The lights flickered off and on against the steel metal grate that lined the halls. There was a sound, muffled and subtle, coming from somewhere nearby. The painful throbbing in Thomas’s head was mirrored by a similar pain in his lower abdomen. The bitter metallic taste of blood was on his tongue and the whole collection of lights played on his blurred vision.
His mind was fully functional, aware and guided. His body and limbs, however; were a completely different story. He felt like the weight of his limbs was more than he could possibly think of lifting. Each time he moved his fingers, the blood would rush through his veins and up his arm to be cascaded into a pounding unison within his head.
He chose to lie still, hoping the drugs in his system would eventually begin to break and lose their grasp on him. He wasn’t sure where he was or how he got there, but he did know that to move under the restraints of his own body was too much to bear.
He waited, listening in the distance for some signs of movement or voices. There was a buzzing sound, more than likely a small fly or moth skittering near the hall lights. Every few moments a small shadow would flicker across the pale yellow light in the corner. Aside from the beat of tiny wings and the sounds of Thomas’s own breath, all was silent.
Thomas lay for hours, waiting on his limbs to regain control over the poison flowing throw his veins. With each passing minute he felt the weight lift. He kept his senses keen as he recovered, listening for the telltale signs of voices or movement.
All he heard was that deafening silence. It vibrated from wall to wall as if the silence itself was a wave of blasting noise. Thomas moved his hands and although that familiar beating pain in his temples still followed soon after, he felt it was much more manageable than before. He clawed at his own selfish need to cover the pain and bit back the dizziness with gritted teeth.
After 4 hours lying down on a cold steel table, he sat up and began to work his muscles and arms. He knew that to get his blood pumping was the only way to dull the aching pain and stiffness that he could only attribute to the steel slab he was laying on.
He made three attempts to stand, but found that his conscious mind was willing and able, but his body was still in disarray and without the needed strength to balance him. On the third attempt he hit the floor, hard. He crawled to a nearby chair and sat waiting for someone to come rushing in after hearing him flop around like a dead fish.
He heard no one.
The air was strangely salty, almost tropical. He could hear something outside that sounded like the ocean waves hitting a beach, but the surreal and foreboding nature of his current situation told him the drugs were still prominent in his mental state. The floor was closely fitted stone, carved and placed with care by a skilled craftsman.
Slowly, Thomas began to take in his surroundings, noting that the room was not a large one by any standards, maybe a 12 by 14 square of brick. There was a small metal desk and a lamp that was not lit on one side of the room, just opposite his current position, and a large steel medical table in center that he had just woken up atop.
There was a hallway off to the side, at the far end of the center table, and old fashioned, steel-grated lights along each wall. There was a steel door at the end of the hallway with one single square window, slightly fogged up by moisture near the top. The rest of the room, minus the chair he was sitting in and a bookshelf, was empty. Thomas continued his movements, rolling his arms around his rotator cup and stretching his legs as best he could from a sitting position for a couple more hours.
He was military, or had been. The exercises he learned were from his basic training as a field medic while stationed in Florida. He had not gone to war, but instead stayed in the states to serve out his term as a drill instructor and was volunteering for deployment in a few weeks. The past few memories of his life was blurred and made little sense to Thomas, though he attributed that to the throbbing pain and dizziness. As the drugs wore off, he could feel the pain still steady and the blood on the side of his head meant he was struck by something. He sat for a few moments resting, and thinking through the milky stagnant memories for one more recent, perhaps leading to why he was…where ever he was.
Thomas kept at the movements, working his muscles and joints to alleviate the stiffness and soreness. He kept his attention fixated on the door, knowing full well he didn’t crawl into this room and lay on the metal table by his own accord and thus was not alone as it so seemed.
Another hour and he could feel the strength returning to his legs, the warmth of blood flow pushing the chemicals and stiffness out of his joints and slowly but surely stood at length to balance himself before attempting to take a step forward. His legs felt very similar to the feeling of just waking up after that tingling sleeping feeling they get once you cut off the blood supply. They burned momentarily and then as he worked his legs up and down, the pain began to lessen under the motions.
There was nothing in the immediate area he could discern as a weapon, though he wasn’t entirely sure he was being held captive. It was not a fundamentally accepted hospital room, and was far from modern by any standards of equipment or craftsmanship. He crept as quickly and quietly as possible to the doorway and peered out through the tiny square window. Though his vision was blurred by the opaque nature of the window, Thomas could see both left and right for nearly 10 feet and noticed that there was a hallway outside the room and two doors direct adjacent to his current position, with similar doors with similar square windows.
Thomas tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge. He was a prisoner.
“Guards!? Anybody!?” He called out in succession, hoping someone would come by to give him some answers, though he knew that they would probably strike him for the outburst.
No one came.
