Adam was curled up into a ball on the floor, arms wrapped around himself. A sticky pool of blood was slowly forming around him.
As if the floor wasn't disgusting enough.
He had no idea how long he had been there. The pain had slowly faded to a static at the back of his mind.
I have to go.
Because he was breathing in a nerve agent.
A fucking nerve agent.
He had never expected to go like that. He could only imagine the pain. Could only imagine what it would be like to slowly lose himself as his brain shuts down. Would he even know? When he was fading? When that was it?
Maybe not. Maybe he should just lay here and let it happen, and…
Lawrence.
He couldn't be much help to Lawrence if he let his brain waste away to nothing. Not when the doctor needed him most.
He had to get up.
He couldn't let that timer reach zero.
Adam groaned and put his hands on the ground to push himself up. The hole in his hand shot searing pain up his arm, and he hissed through his teeth.
But he pushed up anyway, gingerly as he could, muttering to himself.
"Come on, come on, c–"
His hands slipped in the blood — a painfully familiar portrait from the bathroom — and he face-planted on the hard ground.
New burning pain shot from his nose.
"Fuck!" he spat, slamming his hand over his nose.
More blood.
He pounded his good hand against the floor and shakily raised his head, gritting his teeth.
His fucking nose, he…
His nose.
The crunch, the searing pain, it was all familiar.
Too familiar.
He pushed up again and forced himself to sit, legs sprawled in the blood puddle. The world wobbled in and out of focus. He squeezed his eyes shut.
Where the hell would he have hit his nose?
He had never…
His eyes shot open as it came back to him.
Adam had fallen asleep with his back against his trusty bathroom pipe, just like he had every other night. Or maybe day. He had lost track early on. And he had just finished another of his long-winded arguments to the void in the bathroom. It was all part of a routine he was painfully familiar with.
He had felt a tickle under his nose. He had tried fighting his eyes open. A savior. A hero. It was finally over. Lawrence had kept his promise. He could go home. Escape this cell, talk to the people he loved, live every day in the life he wanted to create and—
They draped a bag over Adam's face and pulled.
He couldn't breathe. He thrashed around. He clawed behind him, and in front, and anywhere, but the person wouldn't budge. He ended up on his knees. He tried to tilt himself down, for more leverage, or to get distance, he didn't know and didn't care at the time.
That's when he smacked his face against something and started to drown in his own blood.
He fought as hard as he could, right until everything turned to black.
True black. Not the bathroom kind, with visions and voices and visceral thoughts.
Emptiness.
That's the last thing he remembered before waking up here.
Adam sighed.
Lawrence was supposed to bring help. That's what he promised. But instead, some lunatic decided to stop by and try to kill Adam right there.
Adam slowly slipped to the ground, once again being enveloped by blood.
He stared up at the ceiling and started to study it.
He did this a lot. Mostly as a kid, but he'd be lying if he said he still didn't look up at the sky and make out patterns.
He couldn't do that in the bathroom, not like he used to.
But here, the ceiling was so cracked that it almost felt like he was tracing constellations back home. It was his favorite thing to do when the world around him fell to shit again.
It distracted him enough from the visions. From the pain. So he tried to come up with what he needed to do.
But all he managed to scrounge up was home, as he made out fake patterns in the dilapidated ceiling.
His mom. He never called her back.
Adam wanted to call her so bad.
He wanted to race to a phone and hear her voice. Tell her he was sorry for taking her for granted. Apologize for being such a crappy son. He couldn't thank her enough for sticking with him despite everything, but he'd try. He had to.
He wanted to tell her how much he loved her.
That no matter how much he tried, he knew he couldn't be the son that she deserved. She would be better off without him, so why not give her that?
He had gotten so caught up in his own crap…
Adam quietly sighed.
He wanted to be a vet. He had always wanted to be a vet, and she said he could. Every single damn day as a kid, she'd tell him he could be whatever he wanted to be. Every parent worth their salt said things like that, but even now, he felt like she had meant it.
And then he got so distracted by everything around him that he killed that chance. Watched it crash and burn before it even took flight.
The argument they had only a few days ago, it couldn't be the last thing she would hear from her only child.
But maybe it would be.
All he could get himself to do was stare at the ceiling.
One of the cracks looked like a strange duck-rabbit hybrid. Like that dumb optical illusion, if Adam could call it that.
He furrowed his brow.
But he definitely couldn't leave Lawrence.
Maybe Adam didn't have much of a shot here — the blood on the floor was making a compelling argument for that.
But Lawrence did. And he had a wife and a little girl.
He thought about the camera and the person behind it. Surely the person who put him here. And surely, they were enjoying every moment.
Adam hadn't had much of a chance to prove people wrong about him. Not about his grades. Not about his shitty job in his shitty apartment. Couldn't even argue with Lawrence calling him a bottomfeeder. He was. That's all he'd ever be, maybe.
