#parkdam

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When I was tossed into the room, I wasn’t sure what it was. I couldn’t see through the pig mask that they forced onto my head. I couldn’t speak due to the stitches through the skin around my lips that kept my mouth shut. The stitches felt suffocating, even though my nose was fine and unplugged. Plus, the pain that came with them was almost too much to bear. But there wasn’t any way that I could even try to lessen it. I’d tried, but my hands were firmly cuffed behind my back. The chains between the cuffs were so tight that I could barely move my hands.

I stretched out my fingers, happy that I could move those. It made me feel a little more in control. Which was good, seeing as my sense of sight, my ability to speak, and my ability to move my arms freely made me feel very out of control.

The only thing I had to feel relieved about was that the man who took me didn’t sew my eyes shut. He considered it, but eventually decided on just the mask when I begged and pleaded, tears streaming down my cheeks. Then he sprung it on me. He told me that I wouldn’t be able to beg for my life anymore as he took the needle and sewed my mouth shut. It was all it took not to scream in pain once the needle entered my skin, but I managed to avoid it, if only because I feared that it would pull at the stitches and make the sewing hurt more. Or that the man would hurt me for screaming. He was already testing me in a way. He showed no sympathy, but I could tell that he thought that he was morally superior to me. It was something in the way that he looked at me. Like he thought whatever I got was justified.

It disgusted me.

As I got my lips sewn shut, I was far more disgusted by the man in front of me than hurt by the pain of the stitches.

But when he cuffed my hands together, I started to hyperventilate. My body tried to instinctively breathe through my mouth, and I teared up at the pain of my lips trying to pull apart. As I was forced to breathe through my nose, the cold stung the inside as I quickly breathed in and out. I worried that I’d pass out. Then a mask was tossed onto me. A pig mask like that of the person who’d kidnapped me. I recognized it before he put it on me. But mine didn’t have eye holes or anything.

It turned out that I didn’t need to worry about passing out from my hyperventilation when a needle was shoved into me and something entered me that made me quickly pass out.

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I woke up, my eyes fluttering. I went to smile, happy that it was just a dream. But then the stitches burned as I tried to, and I instinctively teared up. It was no dream. I was living a nightmare. My mouth was dry despite the fact that I hadn’t opened it. I wondered how long I’d been out. Long enough for the blood around my mouth to stop flowing, and dry. It could’ve been anywhere from a few hours to a few days. My stomach rumbled from hunger, which told me it had to be pretty long, since I’d eaten just a little bit before the man took me.

Whoever had their hands on me shoved me through a door, and I heard two voices start to shout at me.

“Hands up! I have a gun.” One shouted.

I had a feeling he was lying about the gun. Or he was very weak. Maybe he just really didn’t want to shoot. It was a guess because his voice shook when he said it.

“Sick fuck,” the other muttered, his voice still very audible. He knew I heard him, but he didn’t seem to care.

Then again, what did I know? I wasn’t a professional or anything. For all I knew, the first guy had a gun pointed straight at my head, and the second guy was trying to whisper.

I quickly bent over at my waist, swinging my arms as far up into the air as I could, so that they could see that I was as much a victim as they were.

“So you’re stuck, too,” the first voice said, sounding almost melancholic.

Did he want me to be a puppet master in this sick game? Or maybe he thought I could’ve released him.

“Talk,” the second voice said, blunt as could be.

I stayed silent, unable to speak.

“Tell us what you know,” the first voice said.

I wished I could’ve told them anything.

“Goddammit!” The first voice shouted, sounding like he slammed his fist down on something.

Something clicked in my head. I shouted as loud as I could with my mouth closed, letting them hear it muffled by my lips. It was something a lot of people had tried at least once. Making noises with their mouth closed. So I hoped it was recognizable.

It seemed to click to at least Guy 1, as he asked “What happened to your mouth?”.

“Well, Larry, it doesn’t seem much like whoever this is can exactly tell us.”

A slight laugh fell from my mouth, and my stitches hurt from smiling.

“Well how do you propose we fix it?” Guy 1- Larry- asked.

Guy 2 didn’t reply for a few minutes. I just stood there. I didn’t want to move, lest I step onto some broken glass or something. I had no idea what was in the room.

“Well maybe we should see what’s wrong first,” Guy 2 said. I felt like I was drawn more to him than Larry.

“Okay. Then let whoever this is come over to you. Inspect him.”

“Well you’re the doctor,” Guy 2 muttered.

“If this is a trap and someone needs first aid, I’ll need to be healthy to do it,” Larry said.

