Disclaimer: I don't own Saw or any of the songs or movies I might reference.

My world has changed and so have I
I've learned to choose and even learned to say goodbye
The path ahead's so hard to see
It winds and bends but where it ends
Depends on only me
-Judy Kuhn

PRESENT DAY

Lawrence Gordon studied the years-old obituary in his hand. John Kramer, AKA The Jigsaw Killer, dead at 52. Cause of death: brain hemorrhage during unauthorized surgery.

In addition to the madman's death, several articles and books had been published about the him and his methods, his philosophy and his technical genius. But these reporters didn't know the real him. How could they? They had never bonded with him the way he had. They had never looked into his eyes and handed over their soul. Not like him. Not like Lawrence had.

FLASHBACK, October 29, 2004

"Congratulations, Dr. Gordon. You survived."

He could barely see or hear, all he could feel was the catastrophic amount of pain he was in, and knowing that the only thing that could possibly bring him any relief was his own death.

He felt a small splash of water on his face, then the man before him—a bald, bloody monster, yet somehow, with the gentleness of a saint—trickled water onto his head, baptizing him.

He had died. Now he was being reborn.

He didn't know how much time had passed since he had dragged himself out of that room, cauterized his ankle and passed out, but the next thing he knew, he was strapped to a bed, still in pain, with something stuffed in his mouth to bite down on so he wouldn't scream. The bloody saint was cleaning his scarred and charred ankle stub, and somewhere along the line had stripped Lawrence of his blood-soaked t-shirt and pants and dressed him in beige scrubs.

Clearly his savior had at least a little medical knowledge. As Lawrence shook and whimpered, the saint spoke softly but forebodingly to him.

"Most people are so ungrateful to be alive, but not you. Not anymore."

Lawrence cringed and tremored as he endured the stinging of his wound being cleaned, but soon enough, his captor deemed him eligible to be freed of his restraints.

The saint removed the gag from Lawrence's mouth and fitted him with an artificial foot and tightened the laces through the leather cuff that would hold it onto his ankle.

"Where is my family?" He was shocked at how weak a whisper he had managed.

"I don't know. My contact who was supposed to be monitoring them was killed by your cellmate."

"Adam," Lawrence rasped out. "Is…he…?"

"I don't know," said the saint. "I last saw him screaming for his life. That was days ago."

Lawrence squeezed his eyes shut, tears flowing. Adam must be dead by now. Bled out. Sepsis. Dehydration. All of the above.

"Why?" Lawrence wheezed.

"He was given the same means of escape as you. He simply chose not to use them. He chose to die."

"No," Lawrence shook his head. "No, he begged me. He wanted to live."

"And you wanted your family to live. You made the choice to survive. He did not."

"Why do you do this? Who are you?"

"My name is John," said the saint. "I was a patient of yours, Dr. Gordon."

"His name is John, Dr. Gordon. He's a very interesting person."

"As you can see, our orderlies form very special bonds with the patients."

"What do you want from me?" Lawrence asked helplessly.

"What made you choose this particular path in medicine, Dr. Gordon?" John asked.

Lawrence didn't speak as he contemplated the question.

"Why oncology, Dr. Gordon?"

Lawrence thought back to medical school, as he learned the basics, soared through the ranks, achieved and overachieved. He could have chosen to pursue any field of medicine he wanted; podiatry, dermatology, neurology, the world was his oyster. But cancer had always fascinated him. Cancer seemed to have its own mind. It seemed to have a plan, an agenda. He had wanted to understand it, learn what motivated it, and how to defeat it.

"To overcome something, you have to understand what a perfect engine it is. It's how you fight disease."

"You fancy yourself as something of a Batman, don't you, Doctor?" said John. "A crusader against the evils of the body?"

Lawrence gulped and shook his head weakly. It wasn't exactly a lie—he did, in fact, take pride in his work. Why shouldn't he? He may not have found the cure for cancer, but he helped his patients through the agonizing process of chemotherapy and radiation. Those were his weapons against the evil.

"I wanted to help people," he managed weakly. I wanted to slay dragons, be a hero.

"And have you?" asked John.

Lawrence blinked back tears.

"How many patients have you pumped full of chemicals that did nothing but poison them, wither their bodies, destroy their immune systems and cost them more money than they could have ever possibly earned in ten lifetimes?"

Lawrence frowned at that last bit. It wasn't his fault medicine was so expensive. He didn't make the laws or the prices. He worked within the rules of the profession he'd chosen.

"Have you ever truly saved a life, Doctor Gordon?"

Lawrence thought back throughout his career. Many of his patients had died. Some had beaten cancer, but he still knew that it could always come back. Remission did not mean elimination. And the more of his patients did not beat cancer, and kept coming back for more treatment, the more money he made.

