Second – she would notice that the air that she was so desperately gulping in felt musty and clammy, a clear indication that she was probably locked in a cramped room with bad ventilation.
Third – muscle and joint pains coming from just about everywhere, the consequence of spending so many hours asleep in a bad position on a hard floor.
And fourth – and this was where it all started to become fun for Russell – since her vision would still be blurred from her pupils’ dilation, Jennifer would probably use her hands to feel around, her dizzy brain dying to understand what was happening. And she only needed to stretch out her arms in any direction for the first big surprise.
Russell waited.
‘Where the fuck am I?’ Jennifer whispered in a raspy voice that didn’t sound like her own. ‘What the hell is going on?’
No reply from Russell. He was waiting for her pupils to return to normal so her eyes could focus. Images would be more shocking than sounds.
Despite not being able to see much, Jennifer placed both of her palms against the floor and, with a painful-sounding moan, pushed herself into a sitting position. The effort, even though it was done slowly, nauseated Jennifer, causing her to dry-heave.
She immediately placed her left hand against her mouth, but not fast enough to stop a drop of bile from spitting off her lips.
‘Argh… God!’
Russell watched as Jennifer tried to gather herself together, fighting the awful bitter-acidic taste he knew would have taken over her taste buds.
As he had predicted, Jennifer slowly extended her right arm out to her side, tentatively searching for something… anything that could help her identify where she was.
Russell sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. He couldn’t wait to see Jennifer’s reaction.
Just a little further,he thought, mentally urging her to carry on.
As Jennifer fully extended her right arm out, her fingertips finally reached something.
Russell held steady.
‘What the…?’ Jennifer paused, her eyes squinting at what she had touched, trying hard to focus. She opened her hand and allowed her fingers to wrap around something solid… something metal.
There was a second of hesitation before her left arm reached out to meet her right one. The fingers on her left hand wrapped around something identical to what she was already holding on to – two parallel metal bars.
‘No!’ The word came with an exasperated breath. Jennifer squinted again, but this time not so hard. Her vision was coming back to normal.
Devastating realization followed.
Russell waited, but he didn’t have to wait long – half a second perhaps – until the expression on Jennifer’s face changed from the stupor of confusion to utter desperation, her pleading eyes already filling up with tears. Still Jennifer hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t alone in that room.
‘What the fuck is happening here?’ she asked in a voicestrangled with emotions, as she shook the bars with all the strength that she had in her, which wasn’t much.
Solid steel.
Jennifer looked up and Russell watched as the desperation that had cloaked her until then turned into core-shaking fear. The reason for that was because Jennifer saw more metal bars just above her head – two feet above her head. But Jennifer was sitting down, not standing up. That meant that Jennifer wasn’t back in a cell, like she had clearly thought she was. She was locked inside something much worse. She was locked inside a cage – an animal cage.
Her body twisted left. Her left arm followed, reaching across to the other side. More solid metal bars.
For a couple of seconds Jennifer sat still, her arms stretched out in a crucified position, her fingers wrapped around metal bars to her left and right.
‘No…’ she whispered, clearly holding back tears. ‘This can’t be.’ She once again tried shaking them.
Nothing… not even a squeak.
‘No…’ Her voice was starting to regain its strength. With each cry out she would yank at her cage, her body shaking with anger. ‘No… no… nooooooooo.’
‘I can see you’re awake.’ Russell finally broke his silence, his tone calm and controlled.
Jennifer’s head immediately snapped up, her gaze moving to the dark corner directly in front of her, where Russell’s voice had come from. Her breathing was shallow, and tears had run down her cheeks like thick raindrops. The look on her face was desperate… confused. It took her eyes a second or two to refocus and her brain a few more to identify the outline of a face, the contour of the nose, the shape of the eyes.
