Chapter 1.39

I realised that I have a lot more readers than I thought as most of you don’t view the site directly. As this means you are unlikely to get any messages I write in the comments I’m being a pest and adding one to the story text (sorry! I uploaded an extra long one to compensate)

Anyway! On with the message:

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And thanks for those that already have, I’ve gotten a few new hits from them recently.

I was expecting all kinds of torture in that first hour. It seemed he had more long term plans. That first ‘meeting’ had not been as bad as I feared. He had talked with, well at me for a half hour at least. That was it, talked.

For most of it I just closed my eyes and tried to block it out, along with the pain from my back and chest. To be honest, I think he just wanted to get things off his chest. He talked about various problems within his gang: Who was trying to build up support against him. Who he could trust, no one, and who he had to watch, everyone.

He liked to talk. I was fine with that. It didn’t involve knives.

After what felt like an eternity one of the guards, goons or whatever knocked subtly on the steel door and entered. He whispered something to Laas which didn’t seem to improve his mood.

With a huff and a few muttered complaints they left. I heard at least two locks or bolts scrape closed from the door.

I was alone.

I still had a hope I might be able to get out of this. Honestly I knew, deep down that I wouldn’t, couldn’t escape.

Assess. I need to assess the situation. Look at it objectively. What advantages did I have?

I was injured, restrained and outnumbered and locked in a windowless room. My advantage? Maybe they underestimated me… because of my injured restrained and outnumbered state they wouldn’t expect me to attempt to escape surely?

Because it was impossible.

Maybe the situation would change, I was a prisoner. I might get moved, they might untie me from the damn chair.

They had to take let me go to the toilet some time right? I did kind of need it…

How naïve of me. Of course they weren’t going to. I’d probably be dead by tomorrow. It wasn’t like they were going to care about my rights as a prisoner.

No, however small the chance there must be something I could do. Let’s see… What am I bound with? I twisted around as much as I could. I couldn’t see my hands but I could see my ankles. It looked like some kind of plastic rope. It was tight.

Ok, I’m stuck on this chair, but is this chair stuck to the floor? Can I move with it? I experimented with trying to hop, rock and slide by throwing as much of my body around as I could within the limits of my bindings and the pain it caused.

I could move. I relaxed, letting myself feel the relief at not being completely helpless, however false it was.

Ok, was there anything I could use to cut or break the bindings? This stupid room had nothing in it. There weren’t even pipes on the wall I could try rub these restraints against.

It was just plain concrete. All I had were four walls.

Well, that wasn’t nothing was it? Maybe I could…

Painstakingly I worked my way backwards, inching my chair towards the back wall. It seemed to take forever, I had to give up and rest three times. I could see three small pools of blood tracking where I’d been. So that bullet had gone though. Still, there wasn’t much – I didn’t think it was anyway.

Once I got there I started rubbing the plastic ropes against the concrete. I only had about an inch of movement and no idea if it was doing anything, I could hardly turn around and look.

When, if, I finally got through and got my hands free what was I going to do then? The door was clearly steel; I doubted I’d even be able to put a dent in it if I was in good condition…

Maybe I could knock on it, get a guard to come to check out the noise and jump him? Or I could wait for Laas to return and surprise him?

That would at least give me a hostage. Then I’d have one more thing going for me. Though by the sounds of it the rest of his gang might just turn it in a situation to their advantage… A botched hostage attempt could be a convenient way to rid themselves of an unwanted leader.

Still it was better than nothing. My arms were cramping up trying to rub through the ropes – I still had no idea whether I was getting anywhere.

It felt like hours passed by, my attempts had gone from my initial fast frantic movements into a slow methodical grinding. To be honest, I was ready to give up.

For all I know I wasn’t even making a dent in them…

Snap.

A whole bunch of thoughts ran around my head. My hands were free! Slowly I moved them round in front of me. It hurt, after having them so tightly tied behind for so long.

The relief, I stared at them, wiggling my fingers. I could feel something building in my chest. Hope.

Maybe I could get out of here alive.

I rubbed my face and wiped new tears I hadn’t even known I had from my eyes.

Right, I doubt I could get through that door if I had a shed full of tools but I could get ready for whoever came through it. My first assessment of this room was wrong, it had something in it. It was full of weapons!

First job, getting my ankles free. It wasn’t hard to untie, but I was impatient and fumbled at the knots. After some infuriatingly wasted minutes I was free.

