Captured

It was dark when I woke up.

I tried to open my eyes to get a better hold of my surroundings. I felt a sharp pain in my temples—like someone was trying to drive a jackhammer into my skull. It was as if I woke up with a thousand tequila hangovers, only worse. I tried to blink as much as I could in the hopes that the pain will go away with each blink. But it didn’t. In fact, opening my eyes did nothing to absolve me from the pain or from being enveloped in darkness. For a moment, I thought I was just having a bad dream and any second I would wake up and everything was going to be fine again. However, the throbbing in my head suggesred that everything was all too real to be a dream. The darkness was all too real. I was sweating profusely and  I could feel globules of sweat trickling down the sides of my face. No one perspires this much in their dreams—I thought.

The pitch black was overwhelming and it somehow gave me an overall feeling of numbness. I was paralyzed all over yet my head was swimming with thoughts I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Am I blind? Am I dead? I wanted to scream but the sane man in me told me otherwise. Be still. Be quiet. It told me. I couldn’t hear anything aside from my own shallow breathing. My thoughts were screaming for help and shouting obscenities all together. Hush. I said to myself.

And so my breathing became deeper and more relaxed. Knowing that I was able to somehow control my breathing, I became relieved. At least I’m not dead yet.

It took me a few moments to gather my remaining senses. But I still couldn’t comprehend what was going on. The good thing was my eyes were able to adjust to the darkness of everything around me. I could see—well partially at least. Bits and pieces of my surroundings were coming together. I could make out a silhouette of a door or what looks like an opening to some other place, a few walks away from where I was. I turned my head to my left and saw a wall. It was big and menacing—like saying that no one is able to escape that place. The wall stretched across the small room but high above its right side was a small window about two feet in length and width. The metal grills on it suggested the place’s impenetrability. No one was allowed to go in. No one could go out.

I tried to look beyond that small dusty opening but I couldn’t see anything aside from the dark sky. That’s when I realized it was night. There was a withering branch with a couple of leaves outside the window. It looked like it could’ve been from a tree that has been growing there for years. With the help of the moon’s iridescent glow and the gentle wind that shook the branch, it looked like I was staring at a ghastly hand. Like that of the grim reaper’s we see in old horror films. It wasn't a reassuring thought. The last thing I wanted to see in this place was the hand of death.

I could feel my moist breath. The rising and falling of my chest were magnified by the small confines of the room. My every action was magnified. Had I been claustrophobic, I would’ve died right then and there. Everything seemed to tower over me. The walls looked like they were going to close in any second. The darkness exaggerated every sinister thought I had. From the looks of it, I was in a room no bigger than a one-man bathroom. It certainly smelled like a toilet though.  But there were no tiles, no sink, no toilet. Just a sneering concrete wall that stretched around the small area and the silhouette of the door a few walks from where I was sitting. It was only at that particular moment when I realized I was sitting down.

Where am I? Why am I here? How did I get here?

I tried to juggle my memory about  what transpired during the last twenty four hours. Think, man. Think!  But trying to recall what happened made the throbbing in my head ten times worse. I tried to struggle through it. I had to. I had to put the pieces back together to make sense of what was going on.

I remembered that the last thing I heard was the deafening sound of a gun shot.

Then with that sudden memory came a pain so strong that it jolted everything in me. It radiated from the upper part of my left arm, in my biceps. It was like a white hot metal searing through my flesh. The pain was eating away my bones and everything attached to it. Someone or something was trying to drive a hot steel to separate the whole length of my arm from the rest of my body. I never felt so much pain in my entire life. Everything started to feel hot. I felt like I was being burned alive. But the flames were invisible.  Tears began to well-up as I couldn’t bear it any longer. That’s when I remembered that someone shot me.

I could’ve been bleeding myself dry for all I knew. I looked at my left arm and I saw traces of dried blood on my wrinkled sleeves. There was a piece of dirty cloth that acted like a makeshift tourniquet against the wound. But no matter how tight it was, it couldn't stop the pain I felt. I guess someone tied it to stop the bleeding or to make it worse, I couldn't tell. I was beginning to be more delirious by the second because of the agony.

I wanted to die. If living meant that I had to experience that sort of pain again, I wanted to end my life right there.

The footsteps I heard snapped me out from thinking about the pain I felt. The sound of the soles of leather shoes against the wet concrete floor suggested I wasn’t alone. I didn’t know if I should feel relieved or scared—scared for my life that I wasn’t alone in this hell. The noise was becoming louder and louder. The pacing and rhythm suggested that the person was in no hurry. Every two or three steps, it would stop—like trying to excite and entice his audience of what was about to come. It was coordinated and the person staged it all too well to instil fear.  It was maddening.

I tried to scream but all that came out was a muffled sound. There was something gagging me.  I tried to bite off the dirty cloth that was blocking my mouth but I couldn’t. Doing so made it harder for me to breathe. I shook my head violently in the hopes that it would come lose but it did not. I tried to scream again. Still nothing...just a mixture of incoherent noises that sounded more like a defeated whimper. And if I screamed, I doubt anyone would’ve heard me.

The footsteps sounded like there were only a few steps away from where I was. Three. Two. And then it stopped right outside my door.

That’s when panic started to creep in.

I could feel my heart beating so fast that for a minute I was sure I was going to explode. And then I thought I had to get out! I just had to get out of that place. I wanted to see my family again. I wanted to see my friends for the last time. And with their faces in my thoughts, I tried to raise myself from my chair and set myself free. But I couldn’t.

I was bound to the chair. And I was bound tight. Something was strangling me and I couldn’t move. Both of my hands were tied at the back by what felt like a heavy metal chain. I tried to slip my hands free but with every manoeuvre I tried to do, I felt the chains grip my hands even tighter. It was no use. As I stomped hard to stand myself up, that’s when I realized that my legs and feet were bound tight as well. Trying to escape became a futile attempt.

I was trapped!

Fear started to dawn on me.

After what felt like an hour, I heard the sound of keys rattling from outside the door. Someone was trying to come in.With a sudden click, the door knob turned sideways. The door was now unlocked. Someone pushed it and it gave an eerie creaking sound like in a bad horror movie. 

The door that held me refuge was now open wide. But instead of the sense of relief brought by foreboding freedom, I felt terror. Outside the door stood a man half-covered in darkness. And by his blocking stance against the doorway, he wanted to make sure there was no escape. Even in this darkness, I could see the glistening white of his teeth. He was smiling in a sinister way. It sent chills up and down my spine.

I turned my head down. I tried to shake my head for the last time to make sure I wasn’t in some kind of nightmare. But it was real. Everything was real. The man in front of me was real.

My line of sight started from below. I saw that the man was wearing a couple of muddy leather boots telling me that he has been outside. It was definitely a man. Judging from the built of his massive sinewy ankles, I could say he was definitely bigger and a lot bulkier than I was.  He was wearing a pair of tattered army pants with gaping holes in them, and in those holes I could see his bloodied scars. As my eyes went slowly upward, I saw he was holding a big and long instrument covered in cloth in his one hand. I shuddered on the thought of what could be inside it. I stopped.

I tried to look for the complete details of this man. I wanted to see what he looked like. But all his profile was nothing but a giant shadow.

As I tried to look at his face, he blew out the flickering flames of the small candle he was holding on his left hand that illuminated him and his image.

His eyes, bloodshot and crazed with insanity, were the last things I saw. And they were the last things I was going to remember.

 I stared at death right in the eyes.

And everything became pitch black again.