Prologue: The Man in the Dark
The sound of an angry man shouting and swearing woke him up.
The first thing he noticed was that nothing about his situation had changed: he was still strapped to the same gurney in the same dark room. The darkness made it impossible to see what else was in the room, even for someone whose eyes were as accustomed to it as his.
He could feel the two needles that were stuck in his right arm. One of them must have been connected to a drip that provided him with the nutrients that his body needed to stay alive for as long as he did. He assumed he had been stuck here for three days, but it was impossible to tell. The second needle was probably used to pump a powerful sedative into his body in order to prevent him from breaking his restraints and overpowering his abductor. He found this out the hard way when his first attempt to escape failed miserably: His captor heard the noise he was making, gave him a savage beating, that resulted in a black eye and at least two broken ribs. It was then that he decided to wait. Wait for a better chance.
Somewhere far away from him a door slammed shut and the shouting got muffled, until it finally stopped altogether.
He waited for a minute to make sure he was alone and then he started rocking the gurney from left to right, harder and harder, faster and faster, until the table finally tipped over. At first the needles were violently ripped out of his veins and his arm started to bleed. Only a millisecond later the full weight of the table came down on his left hand and broke his thumb and several other bones.
The pain made him grimace at first, but then he smiled.
Everything was going according to plan.
