Drip drip drip
'That's enough of the investigation for today…'
Drip drip drip
'I'll be making my way home now…'
Drip drip drip
'I hope I…'
Drip
'See you again tomorrow.'
Drip.
--
Morning, must still have been darkness outside.
Deep inside the brain of an auburn-haired, teenaged boy, a flicker of consciousness began to stir.
The last thing the man could recall from the other day was "working" on the case with L. As Raito rose from his dream state, his head rolled lazily about his shoulder, the dizzy old fog of sleep paralysis still fondling him. In the black plane behind their lids, half-awoken eyes sat idly, still amusing themselves with the stale remnants of dreams already forgotten.
However, in his ignorant head, a few moments later… all his touch and hearing, and smell and sight… would bring to him a creeping—unsettling--realization. A small shift of his feet invited him to a rough and disturbing touch. Not a thing one naturally experiences in his blanket.
Cold.
Raito felt a twinge of fear inside of him. Was he still in his dream? He eased his neck over and groped around, expecting and hoping to feel the soft touch of bedding on his skin.
The chilling again.
What was that confounded cold feeling? It was a little damp… and it seeped into his flesh with a harsh impudence… As he wriggled his toes a little, it felt like… almost like… concrete?
He was still left clinging on to his half-resting haze. It probably was just another figment of his dream world. The cold stone, a draft, which only concealed the warm security of a bed sheet.
Concrete? A hard stone floor? It couldn't be…
But his drowsiness was to abandon him. He then realized that, in all reality… that he was definitely not in his bed. In fact, the brunette man wasn't even lying down.
A sharp jolt pierced his heart… he had never been here before.
Drip
After his eyes shot open and a quick survey was taken of his environment, he figured that the pitch darkness in the room was not due to natural dawn tranquility… but because this ominous place he had awoken in probably had no windows.
Snapping to his senses, the panic built up. His fingers started to come alive with feeling, and found themselves wrapping around the slick, steel arms of a chair. Raito tried to lift his arms. They were stuck. He could not make out anything in the void in front of him, which made him all the more nervous. A chilling air was nipping at his face.
Drip
Wherever he was, it was wet, apparently. That ghostly water was falling somewhere in the vicinity. A haunting, grimy scent strolled in the air. He couldn't even see it, but guessed that the room probably looked just as it smelled.
There was no doubt, though—this was a kidnapping.
But obviously. The facts were all at hand. Raito had arrived in a mysterious place against his will. He was sticking to a chair, and it was dark.
Of course, the first decision was to point the finger at L. Any lunatic who would have wanted Raito dead could have killed him already. That bastard detective must have been the answer. Was the man watching him at this very moment, with some kind of night vision camera?
The brunette flustered with rage. How dare that man! More so yet, where had he slipped up? Scanning his memory, he could recall absolutely no mistakes in his trademark disguise and eloquence that would have set off a sudden attack such as this. Maybe he had slipped up long ago… and simply not known it.
Raito rejected the idea. Kira knew his own thoughts, by lord. Perhaps L would just do this out of his own stupid, confounded arrogance. That L… Could it be that somewhere… Misa was in a similar situation? It would make sense.
But if L was truly watching him… why didn't he speak up?
Just then, he took notice of something more.
It was when he turned his head to look for any shapes or forms in the area that it became obvious. As the man's neck turned around, a cold sensation brushed his skin, almost like the end of a stethoscope on one's chest. Something was holding him there. Smooth and metallic-feeling, he aimed to touch it.He had forgotten, however, that his forearms had been stuck to the chair by something. Of course, if thiswas L's doing… he would try to tie the suspect up in some way, right?
Although, when he gave a little struggle… something he expected to be useless… his arms came clean away with a fabric-like ripping sound. As it turned out, all that held them down were a few measly pieces of tape. As if the restraint was not to keep him still, but just to keep him from slipping in his sleep.
So much for tying up the suspect. What was going on?
His attention turned back to the thing brushing his neck. He reached up and ran his fingertips over the hard, flexible accessory. Apparently, it was a thick, thick wire.
Reaching all around more with his hands, not standing up due to the lack of vision, he could feel a concrete wall directly behind him, damp and frigid, just like the floor beneath. Somewhere along the wall, Raito found a hole. A small hole… with a hard wire leading through it. So, the thing tethering him… it did not tie into the room… it led somewhere. But… where? Was there a point to it?
His heart was still in a panicked flutter, and the paranoia was growing thicker by the second. His mind raced. L… was it even L? Shaking his head, he gripped the chair's arms and pushed himself up.
The paranoid flutter became a terrified thundering as when Raito's body pulled upwards, a hundred sharp, metallic stings shredded themselves into his flesh.
He withdrew at once, the shock wracking him. Chilling down, he waited for the hot trickle of blood to begin seeping from the wounds. Thankfully, although his legs were bare—covered in nothing save for a thin pair of boxer shorts—none seemed to come, save for a trickle here and there.
Anxiously curious fingers rushed to the site of the little jolts. In horror, the man lightly ran his palms all over his hurt legs. Covering them… and he could feel them displaying their threatening teeth…
Were coils upon coils of glistening razor wire.
What the hell? Would L have really fallen off the deep end and turned to some kind of torture to draw out a confession?
He wriggled, trying to detect, without hurting himself, the extent of the brutal restraints. They were everywhere down there, a small few wrapping around his waist… a multitude of them on his lower legs, and in vicious clusters around his ankles.
He was beginning to doubt that this was L's doing. Would the detective really have gone to this extent, while having so much power in that black, messy head of his alone? What if some person, a Kira-hater, perhaps, had managed to ferret out his secret and finally sprung this abduction on him? It sounded impossible… no man besides L could ever match Kira in his levels of dexterity and stealth. Sure, L would go far as to illegally install security cameras in the homes of "unsuspecting" students, but this… this was just weird. And the tape that had loosely held his arms… along with that obscure wire in the wall, didn't help any suspicions.
Groping around the razors, Raito was surprised when he came across another thing. It stood out greatly against the wires… for it was not cold and stiff, it was small and soft.
A string.
He leaned downwards delicately, careful of the chewing knives. The little string hung from the razor wire at his left side. Running down it, he found something attached to it sitting on the wet floor… something it was tied around. The discovery of something new in this room granted him a little hope…
Raito picked the object up. It was smooth and square and plastic, almost like a camera. But a further survey with his fingers revealed an array of buttons on the thing. It was…
A tape recorder?
He squinted his eyes close to it. He could just make out the shapes of letters on the buttons. A tape recorder it was indeed, a small one. In the little plastic window that came on the side, he could see what was evidently a tape. Trapped and helplessly confused, Raito had nothing to lose, did he? Whoever was behind this… they would have left a tape tied up with him for a reason. There was no other explanation, no other conclusion.
He was supposed to play it.
The auburn-haired man's heart palpitated as he thought about what sort of message was held in store for him. Was he going to get out? What if it was a death sentence… was he just being left here to perish miserably?
With fearful thoughts, he raised the device to his ear… and pressed 'play.'
Up next, rolling grainily into his head… came a deep, foreboding voice that chilled him.
"Hello, Raito…
…I would like to play a game."
--
Yeah, you know what kind of crossover this is… XD I really was surprised that I couldn't find any written already. Sigh me and my crossovers… and cliffhangers… And yeah, the title is a Linkin Park song. Couldn't think of what else to call it.
Reviews appreciated, constructive criticism and all that…
To be continued…
