Chapter 2: That room

I woke up in a quite dark room. I could still see what was around me, but it was rather hard. I sat up. My head was killing me. I also noticed there was a crack making a line on the right side of my glasses. Just to say it was right in the middle of my field of view. I just ignored it and tried to recognize my surroundings instead. Obviously, I had no idea where I was, and it wasn't very reassuring to see metal bars in front of me. The only lights in the room were two candles out of the cell that were out of my reach. One of them was obviously shorter than the other one. I looked at my right to see Mika laying on her back a bit farther. I joined her on all fours and shook her to wake her up. Unfortunately, she was really out. Helping myself with the bars, I stood up, keeping a hand on my head as if I could remove the pain that way. That's when I remembered that shadow coming for me and the burning sensation I could still feel in my lungs, even though it was faint.

I walked to the door and tried to open it, thinking it would be locked. It proved me wrong by opening when I pushed it. For a moment, I just stared at the opening in front of me. I had difficulty understanding that. Was it on purpose, or was the guy who got us just really stupid? I hoped he was stupid, but I knew in the back of my mind that the one who kidnapped us didn't care if we got out or not. It was still odd to have this opening allowing me to walk out of this cell. I headed out of the cell and walked to the door. I would have never let Mika behind just like that, especially if she was unconscious; I just wanted to see if the door leading out of the room was locked. If it was, our abductor wouldn't look as stupid as he seemed to be. To my surprise, it wasn't locked either. I peeked through the small crack I made by slightly opening the door, but I couldn't see anything except another candle, some forms I couldn't recognize, and a crack of light. There was probably another door there. I closed the door and headed back in the cell. I closed the door behind me and lay back down. If that guy came in, I'd rather fake being asleep and try to see his or her face. Sure, I could just go out and explore, but I preferred to be sure that Mika wasn't alone in that cell.

I stayed down for a long time. I don't know how long because I didn't look at my watch, but I guessed I had been on my back for an hour or so. It's when I heard some movement from Mika's location that I opened my eyes and looked at her. She let out a faint moan and brought her hand to her forehead. I got up and joined her.

"Hiroshi?" she said with a sleepy voice, "Why are you in my room?"

"We are not in your room, Mika," I answered, grabbing her hand to help her sit up. "How are you feeling?"

"I got a headache but I guess I'm okay. What about you?"

"I'm fine," I said, even though my head was still painful.

She looked around and then made a worried frown.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"I have no idea."

From the candles' faint light, I could see she wasn't feeling good about this. I had a bad feeling too, and I think it's easy to understand why. She looked blankly at the bars for a moment.

"Do you remember what happened?" I asked.

"No," she answered. "I know I was at your house, and it was raining when I left, but I don't know what came next."

"You got in some alley, and I just found you there unconscious."

"Oh, yeah, there was that shadow that leaped on me."

We stayed silent for a couple of seconds.

"We should head out as soon as possible," I suggested.

"How? We're in a jail cell."

I stood up and helped her to do the same. I walked to the cell door and opened it in front of her eyes.

"There's a chance our kidnapper is an idiot," I said. "Let's hope it's true."

We exited the cell and headed for the door. Just before I could touch the knob, Mika grabbed my hand.

"Hiroshi… I have a really bad feeling… Maybe we should stay here for a bit…" she said, looking hesitant to exit this room.

"I don't feel comfortable with leaving too, Mika," I replied, "but if we stay here, we won't get home."

"You have a point there, but…" her words trailed off.

I lightly squeezed her hand.

"Don't worry; I won't let any ill-intentioned guy lay a hand on you," I said.

She stayed silent for a moment and then made a faint smile.

"Okay, let's head out."

I twisted the knob and pulled the door open. I closed the door behind us and we walked toward the small line of light, being careful to not walk on anything that would be laying there. When we reached the door, I noticed something by the corner of my eye. It was one of the shapes I couldn't distinguish very well when I checked the crack back in the other room. It was a bed, but there were some stains on it. I didn't stop to look at it; my priority was to search for a way out instead of inspecting beds with weird patches on them. I just opened the other door, and we ended up in a hallway. There were lights on the ceiling here. There was a wall on our left and in front of us, so we went to the right instead. There were some wardrobes with tatamis (those very thin and hard carpets), but we didn't pay attention to them and continued straightforward. We had a choice of two doors: one on our right and the other on our left. We went right first. I opened the door, but it was a staircase going down, and it seemed quite dark down there. We decided to see the other door before walking in that dark basement.

It was a good decision because we found ourselves in what seemed to be a hall. I could bet it was the main hall. There were double doors in front of us, so it made me quite sure it was the entrance.

