11 1.8 — A Way Out

Shit! No, no, no, no. Pick up, pick up—yes, hospital? Th-there’s been an accident. My brother’s and my family were out, we-we-we took a turn and…I think my wife isn’t breathing and my brother isn’t…CPR? Yes, yes I know how to do that. God, why didn’t I think of that?! Okay I’ll start on it but just...please get here, we’re at Harivan road near the intersection…yes, that one, just please get here fast!

Okay, Jaya, don’t leave me now, don’t—1, 2, 3…30…Come on, come on! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5—Aarav? Aarav! Thank god you’re safe. You’re safe. Everything will be okay. Everything…

***

I woke up with a shortness of breath.

As if a string was tied around my throat while being waterboarded and an elephant was sitting on my chest—obviously a baby elephant, not an adult one, in which case shortness of breath would be the least of my concerns.

But again, obviously, neither of those two were true.

Didn’t make the pain in my body any less real though.

It was that damn memory again. One that had plagued my mind since the day my parents died. Since the day of the accident.

One that was caused by me.

But this time, there was something else with that. Flashes of dreams started dripping in my mind.

Or was it a dream?

Wait, ofcourse it was a dream. Why else would I remember saving a kid from some teenage-looking gangsters?

Plus, Me? Saving someone?

…that’d be a miracle. Not to mention being chased by a tentacled monster. Like gee, what's up with that?

Amazing how the mind conjures up the weirdest of things in your dreams. I still remember that dream of me riding my cycle to school and for some reason, my legs were replaced with the bottom part of a snake—the weird part was that I was still able to ride the cycle. I don’t exactly remember how that transitioned to me riding an ox cart in a black desert with a white sky and skeletons popping up from underneath but hey, that’s supposedly how dreams work.

Hmm, now I'm not sure whether or not to count that as a dream or a nightmare. Odds are quite high for a nightmare, I’d say...

Shit! I went on a tangent again.

Point being...if what I remember, if all those crazy images of me running and fighting, was all a dream…then why is that my body hurts so damn much?

It makes no sense for my body to hurt like this.

Unless…

As my eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness, I found myself in a room—a very small room—filled with nothing except a mattress, a pillow and a broken wardrobe.

The room had two doors—both wooden with their laminates broken and stripped off—and one small window, which surprisingly was the only thing that didn’t look broken. The walls were cracked and mouldy too, the paint was chipped from several places and the smell…god! It felt like someone tried to cook some rotten meat and left it lying here because they couldn’t eat it themselves.

Yeah, this was not my room, at all.

It may not seem like it but I like to have things very tidy…and to smell fresh. I’m quite materialistic in that regard.

My head kept pounding heavily enough for me to feel dizzy and the world to slip under my feet. Was I kidnapped and drugged? I don’t remember drinking or eating anything funny…Or was it the room’s smell that finally got to me?

If not my room, whose was it? And why the fudge was I here? Maybe not drugged but it definitely seems like I’m kidnapped.

Why me though? Don’t get me wrong, in an extremely twisted sort of way, I am kinda flattered to think someone considered me important enough to kidnap but it does sort of clash with my everyday routine of a stress-free life.

Which also begs the question of, who was my kidnapper? Or were my kidnappers, could be a group effort…I bet it was those monster-hunting sorcerers—

No, no, no. If I believe that, then I have to believe in those false memories. And I can’t have me doubting myself. I already do that more than enough on a daily basis and I have quite well filled my quota for the day.

So, hypothetically, maybe, on my way home, I was…beaten by some robber…who was probably working with a team since he wasn’t sure he could take me by himself…who for some reason decided it was better to kidnap me and ask for ransom? Yes, that’s it! Mystery solved!

Hah! Those idiots. They failed to take our financial situation into consideration. No way can my uncle afford a ransom. Morons thought they were being smart…

Wait, no, that’s bad for me.

Shit! My uncle can’t afford to pay a ransom!

He can’t even afford a PS4. That too, the slim version. And not sure about you all, but I like to believe I value more than a gaming console.

Getting up from the mattress, I decided to do a little reconnaissance, get the lay of the land all figured out. I tiptoed my way to the first room I saw—thankfully we don’t have wooden floors in homes as they do in foreign movies to give away the presence.

Three cheers for tiled floors!

Hurts like a bitch when you fall on them but hey, great to have if you’re doing a stealth escape mission.

I placed my hand on the handle real slow and opened the door with an even more sluggishness. While there were no squeaky wooden floors, the room owners did invest heavily in squeaky wooden doors.

And I hate that it rhymed…I think...I don’t know, I’m realising that I don’t really understand rhymes as well as I thought I did.

Hopefully, that didn’t reveal my presence though.

With a rapid heartbeat and nervousness dripping down my face in the form of sweat—although that could just be the extremely hot weather—I looked into the room.

It was a bathroom.

And it was empty. Which is a piece of good news in its own way.

As to how the bathroom was…let’s just not go there. Trust me, you’d be in a lot better state of mind without knowing that. Can’t say the same for myself. Some things you just can’t unsee.

On the bright side—if there’s any—now I know where that awful deathly smell was coming from.

And no, closing the door did not help reduce it.

I walked towards the window, hoping the room wasn’t high enough for the jump to being fatal.

Jivganj wasn’t really a big town with high apartments—the maximum floors allowed was capped at like seven floors. And even then, those were in the central part of the town. Areas like where mine and Idris’s house were, they only had individual residences or 2 story row houses.

And from the height of the room, it seemed like we, or rather the kidnappers, were not in the central part of the town.

It was a duplex but there were enough handholds and ledges for me to stand on or get a grip to make a safe escape despite being a non-parkour professional.

Weird that they didn’t really place a grill over the windows. Almost like they don’t really care if I escape or not. Then again, looking at the condition of the house, I just think they can’t really afford it. Maybe that’s why they’re asking for a ransom, to place a grill on their windows. Make themselves feel safer in their homes.

Plus if this gig works out, the next time they kidnap someone, the risk of that person running away will be lessened.

…I worry for my future.

I stared at the second door. A little less cracked than the bathroom one but old and ill-maintained either way. I did the slow unlock again and thankfully no squeaking noise came from the door.

And this time, the jackpot was hit. No bathroom.

I opened the door a little more and sure, three figures in black were roaming around an equally empty hall.

My kidnappers.