Like he was being rewarded for doing a worse job.

"It's a futile endeavor, isn't it?" asked John. He placed his hand underneath Lawrence's head to raise him up a little, and guided his mouth to a cup of water.

Lawrence wanted to turn away, not trusting if the water was clean, but he quickly gave in to his thirst and drank from the cup.

"Your family, Alison and little Diana," John continued. Lawrence lurched forward, wanting to yell at John to keep his family's names out of his mouth.

"My wife Jill and I wanted nothing more than to have a family of our own," said John. "But thanks to the carelessness of others, our son was taken from us before he even entered the world."

Lawrence knew what that meant. He didn't know the specifics, but he knew it meant a miscarriage.

"If my son had been given the gift of life, I would have laid down my own for him. I would have given him anything, protected him from everything."

"We love you, son. We're waiting for ya."

"You have a beautiful child, Doctor Gordon. I've seen her pictures in your office. She means a great deal to you, doesn't she?"

"You're not going to leave us?"

"And yet, she has to ask you to check her closet for monsters. Her own father, who should be there to constantly reassure her there are no such things. You have a vibrant, dedicated wife, who supports you and cares for your daughter, and you repay her with infidelity."

"Honey, we need you here!"

"That's why you did this to me? To punish me for my sins?" Lawrence demanded bitterly.

John chuckled softly. "I don't take it upon myself to punish anyone, Dr. Gordon. I do not take from others; I offer to them. Which is what I am about to do for you."

Lawrence's eyebrows creased as he tried to comprehend what he was being told.

"I want you to help me help others."

"I need to see my family. Let me go!" Lawrence managed to raise his voice slightly.

"I will release you, Dr. Gordon. But first, you must perform an operation."

Lawrence panted and raised himself up a little, then looked down at his appearance. Was that why this man had dressed him in scrubs?

"What?" he asked exhaustedly.

"Up until now your skills as a surgeon have been used to remove things from the human body—masses, cysts, tumors. This time, you are going to place an object within someone, to help him help himself."

Lawrence glared at John.

"What are you talking about?"

"Come with me, Dr. Gordon," said the man. Lawrence shakily slid himself off the cot and delicately put his feet to the floor. His right ankle seared with pain but he forced himself to endure it inaudibly, not wanting to give this sick man before him the satisfaction of knowing how badly he was hurting.

He limped after the man into another room that contained a makeshift operating table with an unconscious man on it.

"This is Michael," said John. "He's a lot like Adam."

At the mention of Adam's name, Lawrence felt his heart clench up and send a morbid chill throughout his veins.

"By that I mean he also invades people's privacy for a living. Though his profession is far more invasive than just exposing adulterers."

Lawrence didn't ask what that meant, and he didn't care.

"Put this on," said John, tossing Lawrence a floor-length black coat with a hood.

"Why?" Lawrence asked.

"Would you rather be seen doing what you're about to do?" John answered, getting behind a camera that was positioned on a tripod before the operating table. Lawrence sighed and put on the garment.

"You will implant this key inside this man's skull, behind his eye."

Lawrence's eyes widened in horror.

"And you won't want to stall much longer," said John. "The sedative he's been given is likely to wear off in about thirty minutes."

Lawrence peeled off his rubber gloves and lurched over the nearby sink, retching. He had done what was asked of him. He sank to his knees, shaking and sobbing.

"I thank you for your assistance, Dr. Gordon," said John. He began wheeling the operating table away into another room.

"WAIT!" screamed Lawrence. "Where's my family?! What have you done with them?!" he begged, grasping John's legs. "Just let me see them, please."

"You are not a prisoner here, Dr. Gordon. You have passed your test and are now free to leave."

"Why would you let me go? You know I'm just going to call the police."

"The police. And what will you tell them? That you murdered a young man as he pleaded with you for mercy? That you were abducted on your way back from a tryst with one of your students? That the only names you could offer as the perpetrators of your ordeal are those of a cancer patient and a dead man?"

Lawrence tried to play out the possible scenario if he were to tell his story to the police.

He could tell them he was abducted—he would have to tell them why he was at that hotel in the first place.

Adultery.

He could tell them he woke up in a bathroom chained to a pipe, opposite another person, his only witness.

A man he had shot.

Murder.

He could explain that he was under duress, and that his family would have been killed if he hadn't made the choices he had.

They would ask him why he didn't immediately saw off his foot and shoot Adam.

He would say he thought he could figure another way out.

They would ask him why he gave up.

He would say that time had run out.

They would ask him why he didn't jump off his cot and immediately incapacitate John and make his way home.

They would question everything.

His family. What would they have to go through—provided they were even still alive?

