A song was playing in Richard Castle's head. It was a far away music, like when you heard your neighbor's radio trough the walls.
One part of his mind was listening and relaxed like dreaming. Another part was fighting inside him, trying to scape from the dream. He had been drugged.
Deformed images were filling his mind. He could see big Egyptian Pyramids floating in a pink sky with cotton clouds. He could see a gang of bikers crossing the firmament like Santa Claus. However he was on the ground, trying to move, but his feet were trapped in quicksand.
The motorbikers were really close now. He could see they were carrying sticks and chains. "Very bad guys." he thought. He was fighting for run away, but he could not move his feet an inch. He looked around him, crouched and tried to dig in the sand with his bare hands. But then the sand become concrete and his hands were trapped too.
They stopped above him. He could not hear the engine noises because that dammit music was louder. He closed his eyes and turn his head waiting the knocking.
A rush of cold water in his face surprised him in the middle of his delirium. It was not so bad, because he realized that he was thirsty. He licked a few waterdrops from his lips. He tried to move. He couldn't, but something has changed... Yeah, his back was aching, and his 'bad' knee - the one crushed snowboarding one year ago - was painful too. His ears were buzzing... he could listen that fucking song.
Another rush of water interrupted his thoughts. This was worse, because the liquid went through his nose and he started to cough heavily. Then he realized that he was regaining consciousness. He had left his nightmare world and now he was in another one.
"Wake up! You're boring me!"
The voice came from some undefined place. The writer opened his eyes and tried to focus. Everything he could see were confusing lights and shadows. He coughed several times. His body was curled in a fetal position inside a narrow small and uncomfortable place. He tried to move but he had both his hands and feet bounded.
The water fell again, he turned his head so it did not fall on his face. Then he realized that he was in a bathtub and the cold water was falling from a shower head above him. Castle made a noise from his throat, it was a scream of rage and pain. At least the shower stops. Thanks God.
He blinked a few times, he could not see a lot, but he was in a dark room and a light bulb lit from one corner. He saw ghostly shadows projected on the wall tiles.
He breathed deeply twice and tried to stretch inside the tub but his shoes hit the wall. Some liquid moved inside the tub. It probably was the water which had fallen and had been collected in the bathtub. He curled his back and the sinkhole do its job slowly.
"Good boy. It would be a shame to die under water after all the effort I have done to bring you here."
The writer heard the voice mixed with the music in his head. He had not recognized it but he already knew that he hated it.
"Who...? Who are you?" Castle asked confused.
The shadow on the wall became bigger and then the light come closer to him. Someone pointed to his face with a lantern and he avoided the burning light placing his tied hands in front of his eyes.
"Who are you!? Where am I!?" he asked again, but now he was angry. He shook his legs and hit the tub with his heels.
"Oh. Keep your manners Mr. Castle. A little more patience, please."
After that, the man went away with his light. The room was dark and silent again for a few seconds, while the writer heard the music in his brain and felt the fear in his skin. He wondered what could it mean the fact that the guy had called him 'Mr. Castle'. Then there was light. Fluorescent bars precariously suspended from the ceiling illuminated the instance. The cold bluish light filled Castle's visual field, some tubes flickered, to the despair of his sensitive brain.
"Better?" the voice asked from far away.
The place looked bigger now. All he could watch from inside the bathtub was the large tall ceiling. The tub was old stainless steel and it was a little bigger that an average bathtub. A backlighting man sharpe was watching him from the tub edge, Castle could not see his face.
"You haven't recognized my voice, have you? It's a shame, it would have been epic... maybe the drug dose was wrong, uh?"
The man moved a hand in front of Castle's face. The writer could only see lots of fingers dancing from one side to another. And when the fingers stopped dancing he could see bloodstains on the walls of the tub. He wondered if it was his own.
"Well, I will wait a bit more time so you can wake up, right Rick?"
He felt the cold water falling again from the head shower. Castle was semiconscious, sore, helpless... he turned his head first and his body then, so he placed face down. Now the water was falling on his nape. He felt a tickling in his neck. The writer shook his head and a cockroach fell in front of his nose. The water dragged it to the sump and it disapeared. Castle thought that, compared to him now, it was a lucky bug.