A talking corpse and a straitjacket

His hand barely reached touched the door when everything became black or he lost his vision.

********

"Your highness, it is meal time," came a voice amid the darkness that he fought so hard to fight off. It felt like he was tightly locked up in a straitjacket.

His hands were numb and his shoulders and upper arms felt painfully stiff. He struggled as the darkness slowly disappeared.

The light that invaded the darkness was too bright, he had to close his eyes again.

"What is happening?" he asked but he could only hear low muffled sounds. Where is the crazy scientist? Where are his family members?

He tried fruitlessly to relax and opened his eyes again after taking a deep breath. Didn't the world come to an end? Why could he see a ceiling above his head? Did people survive the comet?

So many questions he wanted to be answered but for reasons he was unaware of, his mouth was sealed with what felt like duct tape. He had now adjusted to the lighting of the room but all he could see was the white ceiling above.

"Your highness, I will loosen the jacket so that you can sit up and eat," came a young male's monotonous voice.

From Liam's estimate, it had to be a man in his early twenties but he could not ask the questions bugging him as his lips were sealed.

Was there a royal around? He doubts if he has offended any royal to get strapped in a straitjacket. Where exactly did the royal come from when the world was destroyed.

Soon a face blocked the lights and it took a while for him to focus on the face before him. It was a young man as he thought, clean shaved, cold soulless eyes and dressed in white.

Liam's eyes narrowed and he immediately began shaking and struggling in the straitjacket. He furrowed his brow as he tried to scream. Why the hell was that man looking at him with those soulless eyes?

His face became pale when he noticed how pale the young man staring at him from above. The position he was in as he was stared down at powerlessly, made him feel even more miserable.

Did the earth get invaded by aliens who look like human corpses?

He could only hum with the tape tightly sealing his lips.

"I will loosen the jacket a little now, your highness," the corpse told him still sounding as monotonous as ever.

When the man reached towards him with a pair of very pale hands, he struggled harder to loosen his hands from the jacket but that only tightened the jacket around his hands.

"If you keep struggling, I will have to use the tube," came a cold threat he did not have to experience to know. "I was ordered to feed you with vegetables?"

He was not a rabbit, why was he going to get fed vegetables. He tried to scream but came that muffled sound. His lips began feeling upsettingly numb.

Liam has never felt this scared in his life. He had locked up fear in his life and had never hesitated to do anything when he gets the chance to, dangerous or not but that was because he had never seen a talking corpse-like being.

The corpse continued to approach him and finally touched him. He could not accept that and the moment he felt the coldness that transferred to his skin through the jacket, he blacked out.

*******

It was not a dream as he hoped it would be when he come to. He was with the same white ceiling illuminated with what were most likely were inbuilt led lightbulbs.

He made up his mind not to struggle as he did earlier. The first experience of something scary is usually more devastating than the second.

You could probably act calm even if you are not the second time you experience it. He heard distant noise and occasional voices but he could not make out what they were talking about.

His eyelids felt heavy as they began flicking slowly until he fell asleep again.

The third time, he woke up to that same ceiling and he finally got the chance to turn his head, though difficult for reasons he did not know were difficult.

He saw a white wall on his left and the same thing on the right. He was cursing deep inside, pained with the fact that he could not let it out personally.

He raised his head again and he saw nothing, no wall, just the white ceiling. He tried to turn his body so he could sit up with his immobile hands.

His body was tied to the bed from his feet to his shoulder.

So many curses, so many angry words, and complaints were rainy out of his inner lips since his mouth was sealed. This was the first time he was made to feel powerless.

A thought popped. The corpse, pain in his arms and shoulder, bondage, and . . . many more he could keep listing. Was he in hell?

Perhaps he died and he was in hell getting punished for stealing 10 bucks from his mother's purse when he was eight or the half a dozen girls whose hearts were broken by him, or . . . he could spend the rest of his eternity in hell listing each of them.

Was this what his hell was? If so then he could only appreciate it because it was better than what he has seen in pictures and heard.

Did you ask why? The corpse was wearing white, for goodness' sake and he had no horns.

If only he knew he would be the one with the horn later.

"Your highness, this is the last portion for today, I plead that you compile and make this easy for all of us," came a voice before he saw the face of an actual human and not a corpse.

Do you think that will make him relieved? Well, he was relieved for a while until he saw the murderous gaze in the eyes of the man.

Some people have encountered humans who you never choose as friends even if they are the only humans left on earth.

If you ask Liam, he would tell you the preferred the corpse man to this man looking at him like he was some sheep dragged to the slaughterhouse.