Standing was tough. My first attempt involved falling off the chair after my legs failed to support my weight. Understandable. I let them off, they were out of practice.

Second attempt was better. I felt faint and dizzy – probably due to blood loss? How much blood could you lose before you pass out? Before you die?

I set to work regardless. I didn’t have my armour. They must have removed it when I was unconscious. I still had my shoes and clothes. My pockets were empty.

My first action was to smash the top of the chair against the floor. Yeah, it was noisy but I hoped no one would come in – if they did I had a chair handy to throw at them.

I didn’t want to break the legs, I’d need most of the chair in usable condition later, my aim was the top half. It was a simple tubular steel frame with bars through the middle forming the backrest. After a few hits I had what I needed, one of those bars free from the now deformed metal.

Tubular, no good. I placed the end on the floor and tried jumping on it but it didn’t so much as dent it. I needed something tougher so I used the chair itself. Pressing down with the leg, some more jumping and stamping and I had flattened one end.

I had one weapon now.

I used the wall to grind it to a more pointed shape and moved the chair underneath one of the light fittings. At least this room seemed to have decent sound insulation… Probably to dull the screams or something.

Dizzy, faint and balancing on a partially smashed chair slippery with my own blood unscrewing a live electrical fixture. Not the safest thing to do…

Luckily they were flathead screws. The lights were embedded in the ceiling under rectangular strips of what I hoped was glass and not plastic. My impromptu tool slipped and scraped but I managed to get the screws out with some cursing and prying.

I gently lowered the cover, keeping the glass in place. It was hot from the LED array underneath.

I wish I had enough material to set up some kind of electrical current through the door. I didn’t have anything to cannibalise for wires or similar though. Maybe I could rewire the light switch so when they tried to…

This first.

The LEDs won’t be much use, they didn’t get hot enough to burn and the wires weren’t long enough to be used for anything else – too small to be broken and used as a weapon. My visions of using a smashed ancient traditional glass bulb light to stab people nearly made me giggle. It probably would have been a hysterical giggle.

I got down with my carefully won prize of a rectangular foot or so glass pane. Now I had to break it just right.

Using the impromptu screwdriver diagonally across the back I pulled my t-shirt off and covered it. I didn’t want shards of glass sticking into my hand if this went terribly wrong.

Pressing down with the heels of my hand in each corner resulted in a satisfying crack. I took the t-shirt off.

Two triangles. Perfect. The wide ends were far too big to get my hand around though. I tried again, trying to form a blade like shape. The first attempt didn’t work, the crack curved and resulted in three evenly sized stubby triangles.

I didn’t want to waste time taking the other light fitting down, I had no idea when someone would come through the door. Luckily repeating the process gave me the desired result – a rather lethal looking foot long shard of glass.

Grasping it along the straight back edge as to not cut myself I used it to half tear half cut a strip of fabric off the bottom of my t-shirt and wrapped this around one end to form a handle. Now I wouldn’t slice my hand open and I could use it as a dagger.

I couldn’t help but smile at it in my hand. It’s funny how you feel proud for making something, even if it was cave-man simple.

My attention turned back to the chair. Its job done I set about taking it apart with some more stamping, twisting and bashing. When I finally tore one of the longer metal pieces that formed the leg and back-rest I shoved the remaining twisted mess in the corner out of sight of the door. With a further bit of wrestling I had it roughly straight. It wasn’t as heavy as I would have liked but it would do.

I pressed the end flat and sharpened it like I had the screwdriver and I was left with a pointy stick about as long as my leg.

I decided I couldn’t do much with the light switch without it being really obvious. I figured being in a position to attack was more important than the off chance of being able to accomplish something with it.

I shivered, then realised I’d taken my t-shirt off and was pretty much topless. For some bizarre reason I panicked, blushed and had a quick look around the room.

As if I was more concerned of someone seeing me without my top on than someone seeing me manufacturing an escape attempt…

Feeling a bit stupid I retrieved my now slightly shorter t-shirt and slipped it back on.

The last thing I did use my pokey spear thing to smash the last light. They would have to adjust to the dark. Sure I would have to adjust to the brighter light but if they came into the room I was at an advantage. Besides it takes less time to adjust to light than dark – I think.

Feeling my way to the door I crouched low and resigned myself to waiting, homemade weapons clutched in my fists.

I needed the toilet really badly…

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