*~*~*Psst. Whatever's boxed in black is profane. Highlight it with your mouse to read. This is a Saw fanfic, just to let you guys know.*~*~*
As I edged in my room to explore the loud slam I'd heard, I tried to get my breathing under control. I was not ready for this. However, I was much less likely to get hurt if I sounded braver than I was.
"Come out right now or I'll come and find you," I hissed. My voice echoed through the room and came back to me.
The only response I got back was a scuffle, followed by a muffled metallic sound.
Gun.
There was no playing around with guns.
My heart floundered in my chest. Gun, gun, gun. Memories started flooding back, I couldn't stop them. All I could do was try to brace myself for-
'No, stay away from me! Take the girl, leave me alone!'
'You would sacrifice your only daughter to save your own pathetic life?'
Deep, thunking steps get closer to where Mom and I stand. I squeeze my eyes shut tightly. Whenever I get scared, I close my eyes so I don't have to see the scary thing. It works well.
'All right, bitch, give her over.'
Mom's hands push me forward into the arms of this strange man. I don't want to go. He has a gun and it's scaring me.
'Hey there, little lady. Do you know who I am?'
His voice is warm and kind. I open my eyes. His big hands are on my shoulders. I look up. He's smiling down at me. His eyes are all crinkled up like Daddy's when he smiles I shake me head 'no' and he gently pushes me to the side.
'Good,' he whispers, 'Forget you ever saw me. You can leave now.'
When I don't move he motions with his hands as if to say, 'Go on now, get!' Obediantly, I walk into the hallway. I know better than to disobey an order more than once. I'm not stupid. I don't want to be hit by this man, not like Mom hits me when I don't listen. He didn't tell me not to watch, so I think it's safe to peek my head into the doorway.
Mom's crying and backing up into the wall now.
'Please,' she sobs, 'Don't hurt me.'
']You want to TALK bitch? You want to run your fuckin'mouth? I'll give you something to do with those loose jaws of yours. Lie down.'
When she doesn't, the man hits her with the back of the gun, the part that didn't shoot, and bellows, 'I said lie the fuck down!'
I'm starting to get scared again.
Mom lies down on the wood floor, still crying, and the man towers over her for a moment. Then, he crouches down and puts the end of the gun that shoots into Mom's mouth.
'You ever hear that expression, to 'bite the bullet'? Well, bitch, you'd better hope you actually do catch the bullet in your teeth.'
I don't understand most of the words they're saying, but I do understand that one. 'Die.' That means he's going to hurt her and she going to go to sleep forever. I don't want my Mom to go to sleep forever, at least not right now. When she hits me, I kind of do.
'Close your teeth around the barrell of the gun,' he says. I guess she does, because he smiles.
'Ready? Three . . . Two . . . One . . . And . . .'
He waits a moment, then pulls back a little piece on the end of the gun. It makes a click noise. Mom cries harder around the gun. I turn away with a frown. I really don't understand what's happening right now, and-
'Blastoff!' the man chirps. Before I can look, a really loud noise comes from the kitchen. It's painful, and I cover my ears. When I can't hear anything anymore, I uncover them. I realize that Mom isn't crying anymore and the man isn't talking. I look into the kitchen.
What I see makes me scream louder than I ever have in my entire life.
Mom's head is completely gone from her nose down. Everything is spattered in blood. Her eyes are still open, so she can't be sleeping, but she isn't moving either. Her chest isn't even going up and down. The man is gone. I'm so scared. So scared of that gun . . .
I snapped back to reality with a shudder. I would never completely forget that- and never forgive it. She wasn't much of a Mom (in fact, she'd beat me senseless nearly every day that year), but she was my Mom. I couldn't just let it go. I remembered with a little bit of surprise that that incident had been nearly ten years ago.
Such a long time, and I could recall every detail without faltering . . .
I realized that I had squeezed my eyes shut. I smiled a little. I still did that, even so many years later. Before I could open them, someone pressed a foul-smelling, damp cloth on my mouth and noise. I took a deep breath in so I could scream . . . Mistake. Two breaths of it and I was losing consciousness. Three and I was only aware of hitting the floor with a thunk and blacking out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I woke up, I was in a dimly lit room that smelled of bleach and chlorine. My mind was foggy, but I was aware of a sharp, biting pain wherever my skin was bare. Bleach . . . Chlorine . . . Chemicals . . . Oh, shit . . .
I lifted my hand from the floor and sure enough, it was red and swollen. Angry blisters covered my raw, dripping flesh. I gingerly used it to pick up some strands of hair, which weren't black anymore. They were pure white.
I was lying in a puddle of bleach and hydrogen peroxide. The stinging pains were chemical burns, and I had scores of them.
Cautiously, I pushed myself up and out of the scorching liquid. Once on my knees, I looked around. I was in what seemed to be an abandoned storeroom. As far as I could see in the dingy light, the entire floor was soaked in chemicals. My feet were already burned and blistered, so I didn't dare to move them. My jeans and sweatshirt had soaked up all the bleach in my little area.
"Hello, Angelique," a deep, growly voice said. I spun to find it, but there was no one else in the room. "I want to play a game."
I want to play a game, where had I heard that before? Where had that-
"Hello, Adam."
"Hello, Doctor."
"Hello, Amanda."
Oh my God . . .
"You haven't been so kind to yourself, have you? The marks on your arms tell a story, Angel, and it's not a happy one. You've been burning yourself with matches and lighters for a long time. Well, now I'm burning you with chemicals."
So this was my game? To slowly burn to death in a storage closet?
"That's not all."
Of course not.
"You've been in this room breathing in chemicals for seven and a half hours. Lethal inhalation time is eight. Can you feel the difference when you breathe? Does it hurt? Does it burn? It will unless you get out of this room in the next thirty minutes."
I froze. It was a little difficult to breathe, now that he mentioned it . . .
"You can't escape alone. You'll have to utilize both your and your cellmate's skills to get you past each of the rooms in this maze. You may want to wake him up before the chemicals kill him, or you'll have the same fate. Good luck, Angel."
There was a crackling as the tape ended. After all, wasn't that what Jigsaw was famous for? Leaving recordings for his victims to listen to? Typical that I should be the one to figure out he was real. I hadn't even liked those damn movies.
Carefully spinning in the area my clothes had dried, I tried to find this cellmate that had been mentioned. If I needed him to escape, there was no use just sitting there waiting for my time to run out. Even though they hadn't been the greatest things in the world, the Saw movies would help here. Rule number one; Those who falter always die.
(NOT DONE)