"It's too easy," I scoffed under my breath.

Mika didn't reply anything while we headed for the door. I took one of the knobs and twisted it. It seemed like the door was locked. I tried the other one, but it led to the same result.

"Back off, Mika," I said, "I'll try to kick it open."

She nodded and let go of my hand before she took a couple of steps back. I raised my leg and kicked the door, but the only thing it did was to bring some pain in my leg. I winced but it was no big deal, so I didn't say anything.

"Maybe we should try together," Mika suggested.

I nodded, and she walked next to me. We raised our feet at the same time.

"On three," I said, "one, two, three!"

We kicked the door as hard as we could, but we only felt a painful vibration in our legs.

"No use," I grunted.

I looked around me, even though I knew the pale walls wouldn't give me the answer of how were we going to escape this place. I noticed the powerful lights on the ceiling. The whole place seemed rather clean; I doubted that door was really old. That was probably why our feet weren't helping now. I don't know why there were candles in the previous rooms, but the way the place was lightened up was the least of my worries.

"Maybe there's a key in one of those rooms," Mika said while looking at the doors around us. "If the guy was dumb enough to leave the cell unlocked, he maybe left the keys around here somewhere."

"I hope."

Mika seemed to be less nervous now for some reason, but I was getting more nervous. Maybe my hypothesis on the kidnapper not giving a crap about us getting out of the cell was true. He probably knew he had good material to keep us in this residence, so he didn't lock the cell because he knew we'd be stuck in here anyway. We got in the right corridor and entered in the room to our left. It was a library.

"It smells weird in here, don't you think?" asked Mika.

"Agreed," I answered, pushing my glasses back up my nose.

There was a large table covered by a big pile of books and papers. I browsed through the shelves while Mika looked at those documents on the table. I noticed all the books had similar titles. Not in the words but in the subject. It could all be related to surgery. It made me think of my dad; he was specialized in surgery. Some books were about brain activity, they were all about bones, organs, muscles, or anything related to the human body. It was really odd to see someone that obsessed with the human body. When I reached the back of the room, my whole body froze by the sight I had. There was blood; a lot of blood. Somebody could say a guy blew up right there, and I think I would believe them. Of course, I'm not the guy who believes in anything he's told, but that blood was really splattered all over the bookshelf, the wall, and the floor. That was gross.

I got back to Mika, who was looking at the sheet she was holding. I decided to act like if I didn't see anything. If there was one thing Mika couldn't stand, it was gore. She didn't mind watching a horror movie, as long as it was not too gory. Too much blood, and she gets sick. I don't mind because the blood is too pale, too liquid, too thick or whatever else that makes it not realistic. That blood back there was real; that, I clearly saw it. It's the same for inner organs. Besides, I didn't want to worry her; she seemed to be quite relaxed and I preffered keeping this like that than seeing her panic or get sick.

I looked at the sheet she was holding. It was a drawing of a face-less human. There were some lines on the fingers, the wrists, the shoulders, the toes, the ankles, the lap, and the middle of the forehead. There were some X's on the torso and one of them was out of the drawing with an arrow pointing at what I guessed was the back. I thought it's where some organs are, but I wasn't sure.

"What's that?" I asked, even though I knew I wouldn't have an answer.

"I don't know…" she said.

We stared at the paper for a couple of seconds until Mika put it back on the top of the pile.

"Who the bloody hell lives here?" she wondered, "And why does he make some… weird drawings?"

"I don't know."

She turned around and slightly looked up to meet with my eyes.

"Could we go in another room? It's weird to say but… I really hate that room."

I grabbed her hand and smiled.

"It's okay. I hate that room too," I replied.

I was thankful she didn't ask about what I found at the back of the room. I could swear I was white as a sheet. Well, I'm always pale so she probably didn't notice. That's good because I'm a terrible liar, and I really didn't want to tell her about that blood. We went to the other door in the hallway and opened it. The room seemed to be separated in two but not because of a wall. The right side seemed to be a living room while the left side was clearly a kitchen. We headed for the kitchen side since there was nothing to look in the living room side; there were only two couches. We looked in the panels and the cupboards, but we didn't find anything that looked like a key. Mika even opened the fridge.

"Hey, it works!" she said, "too bad there's nothing in it; I'm hungry."

I looked at my watch for the first time. It was eight in the morning. I'm not hungry on mornings, so I was okay.

"Let's just find that key and eat something at home," I said, even if I didn't think our kidnapper was stupid anymore.

We got out of the room and headed to the other hallway. We opened the first door on our path.

Boy, I wish we never entered that room.


Cliffhanger?
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