A/N: YIKES, what a long chapter! I can't help myself, when I'm writing about cute Adam I'm damn unstoppable! Anyway, I have to admit that I'm not that big on this chapter, but… What matter lays in my opinion?
Disclaimer: If I owned Saw, believe me, I wouldn't write fanfiction. Because if I did, this is what the movie would have looked like, so it wouldn't be necessary!
2: Adam Raised A Chain
A larger man than Adam Faulkner wouldn't be able to scream that loud.
"LET ME THE FUCK OUT!"
His throat had… Broken. There was no better way to put it. During the last hours he had tried to shout, he'd really tried to shout, but the only thing that happened was that a dry noise fell from his lips, and a couple pf lonely, dark drips had seeped out between his teeth and settled on the already bloodstained floor.
Adam rolled over on his back. Stared at a ceiling that he couldn't even see. Couldn't that goddamned old man have left the lights on before he left him there to die? That wouldn't have caused him an awful amount of trouble, would it?
Whatever. He probably didn't want to waste any electricity.
Adam would have laughed if his throat hadn't been broken.
Yes, I am the saint known as Jigsaw. I've killed a bunch of people in terrible, disgusting ways, but at least I don't raise the global warming, because I'm such a nice guy!
The first thing he screamed… Was that.
"LET ME THE FUCK OUT!"
Then, he'd kept screaming. Constantly. Really, with no brakes, until those first drops of blood started coming out, dying his teeth red…
He didn't remember how long it had been since then. It could have been a minute, an hour, a day, a week. But he remembered that even after those first drops had appeared, he'd done a lot more efforts to scream, but most of the time it didn't even come out as words, just as an empty roar of despair.
What was the last thing he managed to shout? That actually sounded like words?
His own voice echoed in Adam's memories, he heard his own furious scream in his half-smashed mind.
"I WON'T DIE IN HERE!"
Then he fell into a heap, that he remembered clearly. He had forced those final words from the depths of his strength, and to what purpose?
Now, a scoff actually found a way up his throat. What an irony. In movies, people always said good, sensible, honorable things when they were their last words. And what would people remember about him? At least, those who knew about his useless existence at all.
What was the last thing Adam James Faulkner said?
Well, it was a lie.
Okay, it wasn't really a lie. The last thing Adam James Faulkner said was something that he, as the naïve person he was, actually hoped was a truth.
But it wasn't.
Adam realized that when he drew his tongue along his teeth. Tasted the blood.
This was the end.
This reeking, filthy, bloodstained bathroom would be his grave.
The bathtub would be his tomb. And he'd already hit his head in it, and he'd done it hard. So hard that new blood had started pouring, along with that which had been pushed out between his teeth, from a wound in his forehead. The room had started spinning, and an hour, a day or a week ago, he had been forced to drag himself to one of the toilets and throw up.
I won't die here.
Won't.
But I will anyway.
Adam closed his eyes. He didn't want to see anything in this bathroom. And if he just thought a little bit, he could probably picture a beautiful meadow or something else that's pretty that he could die on.
Oh well, he thought. So this is it. No turning back. I won't make it out of this. Not even if I saw my foot off, like Lawrence.
With that thought, he had to open his eyes again.
Lawrence.
Lawrence hadn't made it. How could he, with that wound? Next to his bleeding, oozing stump, Adam's cut in the head was nothing. He must've bled to death just a short bit outside the door.
Yes, a little voice in his head said, but he died free. They will find him as a man that fought, a brave man that did what he had to to save his family. He won't be found as a chained up skeleton in a pre-historical bathroom, as you put it. You should hate him, you know that? He promised he would send someone back for you, and you both knew he would never make it. You shouldn't lay there and miss him, you should curse him for giving you false promises like that. That sounds like something Adam Faulkner would do, doesn't it? Angry and pathetic, wasn't that what Jigsaw said? And to hate someone for the last hour of you life, that's angry and pathetic!
I know that, Adam responded. And that's why I don't do it. I won't be what Jigsaw said I am for the last hour of my life.
And that's why he was going to miss Lawrence.
He would lay there and think about Lawrence. Just because of that. And for no other reason.
He wasn't thinking about Lawrence because even this bathroom was bearable when Lawrence, doctor let's-think-this-through, was there to comfort him.
But Lawrence was dead now. He would never comfort anyone ever again.
Adam was in too much pain to notice the tears that ran from the corners of his eyes.
And then –
Adam's thoughts were cut off.
A sound.
Steps.
Steps outside.
Outside the door. Outside the door to hell, there was no doubt steps were heard.
And voices. Human voices, voices from people who weren't Jigsaw, voices that didn't say 'Game over!', and tears flew from Adam's eyes even wilder, and for totally different reasons.
Voices.
Voices meant people.
People meant rescuing.
A sob tore over Adam's bleeding throat.
People. People who saves me.
But then he heard one of those oh-so-very-welcomed voices say something even worse than 'Game over!'. Worse than anything.
"Doctor Gordon talked about a kid down here, but the hall ends now, and we haven't found anyone. You think he could've hallucinated?"
"He should be perfectly capable of it," another voice answered. "You can tell what a trauma he's been through, that poor thing."
Both panic and relief hit Adam at the same time, and he got up on his elbows, hissing in pain when he put weight on his wounded shoulder to stare at the door.
Lawrence had survived. And he hadn't forgot about him, not even in all his pain and fear. The cops, or whoever was out there, were looking for him.
But they hadn't found anything.
That's what the female voice out there had said. Word by word. And it was easy to read between the lines.
