So I'm experimenting with something a little different than my past submissions, should you be aware of them. I really don't know how to explain this other than holy fuck what am I even doing?
Word count: 3370 words.
Misery
Nate awakens in darkness. Pure, black, murky darkness. His memory is as hazy as his vision, the only source of light in the room is a small window. In order to prevent tampering with the glass, it is protected by metal bars.
The sole noise aside from the boy's breathing comes from the rickety ceiling fan just above him, it sways to and fro, a squeak every now and then. The ceiling's cries are enough to convince him that it will eventually detatch from its supports and crush him.
Movement is impossible, for Nate's legs and arms are tied up. He is bound to a wooden chair, which itself isn't going to last much long either, its creaks are as bad as the fan's.
If that isn't bad enough, Nate's pleas for assistance are drowned out by a gag stuffed into his mouth. Any words he tries to helplessly utter come out as quiet irrelevant mumbles.
The room's temperature is cold, a striking contrast to the warm sun outside, only the lowest of the absolute low would dare lurk in such a backwater environment. Perhaps that comment was too biased, perhaps not. There's not much of an honest opinion to be had when the boy's house is completely void of grime and such.
it was almost as if the owner was secluding themselves from the public eye. For what reasons, Nate does not know, and he doesn't know if he wants to either.
Tink.
Nate blinks, he cranes his head to look around, but the room is still as dark as dark can possibly be. A sound. A small sound, but still as sound. A metallic tink, a sound which can be associated with many items, the majority of which notorious for causing bodily harm.
He wonders if he's alone in here.
It's almost as if Nate's in some sort of nightmare, like this is some dream, a bewildered dream that he'll eventually wake up from. Or perhaps this is a prank, that seems reasonable as well. Maybe someone that wishes to deal revenge on him is why he's here, stuck in a chair, for absolutely no reason.
In hindsight, this does sound a bit too extreme for what seems to be a simple prank.
Tink.
Nate's eyes widen considerably. The noise, the noise, the simple yet intriguing noise had made itself audible once again. In fear of whatever this metallic item might be, Nate squirms in an attempt to escape from his lowly prison, but his efforts are futile, his captor is knowledgeable with the mastery of rope tying. If such a thing exists.
From the corner of Nate's eye, he spots something emerging from the darkness. As much as he wants it to be something benevolent, such as a rescuer's hand, the item's alignment is made as soon as his eyes make contact with it.
It's a knife.
The most simplistic form of cutlery, but no less deadlier than it's fellow brethren.
A knife sprouting from the darkness, the light of the window reflects off of the blade, creating a small shining effect. Had the knife been less dull, the shine might have been more potent, the slightly rugged edge makes it clear that it's been used before.
Used before frequently.
Out of all the scenarios Nate has ever found himself entangled in, he can't seem to think of anyone worse than, well, this.
Another noise comes into place and stirs Nate away from his thoughts and into reality again. It is not a metallic tink, but rather, a new noise entirely.
Footsteps.
Footsteps follow the knife's reveal, Nate hopes that whoever is on the other end of the darkness has good intentions with it
That's a stupid pipe dream.
Nate's wish is unknowingly denied to him as a girl appears from the darkness. A girl that Nate is very well accompanied with, as a result, he assumes that she is the one that's going to help him out of...where ever he is.
The girl's identity doesn't need to be revealed, a simple blatant hint that she sports buns is all one would need to guess who she is. The reason being that just about everyone who knows her associates her with those inane donut-shaped atrocities.
Personally, Nate doesn't mind her. She's an okay girl for the most part, they sometimes hang out, not all the time, but sometimes. This is probably one of those times.
The boy hasn't really come into conclusion about what he wants yet, so he can't say for sure what he really thinks about her.
On the other hand, she can say what she thinks about him, and her impending actions deal with those thoughts.
Slowly, but surely, Rosa makes her way over to him, her converse making quiet noise as they hit the floor in rhythm. Her face is void of emotion, not even the smile on her face that she's known for is sported on, instead being substituted for blank nothing.
