basement. No one came out of here.
The steps of a three-legged mutant echo across the vault. Stack doesn't need to turn his head to know who the figure entering the room is. Fear swallows his emotions, the blood draining from his face. He feels sick.
"Esta el listo?" The final break of silence snaps Stack back into consciousness. Spanish. He rushes his jumbled mind to translate. "Is he ready?"
"Bueno. Gracias mi hermano, yo le llamare cuando esta sobre.--Thank you my brother, I will call you when its over." It is a voice he recognizes too well. A voice of power. A voice of fear. Scuffles exit the room and the metal grate drags closed. Three taps of a cane symbolize the end.
The pain Stack has ignored rushes back through him. He grips his fists, fighting the ties behind his back. The jagged rope digs into his wrists, slicing the skin and sending pain racing through his nerves. The calm tugs of the rope escalate to frantic yanks of desperation as the figures shadow stretches across the room. Eyes darting and blood pumping, Stack refuses to accept the fate he knows is unfolding. Finally, the site of a slender, white cane signals Stack of his doom.
"Well done, Nicholas." The man taps his cane on the ground, the ivory tip reverberating off the cement walls. Stack squints up to see a towering, fat man blocking all the light from the room. An aura seems to surround him, cast by the window eclipsing the man's massive figure. The man continues to circle Stack, his cane clapping with the concrete. There is no need for Stack to open his eyes. He knows this man, and he knows his fate.