I was so cold.
The air around me felt stagnant, and smelt of damp earth. Goosebumps littered my bare arms and legs to the point where they became stiff and it hurt to move. Slowly opening my eyes, I saw only dim lights strung up by a wire and nails around the ceiling. The towel around my body did little as a blanket and left my arms and legs exposed. As my mind started to wake up, my body followed promptly. I could start to feel a foreign, gritty fabric beneath my calves. Lazily turning my head from side to side, my vision started to clear. I was in what looked like an underground workshop, laid out across a rusty metal cot. As I started to move around, the rusty springs supporting me screeched in protest against my weight assaulting my ears. When I raised my arm to clear the hair from my face, a cold brace weighed it down.
Perplexed, I looked down to see a thick metal cuff locked tightly around my appendage. Following the chain hooked to it, I saw I was bound to the mossy cement wall next to me! I sat up with a start, and jingled the link. Tugging it from the wall to see if it would somehow magically pop from the brick, it was tightly secured with no means of giving in. Looking down at my towel dress, it was loosely hanging by the small knot in my chest. Tightening it with a few good pulls from the bows, I swung my feet around from the soiled sheets and felt my bare feet meet the cold earthy floor. But as soon as they did, my right ankle let out a sickening sudden cracking sound, and a burning sensation exploded from the joint. The unbearable pain let out the banshee in me, and I screamed like I've never screamed before. As quickly as it hit the ground, it came soaring back up. My hands clasped around the injury faster than lightning, and I grinded my teeth like I was trying to turn them into powder. I had completely forgotten my incident with the toothless bear-trap. I hissed roughly through my teeth several times. Squeezing my eyes shut, I was nervous to look at my wound.
Slowly, I pried open my shaky palms.
It...was horrible.
A large black and purple bruise was formed around a large swelled lump the size of an egg. Even to move it an inch in any direction was torture.
Looking around, I took the bed sheets beneath me, and bit down onto a section. My teeth gripped hard on the area and I pulled hard. The aged fabric ripped like paper, and in no time, I had a makeshift bandage. Preparing myself, I quickly wrapped the dressing around the swell and pulled it tightly. The bone popped once more back into its place and a second wave of painful heat rippled through my leg. I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming again and felt my teeth sink deep into the tissue, letting the warm metallic blood splash upon my tongue. Tying the ends into a secure bow, I was relieved that it was over with. Looking behind me, I saw I only had one flat pillow. My leg needed to be elevated...
Taking a look at my bedding, I only had a small five by five quilt, and I was freezing...
Then...I took a look at my towel dress.
A blush found its way into my uncertain expression...
My quivering hands gripped at the cotton fabric. I was too timid to reveal myself into the open. Even though there was nobody around, I couldn't help but feel a personal fear of exposure. It was a long lasting phobia of mine ever since I matured into a proper young woman. I didn't care if I was only nineteen, I considered myself highly more mature than most around me...and that included more self aware to my actions.
But this...this was serious.
Putting my fears aside, I hesitantly peeled it off my body. My blush grew more hot and intense as the cool air met with my covered creamy skin. In a few painfully long seconds, I was completely exposed from head to toe. Quickly, I rolled up the towel around my arm and placed it at the foot of the cot, and threw the quilt around my naked body. Letting my bandaged foot peek out at the end of the sheet on the plushy incliner, I lied back against the mattress and my head hit the pillow. Pulling the blanket up to my chin, my blush started to soften when I was covered once more. A sense of security came back to me and I started to relax, feeling my body sink into the softness. I could feel the heat start to dim from the swelled lump and the blood leave the area, a comforting release of the pain.
Hours had passed in the lonely, deafening silence. I didn't know what time it was, but I assumed it was creeping into two or three in the morning. Any normal person by now would have been probably shaking in fear, screaming at the top of their lungs for anybody to come to their rescue.
What stopped me?
Who would I call to? It was that simple of an answer. The masked man from before had slaughtered all those in the lodge, and not many had survived or decided to stay; if they got away that is. I knew for a fact that I was alone for now. Within the passing hours, I hadn't heard a single sound from the tunnels across the room except for the distant scratching and squeaking of rats, nothing more. Accepting this. I soon started to feel the drowsiness take its toll on my tired body, and I began to drift slowly into a peaceful sleep.