The first thing she does is rip the gag off.
Nate attempts to speak, but Rosa shushes him with a light press of her finger to his lips.
It feels cold, as cold as the room, she must have been here before if that was the case.
"Shhh..." Rosa whispers gingerly, she takes light steps behind Nate. The boy assumes that she's going to free him, but he would honestly want his questions answered more so than to be freed.
"Rosa, what...what am I doing here?"
Rosa doesn't reply though. Instead, she wraps her arms around his waist, her cold breath just trickling down his neck.
Nate knows by know that something isn't quite right with his friend's behavior. Then again, she wasn't really the most normal gal in the shed anyways, there was always this little something about her that bugged him, but he would always dismiss it in favor of his profound distaste of judgmental behavior.
Before concluding her as psychotic, Nate instead decides to go with reasoning.
"Rosa, do you mind untying me now? I mean, not to say that I assume you did this, it's just that no one else has bothered to come down here, wherever this place is..."
Few seconds follow before Rosa responds, her answer isn't what he had in mind.
"No." she says bluntly, as if to set her foot firm on the decision, with no chance of it changing. Nate is at first surprised that she would deny him of such liberty, but after that small feeling of suspicion sets in again, he finds that it's clear she intends on keeping him here.
"Well, why not? I don't very much enjoy playing prisoner, you know."
Rosa continues to hug him from behind, she then closes her eyes and conceals her face in his neck, "That's a dumb thing to say, who would enjoy a living hell?"
"So, what is this then? A joke, a prank, what? This isn't like you at all."
Nate hears her inhale softly, "It's paradise..."
He knows the answer to his next question, but he figures all he can do now is stall with the rhetorical obvious to buy him more time, "So I take it you're not going to be letting me out anytime soon then?"
She clicks her tongue, then proceeds to lightly lick the boy's neck, "That's right! My, you catch on fast, Nate!"
Her ever-so bubbly personality is cute at first, but when placed in a situation as dark as this one, it turns into a sickly sort-of sweet, almost sarcastic like with a hint of sanity loss. Bare-bottom conclusion, today, Rosa's heart was not in the right place.
Had it ever had a place to go to begin with.
Nate himself is feeling a mix of fear and resistance. The latter of which is the feeling he's letting her experience. Fear would only let her have more control, which is why he secretly conceals it inside of him.
"I don't have much to pick-up anyways, all the context is easy to grasp considering you're here and," Nate pauses to hold his breath. The girl has just taken another sugary sweet lick, "displaying affections. All I don't know is why!"
It feels like a ghost-type is dribbling its sticky saliva all over him. It's an exaggeration sure, there's not as much hair-raising spittle as he's feeling, but the ethics of it don't change.
"Nate, do you want to hear a story?" she asks, he has no other choice, so he wonders why she bothers to get his opinion on the subject. It could be because she gets a sick thrill out of his lack of a say in any matter she throws at him or she just wants to hear him talk more.
"I don't think I have much of a choice."
Rosa giggles quietly. With quiet steps, she walks in front of him. What she does next can be considered two things depending on whom you ask; traumatizing or arousing. For Nate, this can go either way, though right now it's leaning towards the former.
She straddles herself on the boy's lap, looking down at his face with that sweet, deadly smile.
She cuffs his chin, her tone shifts to one of mild frustration, "There was once this girl, and she really liked this boy. But then that boy decided he didn't like her, and instead threw himself towards a bunch of sluts and whores who didn't appreciate him for who he really was. The end."
Nate cocks an eyebrow, that was kind of dark for a rather short and simple story. As Rosa shifts herself while sitting on him to a more comfortable position, Nate's body can't help but find itself stricken with hormone-related instincts. His mind has the resistance of a steel wall, but the same can't be said for the lower side of his person.
"Let me guess, I'm the guy, and you're the girl, right?"
She doesn't answer directly, though the implications are blatant enough that the answer should be obvious.
