Coming Out

Darkness surrounded a white male in his mid-twenties. He had short blonde hair, blue eyes, and medium build. He was waking up from a drug induced nap. The last thing that he remembers is standing across the street from a gay strip club. He was staring at the building with fear and curiosity. Half of him wanted to look at other men's semi-naked bodies without any regret, but the other half was afraid of the shame and humiliation that would be bestowed upon him if he did walk into that place. Every couple of nights, he would stop by this strip club and hope that he could gather the courage to walk inside and finally come out of the closet. Unfortunately for the hopeless homosexual, tonight was not his night. He turned away and headed straight for home. And that was the last thing that he could remember...

Now this man was in a dark, unfamiliar room, the smell of dead was in the air, and it disgusted him. Then, a fluorescent light shined above him, nearly blinding him. It took him a minute to get used to the light. He found himself gagged, laying on his back in his underwear, and his hands and feet bound by handcuffs. There was a small television lying a few feet in front of him. Just then, it turned on by itself and showed a horrific clown puppet dressed in a gaudy tuxedo with huge black eyes and swirls on it's cheeks. It looked straight at the recording camera almost as if he was looking at the bound homosexual in front of the television. Then, like a ventriloquist dummy, it's mouth started to move and words were coming out of it.

"Hello Elliot," a deep and horrifying voice said, "You don't know me, but I know you. I want to play a game." The man, now identified as Elliot watched the video in disbelief. "Since childhood, you have been hiding in the closet, afraid to come out and reveal your homosexuality. You've been standing across the street from a strip club that you wish to enter, but you fear of what would happen once others have found out that you were gay."

Elliot just couldn't believe that this man actually knew about his homosexuality. How could he have known that he truly was gay? Who was this guy? Why is he doing this? What is going to happen to me? These were the thoughts that were going through Elliot's mind as he listened to what this man had to say.

"Now behind the TV you are watching is a saw used to cut trees down the middle." Elliot looked behind the TV to see a gigantic razor blade covered in blood. On both sides of the blade were both halves of a dead man. Elliot looked at the body in shock and disgust, he almost threw up at the sight of it, for he never actually saw a real dead body before, especially cut in half.

"You see Elliot, this man was also a homosexual and this was how he met his demise, I hope you don't end up like himHe looked all around . Now five feet below you are thousands of glass shards where I have hidden the keys to your handcuffs. You will need to find these keys if you hope to unlock your handcuffs. By the way, Elliot, there is a poisonous gas that will enter the room through the vents in twenty and will instantly kill you if you cannot get out of this room alive. The door is unlocked, so that will be one less burden on your back. Come out or die, Elliot, the choice is yours."

And like that, the TV turned off and beeping could be heard. Elliot looked over to his left to see a timer counting down to when the room would be filled with poisonous gas. All of a sudden, the razor blade began to move and began going faster and faster by the second, the ground he was laying on slowly began to move. That was when he realized that he was on a conveyor belt, slowly heading toward his doom. His muffled screams could be heard throughout the room as he kept moving towards the razor at a slow rate. He was so afraid that he would be torn if half the the power of the spinning blade. After Elliot went a couple feet, the TV that the unknown assailant had shown himself in had been destroyed by the blade.

That was when Elliot had to make a split-second decision, would he rather die by the blade by being sliced in half, or would he rather endure the pain of the thousands of glass shards scattered on the floor, possibly bleed to death, but still have the chance of escaping? He would either die by the blade, the shards, or the gas if he didn't make the right decisions. The razor blade was getting closer and his feet were inches away from it. On impulse, Elliot rolled over and landed on the glass with his right side. The shards intruded his flesh and hurt like nothing Elliot had ever imagined. Elliot began to scream in pain as the glass penetrated his bare skin. But after a minute, he realized that the razor blade had turned off and he began to realize that landing on glass shards can be a lot less painful than being sawed in half. He began to wonder if this trap had anything to do with his other situation.

Right now, Elliot had not time to think. He had to find the keys to his cuffs so he could get up and get out of this room before he either bled to death or got poisoned by the gas that would be coming through the vents. He looked over at the timer and saw that he had fifteen minutes and counting down left on the clock. He had to find the keys, no matter how painful or difficult it may be, for he needed to get out of there if he ever wanted to find the right guy for him.

He lay on his stomach and began to crawl through the glass in search of the keys. He received more lacerations as he moved along. He moaned in pain as more glass shards entered him and caused him to bleed more and more. He was losing a great deal of blood but he had to press onward. Elliot desperately searched through the glass for the keys by shifting the glass with his arms, by doing this, more glass was embedded in his arms, but he knew it was the most effective way to finding the keys. He looked at the clock to see he only had twelve minutes left or he would be poisoned. Then he saw something buried in the glass a few feet away from him. Elliot crawled over to the glass which the object was buried in, cringing as more glass entered his epidermis. He brushed away the shards with his hands to find a bronze key. He picked it up and struggled to unlock his handcuffs since they were so close together. Finally, he put the key into the keyhole and turned it. With a click it was unlocked. Elliot did the same with the adjacent cuff and the handcuffs fell off of his wrists and onto the floor of shattered glass.

