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I can’t bring myself to sit on the bed. Or on any of the fucked-up apparatus that may pass for furniture in here. My legs ache and I feel weak from the blow to the head, so I choose the wall furthest from the door and sink down to the floor.
There’s no point in giving myself a mental pep talk. No point in trying to escape. The walls are stone, the floor is stone, even the damn ceiling looks to be stone. There’s no windows either, and while the decor seems like every cinematised cliché of a dungeon ever released, it’s actually authentic. Save for the high-tech, high-security metal door which seems completely out of place.
And the mini bar.
Maybe I should just get wasted…but I’m not sure it’ll help make what’s to come any more bearable. Maybe staying clear-headed is the best thing to do after all. Maybe this hotel is the ultimate RPG experience and I have nothing to worry about. Maybe The Gods just wanted to scare me as a prank.
Somehow I think not though.
I stare at the wall, refusing to address the elephant in the centre of the room. I will do whatever it takes to make sure I don’t end up in that box. I’ve been in one like it before and no good came from my time spent locked in there. It’s not an experience I want to repeat.
I don’t know how long I sit on the cold stone floor of the strangest ‘hotel’ I’ve ever set foot in, but it’s long enough for chills to set in through my thin workout gear, my bum to become numb and for my limbs to stiffen and seize.
So much so that when the door opens, I’m unable to scrabble my way to safety. Well, if there were any to be had. I just freeze with my back to the wall and try to keep my lungs working.
A petite young woman enters, looking demure in a housekeeping uniform and for a brief second I wonder if I could take her and escape. Then I mentally shake myself. She’s innocent in all of this – whatever this is – and is probably just doing her job.
I’m not going to hurt an innocent bystander.
She steps into the room and makes her way over to the fireplace and begins laying the fire. The light from the corridor becomes silhouetted and I look up to an enormous security guard blocking the door. He’s menacing and heavily armed, so I’m glad I decided against rushing the maid.
She lights the fire and I shiver.
“You must be cold. It’ll soon warm up,” she says kindly with a soft smile that shows no pity or remorse.
Does she know who I am, why I’m here?
I’m not about to tell her that despite the cold, it’s the fire that’s making me shiver.
She exits the room but her guard remains, and the reason becomes clear when she returns a moment later carrying a tray of piping hot food. It smells amazing and my stomach gurgles, making me wonder how long has passed since breakfast. Fucking Axel. I didn’t even get to finish it.
No way am I eating that food though, no matter how tantalising it smells.
“You should eat,” the maid says softly to me. “You’ll need your strength, no doubt.”
It sickens me. I long to slap the tray into her face, but what would be the point? Instead, I just look away.
She sighs and murmurs something I don’t catch to the guard who then approaches me, who’s still aiming a gun at me with one hand. The other is hidden inside of his jacket pocket and that doesn’t make me feel all warm and tingly inside.
“If you’re not going to eat, we can start the party early,” he warns, pulling his hand free. My eyes widen when I see the syringe he’s holding. I shake my head.
“Please.”
He removes the safety cap from the needle with his teeth.
“Please don’t do this.” I beg, tears of fear beginning to prick the back of my eyes. “I’m not even asking you to let me go. Just please don’t inject me with whatever’s in that syringe. Please.”
The guard grins at me like my terror amuses him.
“I’ll eat! Please. I’ll do anything.”
“Too late for that, little flower,” he sneers. “I know you’ll do anything once this cocktail of drugs is coursing through your veins.”
He lurches and slams me back into the stone wall, the pain exploding through the back of my already tender skull the only thing that makes me realise I’d tried to make a run for it anyway.
He stabs the needle into the inside of my forearm and plunges the drug into my system with zero finesse.
Gasping, I feel the poison move through my veins like a living thing, tangible and deadly, but like a snake that’s returning home. I’ve felt this concoction before. I knew it was coming, but I had hoped – it was my final, desperate plea – that this was some cruel joke.