But he could prove this asshole wrong when he got Lawrence the hell out of here.
Adam smirked.
"Show these bastards apathetic," he muttered as he sat up.
A corner of his lips twitched. "Angry though, they got me there," he grumbled.
Adam grit his teeth as he got to his knees.
God, Lawrence.
Kind, sensible, compassionate. At least before the foot thing.
Everything Adam had ever wanted to be.
A doctor, too.
Adam scoffed. "Got me looking up to the dude who shot me."
He fought to his feet. The world spun and he caught his balance on part of his coffin.
Iron Maiden.
If only it had been the band instead.
Adam eyeballed the camera. "Thanks, guys!" he shouted hoarsely. "I'm havin' a blast."
He looked at the timer.
An hour and forty-seven minutes.
In an hour and forty-seven minutes he would be far, far away from this place.
"Enjoy the show." Adam smirked. "Gonna be a short one, fucker."
Adam walked towards the door underneath the timer and threw it open.
He narrowed his eyes.
His room was in the middle of a dreary hallway. The gross, dark wallpaper was peeling from the drywall and broken picture frames hung from unstable nails.
A paper was haphazardly pinned to the wall with an arrow pointing to his right. Another shoddy clue from the miraculous Jigsaw, surely. About as good as the heart drawn in shit.
But that's not what caught his eye.
There was a brand-new mirror directly in front of him.
He gasped at what it held in its shiny surface.
His usually-neat hair was matted. Dried blood had caked the ends, sending them in wild directions. His white shirt was painted with blood and shit and old building dust, not to mention the gaping hole planted firmly over his shot shoulder.
And he didn't recognize the eyes staring back at him.
Adam took in a deep, shaky breath and looked this stranger in the eyes. Tears started to form, but he chuckled nervously and looked up, blinking furiously.
He chuckled when he was anxious. Joked even more. Had learned it from Scott, he supposed. Because sometimes, Adam would chuckle the right way or say just the right thing. And Scott would grunt a certain way, his bad boy excuse for a chuckle, and finally let up.
Adam was always the butt of the joke.
So why not beat them to it? Just like he always did.
He forced another chuckle. "You need a bath, Stanheight."
But the person in the mirror didn't laugh. He simply stared, unamused. A look Adam was familiar with facing.
He shook his head. "Talk about pathetic," he whispered.
He turned and saw another door. He yanked on the handle, grunting and grimacing at the pain with each tug. After all the lies, the lies from Lawrence and Zep and about the game itself, he needed to know, he…
Adam let out a shaky breath and thud his forehead against the door.
This never worked. Even if it opened, what if it was just another pig mask?
So, with a sigh and dragging steps, he followed the arrow's instruction. To the right. Down the dingy hallway.
Something about the wallpaper reminded him of the bathroom. His tomb, he had assumed. His new home. He couldn't help but focus on the shadows in the corners and the encroaching darkness between light sources. Any minute now, shapes would start swimming in his vision again and something would jump out of the walls.
And what if he couldn't fight it off this time?
After all, Zep wasn't there to back him up anymore.
Adam grumbled and shook his head. The whole thing just brought on a headache.
Zep had never been back up.
Zep was dead. Dead and gone. Those things he saw in the bathroom, they weren't real. He knew—
There were no timers in the hall. It made him nervous. An itch at the back of his mind told him to go check the one in front of the coffin. The one he had already walked away from. But exactly how much time had he wasted staring at that mirror? He could turn back, know precisely how much time he had spent. He could find out how much time was left, see how long he had wasted looking around, how long—
"Christ, shut up, Adam!"
He shook his head harder. On top of the headache, the world started to spin. He caught himself on the wall and kept moving.
Distractions. He needed distractions.
Like always, his mind defaulted to animals. Sweet, non-judgemental creatures. With more compassion in their little bodies than most people would show in their entire lifetime.
After his vet dream turned out to be a wash — and with his grades, who had been surprised — he wanted a pet. Something to take care of. And it'd love him just as much as he was sure to love it.
But he could barely afford to care for himself, let alone an animal.
So the scummy people around him were all he had. And everyday, he'd lose more faith in the world as he watched them live their lives. The rude neighbor belittling every single thing Adam did. His landlord angrily reminding him — and only him — about rent every time he came in the building, before the payment even had a chance to be late. His shitty clients sneering instructions at him before he went to follow their equally shitty targets.
Scum. All of them.
Every day, after trudging up the stairs to his apartment, he would grumble to himself and dread having to wake up and do it all over again the next day.
But there was a small sparkle of hope some days. There was a cat that periodically found her way to his unit. He would smile and feed her every time she showed her face. Pet her as much as she was willing to stand.
He missed that damn cat.
He missed her so much.
