Splitting headache greeted me on my way back to the living. Did I catch the flu on vacation? What a crappy timing. Well it's not like illness will change my plans in any way. I was gonna spend two months in my room anyways. Whole last month of school I spent fantasising about catching up on some new anime and startings new games. Everything will be alright. Mum will make me some chicken stock and I will feel better and ready to make a dent in my watch list.
Then I open my eyes and nothing is alright…
I don't see familiar walls covered in anime posters and shelfs with my figurines. This is not my room. In fact this place looks like an abandoned hospital or something like that.
I was laying on a rusted medical bed and my hand and legs were handcuffed to the frame of the bead. Something clicked in my brain and I remembered everything. I was going home and then I was kidnaped by The Goblins.
Realisation hit me like a train, my whole body seized like a statue, the only sign I am still alive were small tremors going through my body. I was like a small animal frozen in fight or flight mode. My breathing became erratic and my heart started beating quicker and quicker…
I needed to calm down or I would die from a heart attack before Goblins even have a chance to have a go on me. I tried to remember what people do in a movie in a situation like that and all I can remember is blowing into the panic bag or counting to ten. Obviously I don't have a bag and even if I have it my hands are kinda tied. So counting to ten is it.
"Huaaa..huu one …guh twoohuu.. three, four, five .. fuuuck, six, seven, eightnineten!" Surprisingly it did work, so take that teacher. TV is not always a waste of time! Today watching TV saved my life! My breathing evened out and the feeling in my toes came back. "Okay… Alex, now when you calm down, you have to assess the situation and find some way to get out of here. It will be easy. People in movies and anime do it all the time. Easy-peasy."
I look around the room and all the confidence I managed to muster just deflated like an old pierced party balloon. Walls in better days were clearly white but now they were covered in massive red staines and older brownish staines. I could lie to myself that they are wine stains but in the back of my mind I already know they were blood stains from previous victims.
Windows are barred so even if I somehow free myself from the cuffs, windows are not a possible escape route. Walls are bare but doors look kinda flimsy. They are probably made from hardboard and look like a hard kick would break them in half. Problem is, I don't know if there is someone behind the doors or not, and if they are. What will they do when they catch me trying to escape?
For a second that I'm ashamed of, I had a thought about just lying there and waiting for what they would do to me because I know if I will be caught they for sure hurt me worse than they would otherwise, so why struggle? At least maybe it won't be as bad if I stay obedient.
Then I remember how every day at school Jackson and his gang would beat me and do all the nasty things, and I would just let them without even a peep. But this did not discourage them. Oh no, in fact they would escalate the abuse and each next beating was worse and worse. First it started with tripping me in the school halls or some stupid pranks but this quickly bore them so they started amusing themself by beating me. Before I knew it, during every recess I would be taken to the bathroom and they would punch me and kick me like I'm their scientiend punching bag.
I just can't take it. I'd rather die trying to get free than be dependent on someone's whims again. Grim resolve settled in my bones, and with it powering me I started searching for another solution.
I shimmed my body up to elevate myself for a better look out position but cuffs were a huge hindrance so I concentrated on them first. They were pinned to a bed frame which was made from steel tubes welded together. Head board was in the shape of upside down letter U but there was another tube welded in the middle of letter U which prevented the cuff from sliding along the headboard. If I can get rid of it I would have a better range of motion. So I grab it and start to shake it as hard as I can and at first it didn't even budge but the more I was shaking the more the tube started to break off. Rust must severely damage the weld holding it together. With five more solid tugs the pipe finally came off with a loud cracking sound. If someone is waiting behind the door they must hear it. But I can't stop here. I must push on. Consequences be damned.
"Okay, Alex it was loud but you must finish what you started, a little more and you will be free. You got it." I encouraged myself because I knew no one would come to save me. I have to save myself.
With better range of motion I started looking around and then I saw behind me was a window with heavy curtains that probably were intended to shield outside view from whoever eyes could see what's happening in here. But not the possibility of being discovered is what excites me. There on the windowsill something metallic was shining what looked like a bundle of keyes.
"Holy shit maybe I'm not as unlucky as i thought." Big, but a little crazy smile broke my face nearly in half. "Okay, Alex slowly don't get too excited and better think how to get to them." I focus on my surroundings again and promptly realise that the curtain is long enough that I can reach it if I stretch my hand enough.
So I do it and I drag myself with the bed along the curtain. I don't know how the curtain rod wasn't ripped off the wall by the sheer weight of me and the bed combined but it held on, and allowed me to grab the keys.
"Oh my God! It worked!" I yelled and promptly shut up, but no one came to check up on me, so I deemed everything is fine. "They must be preoccupied with whatever gangsters do in their free time. Maybe they are together laundering money or polishing their guns as a bonding activity. Fuck, what I even talking about. I must be completely losing it now." Good to know that in a highly stressful situation I seemingly can't shut up.
There is no time to analyse my coping mechanism so I concentrate on methodically trying to put key after key in a lock and after what seemed like eternity I heard a click and my right hand was free.
"Yes. This is how you do it." Cheering was much quieter this time. Next was another hand and then legs. Getting free from restraints filled me with such happiness but I quickly remembered this is not the end. Now I have to get out from this room somehow. "But how? Windows are barred and if I just go out through the door I for sure end up as a living target for goblins with their scary guns and knives."
I had hoped for another miracle and that I would find another secret passage or hole in the wall but no such luck. Only exit from this room are doors, so I pick up a pipe I broke off earlier for a weapon. Is not much but it is something.
I take a moment to steel myself and then go to the door. First I tried the handle but it didn't move. Next I think about just kicking the door down, this would centali give me an element of surprise but I don't entertain this option for too long because I have still a small hope of not alerting gangsters if I didn't do it before. Instead I checked the keys and one of them was a match.
Now it's the worst part. If I open this door I will probably bump into some goblins and this encounter will be deadly for me but there is no other way…
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly through the nose,then I raise my hand with a pipe. Ready to attack at any moment I open the door.
Then breath gets stuck in my throat when I try to suppress my scream. There is someone behind the door…