I was in the midst of an endless white field. There was no beginning or end to where I stood. The intensity of its albedo was near blinding and irritated my eyes.
"Jessica..."
My ears perked to the sound of my name in the distance. Rubbing my sore lenses, I let them adjust before inspecting the area.
"Hello?" I called out, my voice echoing out, "who's there?"
"Jessica...my child"
"Mom?" I addressed to the unknown voice; no one else called me their 'child'...unless!
"How you've grown!"
The source was suddenly close behind me. I whirled my body right around in what felt like slow motion. A bright light was glowing brightly in the midst of a sudden cloud...giving off the shadowed silhouette of a familiar figurer...
Could it be?!
As the light dimmed, her features began to reveal themselves. Her small perm poofing from her fair face...a flowing white angelic gown giving off her form...and her motherly smile encouraging me to her open arms.
"Aunty P-Pam?!" I called out in disbelief.
Her affectionate expression lit her face like a candle, comforting and assuring that she was really there. My knees started to tremble beneath me, and the tears were welling up quickly. I couldn't contain my urges, and I ran to her as fast as my leg could carry me. "Auntie Pam!"
Her widened arms caught me and enveloped me in a loving embrace. I fell weak to my knees and she knelt down to stay level with me. My scrunched up face buried itself into her shoulder, and I bawled out with no mercy into her beautiful gown. I felt bad, but I couldn't compose my feelings right now.
"I've missed you so much!" I whimpered once I got a better hold of myself in order to even speak.
She stroked the back of my head with the touch of only an angel could posses. "And I you..." she softly whispered.
I tightened my embrace around her frail body scared that if I let her go she would fade away. She pulled away for a brief moment and saw I still bestowed around my neck her treasured pendant. Her smile widened. "I knew you would never loose faith.
I looked up at her shining face with a perplexed expression. "What do you mean? In you?" I asked tilting my head.
She shook her head slowly, closing her eyes. She used here sleeve to dry my soaking face. She looked up, and a greater, sweeter smile bloomed. "My special, special boy."
Wait...did she mean?!
I turned my head slowly around to see what, or who, she was looking at. Not standing 10 feet from us...was...Jason!
I felt my smiling expression melt away slowly into one of utter disbelief and shock. The air around us blew gently as time seemed to slow down. I had begun to slowly start to crawl towards him; I couldn't faze my attention from the 11 year old boy who I once held so dear to me. He held a heartbreaking, toothy smile upon his heartsick composure. Once mere inches from his face, the emotions that swarmed within me like raging wasps overwhelmed me of my symphonic woe's, and I collapsed at his feet. Jason quickly took action and caught my body with his skinny arms that didn't seem yet built to hold my weight, and he softened my fall to the ground. He turned my body so that I faced the sky, his small arms cradling me as if I were an infant. My eyes slowly shut as I felt his arms yet embrace me once more, absorbing his affectionate friendship. Auntie Pam lay in wait observing us from where I left her in content. I felt her smile grow across her angelic face, and knew that she was happy to be able to see us all together again.
Like a family.
"Jason...where did you go?" I softly asked in a hushed tone.
He looked down at me with such compassion and love, and responded in a somewhat ominous voice "Oh Jessica...I never left"
As I lay there in my best friends arms, contemplating over what he said, something about the atmosphere changed. Whipping whirlwinds raked the air and it grew once again cold. The intensity of the bright whiteness behind my lids dimmed dramatically. As I tried to reopen my eyes to see what was happening around me, I found that I was no longer in the heavenly snow white plains, but back within the dark and musty room where I first awoke!
But, strangely enough, I could still feel Jason's warm arms cradle me against his body.
But what was stranger...his arms and chest had tripled in size! The faint scent of blood and pine emanated off of his clothing as well...
Was I still dreaming?
Looking slowly up towards the sky, Jason's pale childish face was replaced by a familiar hockey mask!
