Chapter One.

The first thing I felt when I came to was pain.

The second thing I felt was the ground moving around me.

Wait - no, the ground was not moving, I was.

I tried to clear my head and opened my eyes - I wish I had not.

I was hanging upside down over the stranger's shoulder, he had me in a fireman's grip, and was carrying me down a dark narrow corridor.

My hands were tied together, presumably with a cable tie.

I tried to keep quiet so that he would not notice that I was awake.

In any case, I could not have been unconscious for long.

We seemed to still be in the factory, judging by the smell and the humidity, in the basement.

I heard a door squeak open and we entered a musty-smelling room that was unexpectedly quite warm.

He stopped and surprisingly carefully lifted me off his shoulders to set me down in a corner on something soft, probably a mattress.

I kept my eyes closed until I felt him move away from me, only then I dared to open them - we were apparently in a former office, or archive room - which would also explain why it was quite dry here.

From where I was sitting, I could see that there was at least one other door leading from this room.

From the corner of my eye I saw that the stranger was sitting on a chair in the other corner of the room and was just getting rid of his mask and armor.

He looked young, probably barely over 30. He had an amazingly handsome face for such a crazy bastard.

He rummaged in a bag on a nearby table and pulled out an emergency medical kit.

Carefully he cleaned the wound I had given him. The cut was quite deep, but probably not life-threatening. But he would probably need stitches, I could see that from here. I was a company paramedic in my former job, which had saved my ass here several times. Even other scavs weren't so quick to kill you if you had a reputation for being able to at least semi-treat their gunshot wounds.

He too seemed to come to the same conclusion.

I heard him swear. The place where the wound was located was very unsuitable for stitching it up himself.

His eyes fell on me and I quickly closed my eyes, but he had caught me staring.

"You don't have to pretend that you haven't been watching me for five minutes," he announced.

I opened my eyes and looked at him angrily.

"Ok, yes I'm awake. Why did you drag me here instead of just killing me? You wanna sell me to some gang boss or what?"

He remained silent.

"Don't know yet." he said. " I don't kill women though."

"Oh, don't tell me you have some weird moral codex going on. Everyone knows it's kill or be killed."

He chuckled. "And here I am, thinking you're glad to be alive, but I'm happy to grant your wish too."

I shook my head.

"I'm happy to stay alive, thank you," I replied.

"Do you know anything about treating wounds?" he asked.

"If so, maybe you could help me out here, especially since you're the one to blame for this mess. "

I laughed.

"You just tried smashing in my head."

"That was before I realized you were a woman."

"Something something, old-fashioned values."

"Get your ass over here and help. And don't try any dumb tricks."

With a little effort I managed to stand up despite my hands being tied together.

I approached him cautiously, even if I did not believe that he wanted to harm me somehow right now, I wanted to be on the safe side. I only hoped he would not make up for it as soon as I had done what he asked of me.

His sewing kit was on the table in front of him. To reach for it, I had to get uncomfortably close to him - not the best of feelings, standing helplessly next to such a guy, i can tell you. Now that I had time I could see HOW big and wide he actually was. Probably atleast 190cm tall, if i had to guess, and build like he'd spend considerable time in a fitness center, when the world was still in order. But not the kind of huge muscles you get when you take too many anabolic steroids, more defined - like a martial arts athlete.

"You know this would be easier if you took off my restraints," I said.

He seemed to think for a second, then he pulled out a knife.

I flinched involuntarily, just before he cut the tie with a practiced movement.

When my hands were free, I briefly massaged my wrists to stimulate the blood flow. His look clearly told me that I shouldn't try anything stupid - but I wasn't going to. I had already noticed minutes ago that he had taken all my stuff - and with bare fists I could probably do little against him.

I grabbed the piece of cloth he had just used to clean himself and wiped off the blood that had accumulated on the wound in the meantime.

The cut looked less bad than expected - it was still deep but I would not have to stitch any vessels - that was tricky and not always successful.

I put my hand on his ribs to press the edges of the cut together and began to sew - one thing I had to give him credit for, he did not even flinch, although I was not exactly gentle with him. I did not have the ambition to leave a beautiful scar - I honestly didn't give a damn about that.

When I finished, I saw something like an appreciative look in his eyes - or was I just imagining it?

He stood up and I instinctively backed away - and I corrected my estimate of his height upwards by about 5-8 cm. He was HUGE.

He moved to the side and opened a door leading from the room. Besides the entrance, the space seemed to have only two other doorways.

This one led into a smaller room, from which another door led off. It was sparsely furnished with a chair and a small iron bed with a rather dirty wool blanket on it.

"Get in there," he said, and I immediately complied - I didn't want to mess with him, but I was afraid. Why was he putting me in here?

Suddenly all I could think of , was other things that men did to women in these times, besides killing them.

I began to tremble, I had never really been one of the fearful kind, but being alone with this giant here awakened my primal fears.

I didn't dare turn around. Suddenly I heard the door close behind me and a key turn in the lock.

It wasn't what i expected, but it was just as bad, because now i was trapped, but what could i have done ? Try to run past him? Ridiculous!
Bang at the doors? Didn´t think that would work. I had to make peace with the thought, that i´d be here for a while.