"Why do you do it Nate?"
So in exchange of the boy asking a question, not only does he not get it answered, he gets an entirely new question instead, and is expected to answer that vague mess with a legitimate response.
"Do what?" like any other normal person, he knows he can't answer a question without some direct context.
"You know what!" Rosa exclaims. She wraps her arms around his waist, shaking him all over the place out of full frustration, "You're so impossible! I-I, I try hard, I try so hard to get you to notice me, but you rarely do! And whenever you do, it's always some stupid trivial crap! I'm tired Nate, I-I'm tired! I-I just want you to notice me..."
Nate tries to be sympathetic, but the flaws in the girl's obnoxious plot get on the top of his priority list.
"And you chose to demonstrate that by kidnapping me?"
"It was the only way to get you away from everyone!"
"You should really work out your plans before taking them out on others. Y'know, like a practice run maybe?" Nate suggests. It's weird, in the beginning he was quite fearful for his fate, but now he was more blunt about the situation. Probably because it would be unnatural to assume someone as cutesy as Rosa committing a dark act like murder. Sure, don't judge books by their cover, but even then, she wouldn't dare kill someone she holds admiration for.
"I-I do! I try so hard, a-and you don't do anything in return!" she reiterates.
"You do, you do try too hard." Nate bluntly remarks. Offended, the girl continues to shake him back and forth, the voices in her head are wishing for nothing more than to boy to drop everything and give her a hug.
The voices don't seem to be aware of how tied-up he is.
"Why?! Why don't you like me?!" she frustratedly exclaimed.
"Well for starters, you're absolutely bonkers-"
"That's not a legitimate reason!" she cuts him off with a loud retort, dismissing his supposedly outlandish claim in seconds. Her outburst slightly startles him, but it's not enough to phase him completely. After being given a few seconds to cool down, she calms herself, "W-Well, if you don't like me, then who do you like?"
"No one." Nate simply says.
"Why not?" her reply is instant, as she yearns for the truth.
"Because." Nate continues to stall by keeping his answers short and vague, though he is unsure just how much longer he can keep it up.
"Because why!?" she presses him on the subject, frustration returning. His refusal to offer her a concrete answer is doing nothing short of infuriating her short, short temper.
Starting to get frustrated himself, Nate creates an outburst of his own, "Because you don't have to spend every waking moment of your life pursuing a silly crush on someone!"
"It's not a crush. I just like you." Rosa attempts to assure Nate, but it doesn't sway him away from his own opinion.
"They're the same thing!"
"No they're not! They both offer different admiration values! Y-You don't understand!" Rosa retorts, but only succeeds in making Nate more tired of her behavior. Had this been the normal Rosa he was so accustomed to, he might have actually tried to accept his bondage fate.
"Regardless, I don't like anyone right now. You included."
Rosa deadpans, but that sickly sweet smile of hers soon returns, and in seconds, she begins hysterically laughing. She brings her knife up to her cheek, and as she laughs, makes small scrape marks onto her skin. As time continues to tick by, her laugh gets more and more psychotic, by now the boy is unsure as to what limits of mental sanity she still retains.
The girl holds her sides as she places the knife on the boy's face, not hurting him, but rather using it as a form of intimidation. Her eyes tremble with her laughter, almost like she can breakdown at any second.
She tries to quell her laughter so she can speak, but finds mild success.
"Y-You don't like a-anyone? Really now?Well, I think you're fibbing!-" Rosa pauses briefly to hold her sides, the fact that she believes you tried to trick her is what's setting her funny bone off, "I-I see you and her! I see you and her every waking moment of the day!I see what you do with her! You hang out with Yancy, y-you hang out with that celebrity-smutbut not me! Why the heck do you do that?!"
"Well for one, you never ask to hang-out, instead you lurk around in the shadows. If you did before today, I would have gladly accepted. Plus, now that I think about it, if this is your idea of "fun", then I'm not interested. No sale."
"B-But this is supposed to be romantic! I planned everything!" Rosa grabs her hair, daring to pull it from her head.