And Mom.
If he didn't make it out of this, she'd only have that stupid argument left to remember him. She'd sob over a body she could never find and ask where she had gone wrong.
And she would feel that way because of what he did. Because of what he said, and what he…
"Fuck," Adam whispered to the walls.
Call his mom. Call his mom and pet the cat. He made up words to say to her. Not that he'd get the chance.
But it helped to keep him moving down the hall.
He walked through a wide archway.
Adam looked around the room. Some sort of entryway, by the looks of it. A staircase in the middle of the space looked creepy. Unstable. Right in front of it was a white door with chains.
EXIT
Before he realized what he was doing, he raced to the door and slammed into it. He pulled at the chain and jiggled the knobs. He punched and kicked the wood.
All it did was make him lightheaded.
Adam turned and put his back to the door. He thud the back of his head against it and clenched his jaw.
He couldn't catch his breath. And the ringing in his ears, it was going to drive him insane.
His throat itched. Adam tried to clear it, but started a coughing fit and slammed his hand to his lips.
Sick warmth spread across his palm. He looked into it.
Fresh blood seeped into the creases of his hand.
He grit his teeth again and weakly slapped the door. Slapped the mocking word painted across it. He searched for some sort of camera.
A red light shone out from a corner of the ceiling.
Adam scowled.
"Nice, thanks." He raised his arms up. "Hilarious." His hands slammed back down at his sides.
He grumbled and ran his hands through his hair. A couple of his fingers snagged on knots. He winced and at first tried to gingerly untangle them.
Then his eyes landed on a small table near the base of the stairs.
Adam gave up on the knots in his hair and walked over.
A crisp note shone out from the dirty wooden slab. He snatched it up and unfolded it, eyeing the camera every so often.
Neatly written words in dark ink stuck out against the bright paper.
'I need a stronger anesthetic'
As if on cue, his shoulder started to ache again. He narrowed his eyes.
There was something there. Something behind those words. He had heard that before.
He read it again.
Anesthetic. Anesthetic. Like what he'd need for his now-busted nose, and the cuts in his skin, and his shoulder, and—
He let out a huff through his nose.
His shoulder. His shoulder had been hurting. A searing pain reaching down his arm. And the words had seemed so far away, as if he was standing on one side of a never-ending tunnel, or receiving messages through a rudimentary can-and-string phone.
And he could do nothing about his shoulder, and nothing about the words, he was stuck, frozen as time unfolded around him and—
"What the hell happened?"
He read it over and over again.
'I need a stronger anesthetic.'
Adam grumbled and slammed the note down, keeping his eyes on his shoulder. He gripped his shirt sleeve and yanked it up.
His eyes widened.
"I need a stronger anesthetic."
Not only was there a bandage plastered over his shoulder, it was clean. The dark stain from a disinfectant had still stuck around.
Must have hurt like hell, if…
"I need a stronger anesthetic."
Adam gasped and let go of his shirt, as if it'd shock him just like the chains.
The scene unfolded in front of his eyes.
He remembered lying there, helpless, unmoving, with an IV jammed in his arm and an oxygen tube stuck up his nose. But he wasn't alone. People had stood over him, staring. Something, or maybe someone, was constant poking his shoulder, and he shifted in and out of consciousness.
"I need a stronger anesthetic."
Through the ringing in his ears, the same damn tune he heard around this house, had been a muffled, hoarse voice. A shaky one, too.
Scared. They had been scared.
Adam thought to force his eyes open, but it never happened.
Helpless.
"I don't want to hurt him. Please, J-"
"You know we can't do that, Doctor."
The first voice sighed. The Doctor.
Their voice was nice. Comforting.
But… sad.
Very, very—
"This is gonna hurt like hell."
And then what…?
All he could remember was darkness. A heavy darkness, one he tried to fight. But he had lost the battle in spectacular fashion as it swallowed him whole again.
Like the darkness in the last room. Like the darkness in the bathr—
He looked up at the camera. "The hell did you do to me?" he snapped.
Silence.
Adam let out a huff and slammed the note on the table.
Whatever. At least he was here.
Here and able to get Lawrence out.
That's what he'd do. That'd be his legacy. And maybe Lawrence would find his mom and tell her that Adam had done something. Maybe he'd have time to tell the doctor about the cat.
Get Lawrence out. He'd get Lawrence the fuck out, no matter what it took.
"I promise."
And he would take that promise to the grave. Maybe to the one built for him within these walls.
He would do this. He had to do this.
No matter what, he would fix this.
Even if it was the last thing he ever did.
Author's Note:
Hi everyone! I hope you're liking this so far! For some reason, there was a problem with the link to the playlist I tried to share. If you're interested, it's a public playlist under the account name Anne Foster, and it's called Wouldn't Lie (To You)
Thank you again for checking this story out!