“Well you’re chained to a pipe, so I’m not sure how much help you’d be to someone across the room from you.”

“If this were a trap,” Larry said, “then maybe you wouldn’t want to tell the person who could be trapping us that we’re at a disadvantage.”

Guy 2 didn’t reply, presumably huffing over getting a talking to.

"Go over to Adam,” Larry said.

It put a name to Guy 2′s voice. Adam.

I nodded, but I wasn’t sure if they could even see it with the mask covering part of my neck.

Adam was quiet.

I paused for a second. If I could talk, I’d ask Larry and Adam how they expected me to go over to Adam if I had no clue as to where he was, and he wasn’t speaking.

“Well, say something,” Larry said, after an awkward pause.

I liked Larry. He thought like me. Plus, he was a doctor. I’d had some medical training myself, so I knew how tough it could be.

“Fine. I’m over here.” I followed Adam’s voice, walking forward first to make sure I wouldn’t slam into any walls.

Adam started shouting. “Wait! Make sure not to step on the-”

It was too late. I felt something squelch under my foot, and I instantly felt woozy.

“corpse.” He finished his sentence.

I teared up. I’d stepped on a corpse. There was a corpse in the room, and I’d stepped on it.

I tried to calm my head as it spun. I walked towards where I last heard Adam’s voice, walking much faster than before. I needed someone. It didn’t matter that I didn’t even know the guy. I’d stepped on a corpse.

I walked closer to where I’d last heard Adam’s voice, but I stumbled. And slipped on the blood on the bottom of my foot. Without my hands to catch me, I fell face first towards the hard concrete. I felt under my feet that it was concrete. I had a feeling that falling like that would put me in a state matching the guy who I stepped on. I hated that in my final moments, I was completely helpless.

Then I fell onto something softer than the ground. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but then I felt breathing on the back of my neck.

I was pretty sure I fell onto Adam.

I felt my face flush, feeling like I’d made a bad impression on him already. And now I had my head buried in what was probably his shoulder.

I wanted to say sorry, but I couldn’t. My eyes widened, and I knew that I had bigger concerns than a bad first impression, but I couldn’t help but feel bad.

He didn’t say anything, choosing to instead take the pig mask off of me. My eyes stung under the fluorescent lights, even though they were pretty dim.

I got a good look at Adam’s face, and the stitches around my mouth burned as I weakly smiled at how he looked more concerned than annoyed. That was a good sign that he wasn’t mad at me.

“Shit...” he said, running his hand over the stitches.

“What is it?” Larry asked from across the room.

“His mouth is sewn shut,” Adam said, voice full of something that after a few moments, I recognized as horror.

I glanced over at Larry. There was a gun in the middle of the floor, but he didn’t have it. I guessed he was betting on me not having great eyesight, or maybe he saw that there were no eyeholes in my mask. Either way, if I were sent as a minion by the man, I probably would’ve seen that he didn’t have it.

Also in the middle of the floor was the corpse. His face was down, so I didn’t even know if I recognized him or not. And footprints from my bare feet in the blood. I teared up, then started to sob. But every time that I went to instinctively gasp, I couldn’t. I felt like I was choking.

Adam wrapped an arm around me, starting to pat my back. Tears streamed down my face, and I felt my nose begin to drip a little. It made my breathing harder, because I had to deal with my snot and my tears when I tried to breathe in. I also worried that I was getting Adam’s shirt messy, but there seemed to already be some dirt and grime on it, so I hoped that he wouldn’t mind.

“What can we do?” Larry asked.

I noticed a saw next to Adam and I. I pointed to it with my cuffed hands, turned around to point to Adam, and then mimed sawing to him. I turned back around to face him, and he looked at me with a look that seemed to imply that I was crazy.

“He wants me to saw the stitches,” Adam said.

I nodded my head up and down.

“That sounds like something someone would end up in the hospital trying to do,” Larry said.

“I feel like he should do it. He’s the doctor,” Adam said, pointing to Larry.

I nodded my head left and right. I couldn’t walk across the floor again, even with my vision. I just couldn’t.

He sighed, seeming to reside himself to his fate.

He picked up the saw, and cut into the stitches as tenderly as possible. The saw was larger than my mouth, and my lips were tight behind the stitches, so I ended up with blood running down my face. But I could open my mouth. I could breathe again. It felt amazing.

“Thank you,” I said, voice croaky and dry, with tears still dropping.

“You’re welcome,” he said in reply, just looking at my face.

“You did really well,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said.