1 Abandoned

The first thing Finn noticed when he woke up was the pain. The sting when the raw skin near his ankles rubbed against the rope tied around his legs. He had stopped waking up during the night due to the discomfort of being tied up a few weeks into his captivity. What he couldn't understand was how and when he got the stitches on his chest. He didn't remember getting injured, or stitched up. It was probably the terrible itch around the stitched up area that woke him up, he thought.

The next thing he noticed was how quiet it was. Opening his eyes it was darker than he expected, but his eyes adjusted quickly as he tried observing his surroundings without moving. There were several things wrong with what he noticed; first of all this wasn't his little cell, and he wasn't on his bed; the room was bigger than that, with shelves and cabinets lining the walls and an operating table placed right in the middle. The problem was that he was on that table.

Seeing that the room was empty, Finn tried to sit up carefully, to avoid affecting his chest injury. To his surprise, it didn't hurt as much as he expected. What did hurt was his head, the throbbing headache made it a little hard to think. Massaging his temples, he wondered how long he had been out for, and what drug they used.

It had been a few minutes since he woke up but there was no sign of anyone coming to check on him, or take him back to his cell. He had heard from the other prisoners about the punishments that the unruly or disobedient received so to be on the safe side he waited a little longer, taking the time to look carefully around the room.

It was strangely messy, some flasks knocked over, their contents spilled onto the pieces of parchment scattered on the floor, a scalpel and a few needles had all been left lying on the floor near the operating table with what was probably his blood still on the blade. There was even what looked like a smashed vial of acid near the door, the corroded surface of the floor tiles being evidence of its potency. The candles which should have provided light to the room had all burned out.

'It seems like something happened', thought Finn, 'everyone who was in the room escaped in a hurry leaving me alone in this mess.' The candles being used up, and the liquid from the flasks being dry indicated that this had happened a while ago. Suddenly feeling a little apprehensive, Finn got up carefully, stretching and testing his stiff muscles. Realizing he could move freely came as a relief. Thankfully his captives had only used rope to tie his foot to the table and not steel shackles. 'they must have been confident in the drug keeping me knocked out' thought Finn, he quickly realized that they were right to be confident, he had only just woken up from it.

Cutting the rope with the discarded scalpel took some work, but with his foot free he could now walk around the room. Holding the scalpel in one hand he approached the door, carefully avoiding the broken glass and acid. Listening for a while and not hearing anything he opened the door slightly and peeked out.

The hallway was dimly lit by shafts of light coming through slits in the roof, looking carefully Finn could see the source; a small magic stone engraved with light runes embedded in the cavity behind the slit. Too expensive to be used as the primary light source, they were set to only activate when the room was dark. The burnt out torches along the wall being the cheaper and easier solution. In the distance a torch was still glowing red, it's embers the last evidence of the flame that lit up the hallway previously.

A pair of beady eyes turned to look at the door when it opened more, they were red. Quickly closing the door again, Finn couldn't decide if the eyes were normally red or if it was just the reflection of the dying torch. Either way that thing had seen him and he didn't think it was friendly.