**THUD!!!**
"Come on, hurry up. Don't dawdle."
"I know, I know."
These were the first words Nate heard through the thick fog of unconsciousness that clouded his mind. It was evidently a conversation between two men, and the noise they made slowly woke Nate, dragging him out of his deep slumber:
"Opens... his... eyes."
However, despite his attempt to regain his sight, there was a problem. The blood that had flowed from his forehead into his eyes blurred his vision. Yet, he could feel that he was being dragged along the ground. He had only just started to regain his senses when one of the captors noticed he was awake and shouted, dropping the rope in his hands:
"Damn it! I told you to blindfold him!"
"Oh... Sorry, I just..."
"Shut up, I don't want to hear it!"
The man then approached Nate, bending down over his head.
"Sorry, kid, but you haven't slept enough yet!"
Without giving Nate time to respond, the man knocked him out again with a brutal stomp to his face.
*Stomp*
_______________________________________
*Slap*, *slap*
"Wake up, kid. Nap time's over."
Nate, after being slapped a few times to pull him out of his semi-conscious state, squinted as he opened his already swollen eyes. Forcibly roused from his sleep, he barely had time to register what was happening before his captor grabbed him roughly by the collar, yanking him to his feet. Now fully awake, Nate realized he was in some sort of dark, underground corridor, lit by tall standing chandeliers. His captor, a short, stocky man with a beard, finished gathering his things before yanking Nate's chains, wordlessly commanding him to walk.
The young boy found himself stumbling forward, wrists and ankles bound in chains. Confused by the situation, Nate could only wonder what was going on and why he was in this strange place. But as his vision cleared fully, the nature of the location struck him. The wooden doors, perfectly aligned with metal bars set into them, the enclosed, shadowy underground space... Everything pointed to the same conclusion: this was a dungeon.
Realizing this, Nate mustered all his strength to break free from the man's grasp, pulling away from his captor's grip on his arm and running as fast as he could. But the man didn't even need to chase him. He simply tugged on the chain he held in his other hand, causing Nate to fall, knocking over one of the chandeliers that lit the hallway in the process. Far from giving up, Nate scrambled to his feet, trying to run again, but the man was already on him, aiming a massive axe at him:
"Stay still, you little runt!"
Seeing no other option, Nate finally resigned himself. He stood up and continued walking with them to a room at the end of the corridor. Inside were men who looked like guards, or perhaps even soldiers. They grabbed the boy and chained him to the back wall of the room. Once they were finished, they left, taking care to securely close the door behind them.
The room was dark and damp, lit only by a small candle placed on a metal table beside Nate. The only sound that filled the unsettling silence was the eerie scurrying of rats moving about everywhere. Though Nate had been in this oppressive atmosphere for less than fifteen minutes, the biting cold and his growing anxiety were already starting to unravel his mind.
Chained standing up, with his arms and legs spread wide so he couldn't even sit, Nate could only dart his wild gaze toward the sinister sounds coming from all corners of the room. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't spot the sources, which remained carefully hidden in the nebulous darkness. Just as he thought he might lose his grip on sanity, a long, grating creak snapped him out of his daze:
Khiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii...
The terrible noise came from the door in front of him. His breath immediately caught in his throat, his muscles tensed, and his gaze locked fearfully on the door.
A dark silhouette emerged from the shadows beyond the doorway. Once inside, just like the guards before, it took its time to meticulously close the door behind it. Nate's eyes, now adjusted to the dark, discerned that the figure belonged to a man ; a frail decrepit man in his fifties, of average height, wearing a monocle over his right eye. In his left hand, he held a small briefcase, and in his right, a pocket watch. He looked very much like a butler.
The man turned toward the boy and addressed him:
"Good morning, young man... Now, what is your name? "
Nate remained silent. So the man came tovthe conclusion :
"I see, the quiet type, aren't we? I understand, it's not a problem."
The strange figure pocketed his watch and began walking toward Nate, whose anxiety was growing by the second. But when the man set down his briefcase, opened it, and started laying out its contents on the table beside Nate, that anxiety turned into panic, and panic quickly morphed into pure terror. What lay before him, making his lips tremble, was a collection of torture instruments of various sizes and shapes, some of which he didn't even dare to imagine the use of.