Elliot looked at the clock to see that he only had eight minutes left to find the next key. He quickly began to crawl through the unforgiving glass shards, he was bleeding profusely from the glass that entered him. He was feeling pain like he had never felt before and he released a muffled scream of pain. He wasn't going to die there, for he was determined to leave this room alive. He lifted himself up with his arms and untied the cloth that gagged his mouth. He threw the gag to the side and began his search for the next key.

Elliot looked at the timer once again and saw that he had five minutes left. "Shit," he shouted in frustration. He began digging through the glass with his bare hands, cutting them up more and more he quickly crawled through the glass, enduring the pain he was going through. He searched throughout the entire space until he looked at the dead body. He saw something shining in the dead homosexual's hand. He crawled though the glass and he sat himself by the conveyor belt next to the man severed in half. Elliot unwrapped the corpse's finger from the shining metal object to discover that it is the key to his cuffs. Elliot quickly unlocked the cuffs and threw them on the floor.

Elliot looked at the dead man, and threw up from the sight of him mutilated body. After a short while, he looked at the clock to see he had thirty seconds left. "Shit," he yelled, he tried to make a dash for the door, but his body only allowed him to go so fast. He was struggling to stand up because his body was so weak. He was halfway through the room when he looked at the clock again. Twenty seconds left. He hurried over to the door as fast as his body would let him. Glass penetrated his feet as he slumped over to the door. When he reached the door, the clock had only ten seconds on it. Elliot pushed the metal door open and went past it, closing it so that no poisonous air would come through. As the door slammed shut. Elliot could hear the sound of fans in the other room. He sighed in relief then looked to his left. He was so shocked at what he saw that he fell on his back. It was the same puppet that was in the video attached to some sort of machine. It began to speak again.

"Congratulations Elliot," The puppet said, "you are still alive. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive, but not you, not anymore. Remember that some things are not always what they appear to be." Then it returned to lifelessness. Elliot recovered from the shock of seeing this puppet and slowly got up. He began limping towards the door down the hallway leaving tracks of blood from his feet behind him. He felt a bit dazed from the blood loss, and the shards of glass embedded in his flesh were taking a toll on his body.

He got out of the door to see the light of day he walked away from the entrance for a few more steps, then his body collapsed on the cold concrete pavement. He was still conscious, but dazed from the loss of blood. He was out on a parking lot of an abandoned building. Most likely an office building, but why was there a razor blade from a wood mill there? After a short while. He noticed the crowded sidewalks filled with people were starting to take notice upon him. Soon, the mass of bodies began running toward him and surrounding him. Tons of worried voices were heard amongst them, they sounded like they were panicking at the sight.

"Oh my god." "Is he alright?" and "Somebody call an ambulance, this man is bleeding!" Were heard among the shouting and worried voices. Elliot was just lucky that he was still breathing. After a short while, the sirens of an ambulance was coming closer and closer towards the area. In this short time it took for the ambulance to get to the parking lot. Elliot had figured out exactly what this trap had meant. It was representing the crossroads of his life. The saw represented that if he chose that path, he would die without anyone knowing he was gay but would die alone. The glass and the handcuffs represented the trials he would have go through once he has decided to come out of the closet and be openly gay. The keys represented all the good things that would come to him once he has admitted his homosexuality. It finally made sense to him, and he knew just what to do.

As the paramedics lifted him up and put him on the stretcher, one of them asked for his name. "My name is Elliot Finch," he said, "I have just survived a trap made by the Jigsaw Killer." The people surrounding him gasped in shock of this. "He helped me," Elliot said weakly, "He made me face my fears head on and showed me courage and now I can finally admit it." "Admit what?" The paramedic asked. "Admit that I... am gay," Elliot said weakly. People surrounding the ambulance began to question amongst themselves about the situation his man was in. They questioned about Jigsaw himself, the trap that Elliot was put in, but mostly, they talked about this man being gay. Elliot even heard somebody mutter the word 'fag,' but he didn't care, for he felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. His secret was that much of a burden that he had been carrying ever since childhood. He would want to tell another guy that he like them, but he knew most people thought it was wrong. Now, it doesn't matter to him anymore.

"Alright," said the paramedic, completely disregarding Elliot's confession, "well we're going to take you to hospital now and get all that glass removed." "Thank you," said Elliot admiring the man whom he was placed under the care of. He was lifted up into the ambulance and the doors were shut. Elliot knew that he would go through a lot of surgery and he would need a blood transfusion so stabilize his vitals, but he knew that his wounds would heal in time. Right now, he was happy that he could live his new lifestyle, being openly gay.