Note: My apologizes if this took longer then some of you expected. I am, by no means, done with Trepidation. I simply took some time off to renew my creative writing skills. I hope all of my old readers (and new ones, of course) are still with me. And while I'm at it, it would be wise to check my profile page a bit more often. I'll be placing sketches of former and newer traps onto there. Anyways, enjoy.
Act II:
Scene i
The man's head tilted up while his eyelids opened slowly. "H—h—hello?" he asked in a raspy voice.
Though his vision no longer blurred, he was still unable to see the confines of the room he was in. The room was almost completely dark. The man glanced down at a flashlight that stood up on its end, and it was turned on and brought a single, dim light to the eerily quiet room.
"What is this?" asked the man as he now looked at his own physical state. He was standing on a small wooden platform, just big enough for his feet to rest on. It stood several feet into the air, and right behind him was a large wooden crucifix. The man moved his vision to his hands and his cursing increased, for his wrists were pinned tightly to the wooden cross by two shimmering metal blades that were pressed against his skin. Any movement of his hands at all would cause the blade to cut into his wrists, and blood was already running down the sharpened blades.
Suddenly, he bit his lip. "Aaah! Jesus Christ!" he shouted in pain. Just now the man noticed the throbbing pain in his left hand. Glancing over, he also saw a tape recorder attached to his hand. A single screw had been drilled through a corner of the recorder and through his hand.
"What the hell—who the hell did this?" the frustrated man yelled as he banged his hand against the wooden crucifix behind him. He glanced down at his clothing; he appeared to be in a black and white suit, his usual style of clothing for his priestly duties.
After another minute, the pain steadily increased. The priest moved his thumb down to the 'play' button, but it seemed like something was holding his thumb back. He pushed hard with his finger and felt it jerk forward. A wire had been wrapped around his thumb, and now what sounded like small metallic clanks were giving off all around him. What exactly was this wire attached to?
He resumed his previous task and clicked the 'play' button on the recorder. A few moments of silence were followed until a voice of great influence rang out. "Hello, David," the voice said. "Some of your fellow church participants choose to call you 'Father David', but I choose to call you 'Undeserving of the Life You Have Been Given.' Your community looks up to you, listens to your word and comes to you for forgiveness of the sins they have committed. Think of this room not as some dark place of torture, but a confessional booth; go ahead, tell me your sins, David," a chuckle came from the recorder as David scowled.
"You go to sketchy bars and drink to your heart's content. You're a borderline alcoholic and cheat on your wife on what seems like a monthly basis. That's adultery, David. Is it not?" David looked down at the flashlight, his eyes closed as the mechanical noises continued all around him. "Here's a chance to redeem yourself David. Those blades that cling to your wrists are razor-sharp, as are the spikes on the wall that will begin to move towards you by the time this tape is finished. I find your hands unfit to hold the Bible, so cut them off and you will be a free man. Live or die, Father, heaven or hell. Make your choice," the game began and the sound of grinding from in front of David echoed throughout the room.
His eyes scanned the room vigorously; he could see nothing but himself. That flashlight prevented him from seeing the object that would cause his death. Where was it? How long would it be until it got to him? What did it look like?
"Graah! No!" David cried out. He looked over to his hands and then shook his head and looked up at the darkness above. "Please God, save me. I'm sorry! I know I've sinned. I'm so sorry, forgive me! Don't let me die! Please don't make me do this!" he pleaded as tears ran down his face.
He waited a few moments, as if an actual angel was going to save him. David gritted his teeth and then pressed his hands against the blade, "Aaah! God damn it!"
It wasn't enough just to press. David realized this…he needed to saw.
His hands moved up and down, his wrists rubbed against the blade. "Aaah! Aaaah!!" David screamed. Blood shot up from his wrists and splattered as it hit the floor. The smooth blade was cutting clean through David's flesh, as a butcher cuts his meat.
David's screams continued as the blade began to saw the bone. It was a rough grinding sound, as if someone repeatedly rubbed a kitchen knife against a chalkboard. "Fuck you!" David shouted to whomever was listening, "Burn in hell!"