We haven't found anything.
So let's go.
Adam hasn't ever understood how he, afflicted and panicking, then could think faster than he ever had before. But still, he lifted the toilet lid, that was still stained and slippery from Zep's blood, using what was left of his strength, and he saw it whistling through the air as if in slow motion.
Please, God, he thought in despair. Please. I know I haven't been your favorite during these twenty-nine years, but please, let me make it out of this. Just this one thing. Let me make it out of this bathroom, and I'll never, never ever, take life for granted again.
"I'm in here!" Adam yelled when they toilet lid hit the door with a shattered slamming, and ignored the blood, that by now basically gushed, bothout of his mouth and from the cut in his forehead. "I'm in here! Please, God, help me, I'm in here!"
xxxxxxxxxxx
The two polices outside the door startled when they heard the banging from the yellow metal surface that appeared to be an average wall. The owner of the female voice Adam had heard, assistant Cara Elliot, gave her partner a frightened look.
"What was that?"
Detective Martin Johansen beckoned against the door.
"It came from there. Maybe Gordon wasn't just raving, after all."
Cara laid a hand on the door. She fumbled across the dirty material until she found a handle.
It wasn't even locked. But when she opened the door she almost wished it would have been, because then. The smell of blood, death and misery welled out over her and her co-worker as a terrible cloud. Cara put her hand over her mouth out of reflex, in both disgust and shock, when a gate of light landed on the still scenario in the bathroom.
The first thing she saw was a foot, that had to be Gordon's, closest to the door, in its puddle of blood.
"Oh my God," she mumbled.
There weren't any other words to describe this.
Oh my God.
Then she saw a body, and it was whole, at least, yet with a smashed face. The identification would be hell, but that was the last thing that even she, Cara Elliot, who was known over the whole American police crew for being almost inhumanly professional, thought about at that moment. She took a few quick steps into the room, and Johansen followed her, with an obvious hesitation in his walk.
"Turn on the lights," she told him in a clipped way, even though he worked above her. That was just another thing neither one of them thought about.
The light flowed mercilessly from the fluorescent lamps, and once again Cara almost wished she hadn't chosen to do something that was probably the best decision for everyone. Because when she actually saw what had happened in the room, she wanted to lay down on the floor and cry.
But she managed to pull herself together. She pretended not to see the foot, the body, the blood, the saw. she just spotted the sobbing, shaking bundle that Gordon must've talked about in one of the corners, three words, three very valuable words, found their way through the cloud of panic in her brain.
Can be saved.
He could. His t-shirt was drenched in blood on his right shoulder, and he was probably in shock, but he looks fine. Or, more specifically, his back looked fine. He was on his stomach, so for all she knew, his face could be as smashed as the other guy on the floor's.
She was by his side in a matter of seconds, and rolled him over to his back. Johansen stood paralyzed in the entrance, and Cara raised her voice to him.
"Get paramedics."
No reaction. Anger rose in her, and she threw her hand out, annoyed.
"What the fuck are you gawking at? Move your fat ass and get some god damn paramedics!"
Johansen stared blankly at her. But he went away, silently, despite her tantrum, and Cara hoped that he would go quick enough to save this kid's life.
The man's face wasn't smashed. He looked fine, besides the fact that he was unconscious and very pale. Getting their attention seemed to have cost him his last efforts. When she laid his head in her lap and felt that he was still breathing, his beautiful face was relaxed. She checked his pulse, just to be sure. Oh yes. He was alive.
Jesus Christ, Cara thought and swallowed a sob as she cupped the young man's cheek. So young and so handsome. You're not supposed to down here and suffer, you're supposed to be out there, bathing in light! You're supposed to enjoy your life!
She tried not to scream when the body in her arms suddenly moved, and his grey eyes widened at the sight of her. Cara snuffled, ashamed of herself for losing her toehold like that.
"Adam?" she said, her voice almost steady. "Adam Faulkner?"
xxxxxxxxxxx
Adam grunted. The light hurt. He saw a woman's face that he didn't recognize floating around in his sight.
Adam Faulkner. That was his name. She knew his name. Why did she know his name? Who was she?
He tried to nod, but it just felt like needles rattled around in his head. Why did have such a headache?
New feet seemed to walk into the room. A voice that had been damaged by too many cigarettes said:
"I brought some guys here. They have a buzz saw for the chain."
And a memory started to move in Adam's mind, which had almost been wrecked by the all the fear.
All the big, overwhelming, mind-numbing fear.
He doesn't want us to cut through our chains. He wants us to cut through our feet.
Lawrence voice had said that.
Yes, he remembered Lawrence.
Lawrence voice had been here to comfort him. But he wasn't here now. Lawrence couldn't protect him anymore.
They don't want to cut through my chain, they want to cut through my foot, they want to hurt me, they're working with Jigsaw! Lawrence! Help me!
Without even being aware of it, Adam started to toss and turn in Cara's arms. Lawrence wasn't here, Lawrence couldn't help him, and now Jigsaw's protégés would saw off his foot, and he would never see him again.
"Lawrence!" he yelled with his broken voice. "Lawrence! Help me! LAWRENCE!"
"Adam!" Cara said as she felt tears rise in her eyes. "Adam! Calm down!"
But she didn't have to ask him to do that, because then Adam tried to sit up without thinking of the fact that he was still very close to the tub, and when he hit the edge on it for the second time, unconsciousness finally set him free once again.
Well? It doesn't have to be bad just because it's long, does it? Please review and I'll give you cookies!
