| Strange Words

The man was speaking – or rather, he was reciting strange, guttural sounds that seemed scraped from the back of his throat.

Jack listened, strangely fascinated, as the screaming men began to quieten, their pleading giving way to sobs. Suddenly, he felt tired. So tired he could barely hold his eyes open. He became vaguely aware that the pitch of the old man's voice had changed, that his words had become longer, the sounds more complex.

Why am I even listening? A sharp dart of alarm tore through the fog in his mind but by then it was too late. He couldn't move. His legs wouldn't budge an inch.

'What have you done to me?' Jack asked, his words slurring. Had he been drugged, or hypnotized somehow?

'I have frozen the nerves to the muscles in your legs, arms, and neck, inducing a temporary paralysis,' said the old man in a reedy, Germanic accent. 'You will not escape here again.'