I let out a deafening scream as I scrambled off his lap! The man was equally surprised and he threw his arms in front of his face in defence. I lost my balance and I ended up tumbling off the cot and onto the dirt covered ground with the quilt, my chain pulling on my wrist. My arm was held up by the short link, and restrained me from crawling away further. My foot that was elevated slid off the towel and landed on the pillow that fell with me. Its cushion feeling absorbed most of the impact and the pain wasn't extreme, but it still hurt quite a bit. I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming again and squeezed my eyes shut.
The stranger above me regained his composure and leaned down from the cot, extending a hand to me. My eyes opened to his gesture, but I tried to scoot away from him out of sudden fear. He tilted his head in response, and persuaded me to take his hand. I only stared at it for a few moments before hesitantly looking back up at hi with a nervous expression. His big brown eyes appeared from beneath his mask, and softened in pity at my situation.
I didn't need his sympathy. I wasn't some damsel in distress. Ignoring his offer, I took my hand and pulled myself up from the ground on a limp with the quilt tightly wrapped around me. As I hopped back over to the cot, the long trail from the quilt dangled at the floor and tangled around my leg. My balance instantly faltered and I started to sway. My momentum shifted to the cot, and I went diving straight towards the man. His arms were open and ready to catch me, but I ended up in collapsing into his barrelled chest!
His pectorals felt like a brick wall against my forehead. My weight forced him down off balance and he lied back against the wall supporting his hulking figure. When I opened my eyes, a deep crimson blush filled my cheeks once more. I could see within his eyes he was startled as well. His ears were turning a shade of red like my cheeks, and his eyes had widened to a great extent as well. I was lying on top of the masked man only inches from his face!
I froze in fear.
Staring deep into his eyes, I could feel him reading me like a book. My emotions, my thoughts...my history.
After what felt like forever, I cautiously started to inch my way off his body. I felt like I was a baby deer sneaking past a hibernating bear, quiet enough not to wake and slaughter me at the slightest sound. The man just sat there in silence watching me intently, like he was expecting me to do something drastic. What could I possibly do in this state? Chained up half crippled in the lap of a sociopath...great escapee candidate, perfect.
I managed to slip through the 'V' spacing between his opened legs, making my head turn into a heated tomato. Wriggling my way to the opposite end of the cot, the man sat up straight and swung his tree trunk-like legs over the edge of the cot meeting the ground with a heavy thump. He turned his eyes once again towards my direction. I hugged my knees close to my chest for comfort and support. I didn't want to meet him in the eye's again in fear I would probably faint. I buried my face into my legs nervously. The man made a cautious gesture towards me by outstretching his long arm to graze my shoulder. As soon as the hairs on my body felt his glove hover mere millimetres above them, I whimpered and shrunk away. He flinched at my reaction, and hesitantly removed himself from my personal space.
Minuets that seemed like further hours passed where we just sat in silence. I trembled in that corner of the bed and he just stared at me contently like he was thinking. I didn't dare look in his direction even for a second in risking my life and or sanity. Taking a quick peek from the corner of my eye, he was still watching me. As soon as he saw the green in my eyes, his head perked up with a slight cock to the side. It was like he was patiently waiting for me to show some interest of communicating finally. But as soon as I saw him react, I shut my eyes once again and quivered under my quilt. I could tell that he was starting to get irritated by my avoidance towards him, but he seemed to remain his composure patiently.
Again, he outstretched his hand to me, but first lightly tugged at the corner of my quilt. Not so much to try and peel it off, but more like a child wanting attention from their parent. My body flinched and I slowly looked over my shoulder to him. He had a gentle, considerate look in his big brown eyes that called to me. I could see that he wanted me to at least hear him out and not fear him. I lowered my tense shoulders a bit to inspect him physically. His body language didn't suggest that he was waiting for me to drop my guard to pounce upon me, or that he was tensed up defensively in the slightest. He was...calm...and patient.
"If I listen to what you have to say...will you promise not to attack me?"
The man looked me dead in the eyes, and nodded nobly. I had his word.
I was afraid, but I kept up my guard in case I was wrong about him. I lowered my shoulders completely and turned my body towards him a bit to show he had my attention.
"All right" I started, "I'll listen to you."