The sound of the large spiked wall was growing louder. David dared not to look up and pressed even harder against the blade. "Raaaah!" screamed the priest as the blade finished with the bone and emerged from the other side of his wrist, blood completely covering both blades.
David had been pushing forward with all of his might, the sudden freedom of his body came as a shock and he fell, right into the spiked wall.
His fall was stopped by hundreds of spikes, but his feet were still on the platform. "Aaah!!" David cried again. A spike submerged into his eye and blood suddenly exploded from his ruptured cornea. His face was now injected with a dozen spikes; he attempted to pull away but was unable to. He pressed what remained of his arms against the spiked wall, in hopes of pushing himself away, but his arms were now stuck like his head.
"No, no, no! No!!" he screamed as the wall pushed David onto the platform and pressed his body against the large crucifix.
"Aaaah!!!" David shrieked as the spikes entered every inch of his body. As if like a small firework, blood spewed from David's body while the wall fully crushed David against the wooden cross.
It was quiet for a few minutes. The only sound was the slow dripping of blood against the dirty, tiled floor.
Footsteps carefully made their way to the bloody crucifix. They stopped and a hand reached down to grab the flashlight. It was brought up off the ground, the light shining against the holder's figure. A smile took over Grace's face as she looked at the mass of crushed flesh that was once called David.
She moved forward and shined the light down on a bloody hand on the floor with a recorder was drilled into. With slight disgust, she picked it up and gave a sour look. Grace walked away from the cross and shut the flashlight off, bringing absolute darkness to the room, except for the small hole carved into the wall. A small, collected, beam of light was visible, dust gently floating past it.
"First it was Steven Lowry. Then came Isaac, Kaden, and our own officer, Roy. Now there's Father David missing. Not to mention this was all within the past two weeks!" said an officer as he threw down several pages of information from a missing persons report.
"Listen, Kevin," said a woman as she shook her head with a sigh. "There's your answer, Kaden. You know he was tried for third degree murder not more then three months ago. Maybe he's up to his old tricks. The Jigsaw killings are not in this town."
"Damn it, Paula!" screamed Kevin as he flung his hand to his side. "Isaac's been in jail twice for dealing drugs. Roy was almost sent to a therapist for his prescription drug addiction. And David has been known to spend a bit too long at the downtown bars. Then Kaden, exactly, he's a fucking killer! Aren't those the kinds of people that Jigsaw collect for his games?" he asked.
"What about Steven then?" asked officer Paula.
Kevin smiled and pulled out Steven's cell phone from his pocket, placing it on the table. It was opened and an older text message was on the sceen. "His ex-girlfriend, she was asking him if he was okay, if he was still cutting himself. This was a few weeks ago. Around the time Steven went missing. And there are quite a lot of messages from his former girlfriend. She appears a bit obsessed with him," Kevin said with raised eyebrows.
"So what then? She wasn't on the missing persons list. She wasn't apart of Jigsaw's game; none of them are!" she told Kevin who shook his head.
"Not necessarily everyone who play his games die. Maybe she was a lucky one; maybe she lived," officer Kevin said with a confident grin.
"Then why wouldn't she have come to us, Kevin? That would seem like the first most obvious thing to do after some psycho takes you in."
"Because of officers like you who wouldn't believe her," he said as Paula scoffed. "Find her and bring her here for questioning. If she knows anything she'll tell us."
"Kevin—" Paula sighed.
"Paula, trust me," he pleaded, "I'm sure Jigsaw doesn't just stay in one place. Every town has their sins. Just bring her in, please. I know I'm right about this."
"Fine," she said, giving in. "I'll get her in here in a few hours. This had better be worth our time, Kevin. I'm worried about your obsession with catching this guy," Paula explained. "Now, what's her name?"
"Alison Starles," Kevin told her, "but just wait; we're gonna catch that sick bastard. Just you wait. We'll be treated like heroes."
To be continued…