"Romance can be grouped under "fun". Furthermore, I'm tied up in a chair and you're straddling me just to appease your sick and twisted sexual thrills. No Rosa, this is not "romantic". If anything, it's terrifying."
Rosa looks as if she's going to lose it right then and there, but something stops her from doing so. Instead, she takes a deep breath, "It's only fun if both people are cooperating! So..."
Nate gives her a look of confusion, "So what?"
"So cooperate!"
"I'd rather not."
Rosa shifts herself again, her thighs rubbing against his member. For someone so mentally deranged, she's not half-bad.
"You don't seem to think that down there..." she seductively makes note of.
Great, the boy holds potential of either dying a dastardly death or becoming a raunchy sex slave and he finds it attractive.
It's best to always have excuses for these types of things.
"That's because he's much easier to fool than I am. He's more gullible, see." Nate has no idea as to why he refers to his unmentionable as a sentient being, but there's no real reason nor time to question it.
Rosa's hand trickles down to that spot, and Nate begins to squirm, "I'm sorry, but exactly what do you think you're doing?"
"I want you, Nate. I want you to take me. Stop wasting time, just do it, do it with me right here and right now." Rosa's hand slips inside of his shorts, and before he knows it, she forces her mouth on his.
Her hand takes a firm grip of his third leg, while she forcefully pushes her tongue into his mouth, tasting the succulent boy that's she sought after for so long. She proceeds to fondle him in an attempt to please him.
As much as Nate's gullible and hormone-based personality enjoys it, his mind refuses to give in to her. Before her forced affection can fully overtake the boy's mindset, he manages to shake her off of him. The impact causes her to fall off of his lap, and onto the cold floor.
The next few seconds depict the situation nearing its climax. Silence overtakes the two, sans for Nate's excessive breathing, the girl isn't notably hurt, but the shock of it all comes from how sudden it was.
Rosa stares at him with a shocked face of betrayal, and Nate fears how she's going to react.
Just when he fears that she's going to lose it by gripping her fists, he's surprised to find that she does not retaliate. As if something inside of her is forcing her not to. She's well aware that she has the power to off anyone she wanted to, so that just begs one to ask why she isn't going through it.
Her next actions confuse the boy even more, she cuts the ropes that ties him to the chair loose, "Go."
Nate looks up at her with a confused face, "Huh?"
"J-Just go!" Rosa points toward the stairs that lead out of the basement, she rubs her temples, trying to calm herself and give good logical reason to support her words.
Nate tries to question her, but she cuts him off before he can even get a word out.
"Just go then! I-If that's what you really want to do, then just get out, get out!"
For the first time since this fiasco began, Nate stands up and gives himself a good stretch. Now the room is becoming even more clearer to make out, it's nothing more than the basement of her own home.
Her parents are either deaf or on some errand.
Rosa stumbles back to the wall, looking at her palms. She slides to the floor, unsure of why she went through with that complete cop-out. She had him right there, right in her grasp, and instead she lets him go just because that's what he wanted.
It doesn't take long for her to reach a conclusion, and when she does, she promptly buries her face in her knees.
It just isn't in her to harm him, no matter how much he's angered her.
The girl laments over her failure, reiterating multiple times that the boy leave her to sulk in her cesspool of disappointment. Nate looks up the staircase, looking at the door that would free him from this prison of flawed love stalking.
The boy is ready to escape right then and there, and he would have, had he not heard the girl's sobs.
Nate juggles his options with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. In the end, he returns to Rosa and sits next to her.
Rosa forces a hug out of him next, and he complies because he doesn't wish to be at the receiving end of her craziness again.
Out of Nate's viewpoint, the girl smiles again, but it isn't just any ordinary smile.
It's the smile. That sickly sweet smile that does nothing but foreshadow evil things.
She's trapped him in her grasp for good now. There's nothing he can do to escape his fate but sit there and adhere to her love for an eternity.
And for that, she can be happy.