Chapter 3: Darkness

I woke up into darkness. My head felt like I had been hit by a semi-truck and my mouth tasted as if I spent an hour licking the metal of said truck. I blinked a few times, willing my eyes to adjust. I wasn't in complete darkness for there was a window with the moon shining brightly through. Then I realized that I was not outside or in my tent or in my car.

I was in a cell. Three solid walls of stone and a metal bars. I eased onto my elbows and into a sitting position.

"It was about time," the voice came from the other corner of this damp cell, I almost missed the mass that was sitting in the corner.

"Helen?" That irritated tone she used with me when I was being annoying was unmistakable.

"Yeah. You've been out for a few hours."

"Where are we?"

"Locked up." She was sitting curled up like a ball in a corner not looking at me.

I was beginning to panic. All the horror kidnapping movies I have ever watched in my life were beginning to replay in my head, most notably Saw where a sadist would capture people and make them do crazy, torturous tasks to escape such has sawing their leg off to escape the chains on his ankles.

For a few minutes I didn't say anything. My mind entangled in the horror of what could possibly happen to us: rape, murder, dismemberment, slavery. The endings of most of those movies weren't very good, only one person got out alive and I was betting on me.

"Did you see who took us?"

But before she could answer the sound of a door opening jolted us from our conversation and we stared at the direction of the noise. Footsteps were coming our way, more than one. I eased my way closer to Helen so that I was in front of her. My limbs protesting the movement as I crouched in a defensive stance.

Then they were upon us, three figures identically the same height at six feet and some change. They were thick with muscle that even I could distinguish in the darkness because of their close fitting cotton shirts which were brown with age and sweat. My eyes darted to the weapons on their hips which were,

"Helen, please tell me you're seeing swords" I whispered as quietly as I could but from the way they shifted their stance I could tell that my voice carried.

Helen didn't answer. I wanted to look into their face to see what they looked like, burn their faces into my memory so if I got out of here I could tell the police the shape of their nose and the curve of their eyes and the sharpness of their jaw. But I couldn't see their face, it was as if the light wouldn't touch it. It didn't make sense since the moon had illuminated the tiny cell and the shadow where the moon's light couldn't reach was clearly above their heads.

I tried to will my eyes to see, to find shapes in their face but I couldn't see anything. One of them had a key and was unlocking the cell. I prayed to Jesus or whoever could hear me that they wouldn't be fast. I grabbed Helen's hand behind me and held it tight. When the cell door opened, I stood and kicked the first man in the groin and landed a second kick to the other man's sternum which made him stumble into the third one. Then I pulled Helen and I ran.

But we didn't get far because damn it these men were unnaturally fast. In the blink of an eye one of them was in front of us, the other two already on their feet and behind us, kicking us onto the floor and we landed hands and knees. I heard the ring of metal and felt the lick of steel on my back. Anger rose which help dampen the fear that was coursing through my veins.

The man with the sword grunted and tickled the sword up my back, I figured that was a cue to stand up and saw Helen doing the same. The second cue to walk was executed by jabbing the knife into the skin of my back to remind me of how sharp it was.

We were walking up stone stairs and into a corridor of stone. It felt like we were in a medieval castle. How far were we from the closest civilization with a phone? The hallway was lit with real lamps with real fire, not one of those plastic light with a fire shaped bulb illuminating it. This was not good. If they were people with some kind of fetish, whatever torture they had in store was going to be worse than anything I could imagine.

After walking through a maze of corridors that had me dizzy and feeling as if we walked in circles, we finally arrived to two huge oak doors that stood over 20 feet high. They looked heavy and expensive. Great, these people were kinky and rich and are probably rich enough to make us disappear without question.

The doors opened inward and I almost shrank back from the light were it not for the blade that was friendly with my back. The room was dressed in gold and candle chandeliers danced light off of mirrored ceilings. The room was packed with beautiful people dressed in finery that you read about in old medieval tales with princesses and ladies. Their eyes were what made them different because as they all turned to face our direction, I saw that their eyes were not natural. Purples, yellows, orange, red all turned to meet our gaze.

Now I was really afraid. At least a hundred finely dressed people stood in the room. That would be a lot of people that we would have to fight through, all clearly rich enough to afford such high quality contacts, and all clearly part of the same kinky crew. I looked over at Helen and could tell by the expression on her face that she was thinking the same. Helen looked at me too and it was the first time that I saw her face since I awoke and her eyes were glowing. They were gold that caught every glint of light. My eyes widened at the sight of me and her face mirrored mine. Was there something wrong with my face too?