He sat against the door, propped his feet to the side and let his legs rest. Although he could walk ever so slowly, if he needed to make a break for it, he knew they would not carry him fast enough to outrun any pursuers. The only thing he could do for the moment was rest and recuperate. He stared at his camo pants and light tan shirt, and suddenly the realization of his attire hit him. He was accustomed to wearing the casual military wear when off duty, but he was certain the last memory he had was him leaving the army base. Though it was as blurred as the rest of his memories, he was given 3 weeks leave just after his volunteer work overseas was accepted and he knew he needed the time to formulate his future plans and prepare for the two years before he would return to the states.
He searched through the pockets on the pants for anything he could use, but found that he had been stripped of any items, including his small clear plastic sleeve of pictures. They were pictures of his parents, his father and mother, both members of the military who had gone MIA when he was 12 years old. He was staying with his aunt, his mother’s sister and she was growing frail under leukemia and Thomas was told his mother would be granted leave to come home to take care of him in a month’s time. He was grateful for his aunt taking him in, but she was strict and kept a close eye on him. He liked being outside and mischief was part of his routine to spark attention, or so he now justified that as an adult.
Thomas was off where he shouldn’t be one day, waiting for a friend who lived up the street, when he saw the Humvee pull in the driveway of his aunt’s house. Two men, dressed in formal army wear of blue navy and a close cropped hair cut got out and went to the front door. He ran, hoping they were bringing message of his mother’s return, to find out they were missing in action and presumed dead. His heart had sunk and his mind reeled back to that day. He broke down in front of two officers and cried uncontrollably. His shame was not important, but his self pity was at that point in time. His aunt cared for him until the hospital took her in and he was sent off to foster homes. He was given a military sanction life insurance plan that barely covered his expenses and most of the families saw this as a way to use him for the money he brought along.
When he turned 17, he enlisted in the military and had remained so for 8 years now. He had no family, no desire to ever have one in the future, and only hoped that his parents could look down on him with pride and honor, the same honor they exhibited.
The sound of a door closing broke Thomas out of his thoughts and he pressed his ear against the door to listen. There were footsteps approaching, boots by the sounds of the footfalls and they stopped just outside his door. He scrambled back away from the door and clawed at the stone wall to regain his stance. The door swung open and a beautiful woman in a bright white dress and no shoes stood there, her body outlined by the thin lace that fell delicately over her fragile frame.
She smiled at him and walked forward, her eyes locking his in a daring stare of sensual power. He lost his conscious efforts at remaining balanced and fell backwards onto the hard stone floor. When he looked back up, the woman was no longer there. The room was empty, but the door was standing wide open. Thomas rubbed his eyes and then his temples, instantly blaming the drugs in his system for the woman who could not have been there. His mind reeled and wondered at the sudden turn of events, but he didn’t waste time thinking about them. He was given a chance to escape, no matter how weird it was, he was not going to let the chance slip by. He stood back up and approached the open doorway. The hallway went only 10 feet to the right ending at a stone wall, and the left went on for 30 or so feet, with doors on each side and a bright light at the end just around the corner. He knew it was not man-made light, but sunlight that was pouring in from somewhere.
He moved as fast as his legs would carry him, stumbling a few times, but keeping his footing. The wall was his guide and his vision came in and out of focus with the sudden brightness of the light. He heard a door behind him open and then shut, but he kept his pace, even after the boots fell in line behind him, closing fast. He rounded the corner and was now down a longer hallway, nearly 60 feet, but which opened up onto a soft white sandy beach with the faint glow of morning sunlight bringing the whole scene to bear down on him with hope. He picked up his pace, knowing he wouldn’t make it before the person behind caught him, but he was going to try any way.
As he made it out of the darkness and into the light, he heard the boots behind him stop. He fell, the sandy shoreline catching his boots and rolling him out onto the brightness. He stood, turning around to face his pursuer and saw the most horrifying sight he had ever seen. There in the darkness was not a man, but rather a creature, with grayish slick skin and a twisted muscular body. The head was bent and warped in an inhuman way and wore a grin with tiny yellowish teeth. Its tongue was protruding 6 inches from its maul and its entire body was no larger than that of a child’s. Its muscles were tightly pulled onto its bones and although it looked fragile, it carried an aura of pure evil and Thomas knew at once he would not survive a fight with one of those things. At the least, not while unarmed.
The creature did not venture out into the sunlight and instead stood in the darkness with a look of pure hatred and vengeance apparent on its twisted face. It had no eyes, instead it had bloody openings where eyes once were and its nose was two small slits that ran the length of its face. It screamed and brought Thomas to attention once again, his horrid expression broken by pure terror and he fell back, scrambling to put distance between the thing and himself. It turned and ran back into the darkness of the hallway, and vanished around the corner.
Thomas’s heart was beating uncontrollably and he knew this was not a normal hellhole, but rather something straight out of hell itself. He stood, brushing the sand from his shirt and pants, and ran back through the trees and into the dense jungle behind. There had to be something or someone that could help him, as the beach was not somewhere he wanted to be. The cave that leads back into the cliff was obviously not safe, and he hoped to put as much distance as he could before darkness fell. The sunlight kept the thing at bay and he knew that when the darkness fell, he would be hunted.
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