Alison would know about his adultery. Diana would know her father was a selfish, duplicitous man who had betrayed them both.

Alison would divorce him; she would take Diana from him. Both of them would come to know him as a killer. And even if the police believed his every word, there would be a trial. Putting a cancer patient on the stand? Putting his family through that? Their personal business, all their drama, everything would be out on display for public consumption. They had already been held hostage. Was he willing to make them relive it all, stretch out the trauma for months, if not years? Was having this terminally ill monster before him arrested and charged even worth it? Is that what he really wanted?

He would lose his medical license. Eleven years of medical and graduate school down the drain. Then how would he provide the alimony and child support that he would no doubt be sentenced to pay?

Lawrence clenched his eyes shut as he pushed himself up off of the floor. The pressure on his ankle was nearly unbearable as he forced himself to stand up straight. His entire body shook as he placed his right hand on the sink and took his first step.

The agony was almost as bad as sawing off his foot had been, but he made himself keep going. Another step. Then another.

He opened his tear-filled eyes and looked around the room. The man was gone. He had been left alone.

Alone but free.

There was a door, and beyond that, a long hallway. There was a way out. He had been granted his freedom. All he had to do was keep going.

The journey was agonizing, confusing, frightening and frustrating. But somehow, Lawrence found the ladder that led up to the streets, and out of this underground network of sewers.

Unfortunately, when he emerged back into civilization in the middle of the night, he had no idea where he was.

There was no one around he could call out to for help. There were no moving cars to flag down.

He took a few more shaky, painful steps, and then finally collapsed. Darkness engulfed his senses. He knew no more.

March 2007

It was over. John Kramer was dead. He had died a year ago, though his work had gone on—Lawrence had made sure of that. After years of monitoring the rogue apprentice Mark Hoffman, Lawrence had finally been granted permission from John, from beyond the grave, to end him. Mark had been dishonoring his and Lawrence's mentor for years, but it was when John's widow, Jill, threatened to expose Mark Hoffman and his whole operation, and Mark had killed her, that Lawrence knew he could, and must, put a stop to it.

Though he had not killed the detective. John could not have been more clear on that principle. Those who follow his teachings must always leave their victims with a way out. Killing them was never the point—getting them to live was.

Lawrence and a few of his accomplices had ambushed Mark, drugged him, and taken him to the bathroom where Lawrence's own game had once taken place. John had never actually let him know the location of that room, until after Jill's death. After dragging the unconscious detective there, Lawrence had dismissed his accomplices. He, himself, needed to stay until his captive woke up.

The doctor looked around the dilapidated room. So many memories of such a short period of time in his life. Eight hours spent in this room, eight hours wasted on foolish optimism, procrastination and fear.

On the floor near the door, still with the shackle around it, lay the bones of his right foot. His wallet, in which were now faded and disintegrated photographs of his family, and a now unintelligible I.D., lay flattened on the tiles beside it.

A few feet away lay the skeleton of Zep. A man who Lawrence had thought was the original perpetrator of the game, but had turned out to be merely another pawn in it.

And in the corner, sitting upright, a shackle around its right ankle, was the skeleton of the young man he had shared this cell for eight hours with—Adam.

Lawrence stepped forward towards the bones. Jeans and white t-shirt still hung loosely from them. He was careful not to disturb them as he linked a new chain around a nearby pipe, and fastened the shackle around his unconscious prisoner's ankle.

All these years and no one had ever found this place. Two men had died in this room and no one had ever figured out what happened to them. Most of Jigsaw's victims were found-mangled, drained of all fluid, even incinerated, but they had been found. Their families had at least come to know what had happened to them.

Not these victims.

"Lawrence, I have a family, too. I don't see them, that's my mistake, a mistake I'd like to fix."

Lawrence had never even asked Adam his last name. He wondered if Mark had ever checked the missing persons files, and seen if the family Adam claimed he didn't see had cared enough to report him missing. He may not have seen his family, but did that mean they didn't even care if he was gone?

Lawrence looked carefully at the bones of the man he had shot in the shoulder all those years ago. Over the years, it seemed that the t-shirt Adam had been wearing had lost its elasticity, and had sunk so far down over his decaying corpse that the bullet hole now appeared to be in the chest. He thanked God the shot had not been lethal, or Lawrence would not be alive today.

It was Adam who, despite having been shot by Lawrence, had still fought to the end by attacking Zep, who otherwise would have shot and killed Lawrence.

Lawrence had shot Adam. Adam had saved Lawrence. Lawrence had promised to send help back for Adam, and he had failed to do so.

Stepping back towards the doorway, Lawrence turned off the lights. He would wait until Mark woke up, then he would turn the lights back on, and present the detective with his fate.

END OF CHAPTER 01
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