We didn't have much time to question each other because the two swords bit into our backs and we began to walk again towards a dais where there was a man and a woman were seated upon a throne.

The man was dressed gold and black robes that had beautiful images of fairies and trees embroidered upon it. The woman was dressed in a closely fit a-line style dress of similar fabric. When we were about 50 feet from the dais, our lovely escorts gave us another cue to stop by kicking us to the floor. A growl escaped my throat as I bit back the pain on my knees. Then I realized it, I hadn't noticed it before because the thoughts in my mind were speaking so loudly that no one in the room was talking, no sound escaped anyone's lips as we made our way to the dais. It was so quiet that even a pin could drop. I cursed myself for not being more aware of my surroundings. I pushed myself up from my hands and was about to stand when a hand on my shoulder pushed me down again to my knees.

I growled again with irritation. Some part of me scolded myself for being so defiant to someone with a weapon when I had none but I've never had to kneel to anyone and if I was going to die, the last place I wanted to be was on my knees.

The man on the throne spoke with a voice like honey to the audience.

"We have never caught ourselves one of these kinds of humans before." The entire room inhaled a breath at the sound of his voice and murmurs broke out between people.

A scrawny man dressed how I imagined a scholar to look dressed in plain off white robes that were still embroidered with beautiful images ran up to the man and whispered in his ear.

"These are what they call Asians in the human realm." At that cue, the whole audience released Ahhs  in unison.

Great. These people have never seen an Asian person before. Ignorant and racist, I added that to my list of things wrong with these kinky people.

"My scholar tells me one of them is from China and the other Thailand."

I let out a snort, which I immediately regretted because then all eyes were on me. I cursed myself for being so obvious with my emotions. But since I already had their attention,

"I'm from the Philippines and she's from Taiwan" I tilted my head towards Helen "and we come from the United States because were American." I said those last words fiercely, I hated it when people questioned my right to be in this country because of the color of my skin and the shape of my eyes. That defiance earned me a nice kick on the back from my lovely escorts that had me sprawled on my hands again. I let out a frustrate huff.

"American" the man echoed as if chewing on the words. His scholar whispered something else to the man and he nodded, clearly digesting his words. "These women arise from an even rarer breed of human. We shall enjoy them immensely." Again, as if the crowd were prompted by a light or a cue card they all Oooh'd  in unison.

Then from a nod from the man on the throne, four women on each side of us came and grabbed hold of our arms. Their grip unnaturally strong that held me like my hands had be cemented into place. The speed at which they were hauling us out of the room gave us no time to protest or fight back. They led us into a chamber adjacent to the great hall we just exited from and then practice hands undressed me so quickly that I didn't even realize my clothes were off. I looked at the shattered remains of cloth, they had cut my clothes off? But with what? I wanted to turn around and look at the weapon but one of the women had lifted me off the feet and thrown me into a tub of warm water.

I pulled myself up gasping for air. I reached on each side of the copper tub to pull myself up but strong hands on my shoulders kept me down. The other three ladies were scrubbing at me with brushes and soap on my skin and my hair. I felt completely helpless and violated from being touched and scrubbed in places that only my husband was allowed to touch. In an instant I was submerged into the water and pulled back out of the tub to land with a wet thud on a bundle of cloth. Helen was next to me just coming out of an adjacent tub.

My vision was covered by whiteness and I was swallowed up by the bundle of cloth that swirled and slithered around my skin and around my hair, a snake drinking up all the water from my skin. The cloth dropped and I was dry but naked again. I was pushed into another girl who had a dress already coming over my head hands reaching through the arm holes to grab mine to guide it through the dress. I was getting dizzy from all the commotion happening to me. They had pants and I had a moment where no one was gripping my arms that I grabbed it and proceeded to put it on myself. I did not want to imagine how they were planning on getting those on me.

My breath was sucked out of me as the women behind me were lacing up my dress. I stole a moment to look down at what they had given me. A dark blue dress which reminded me of the summer night sky where we had our first dinner. I was in fine silk that shaped like a ball gown with long sleeves that hung off my shoulders. It was a beautiful dress. But before I could admire it more, one of the women put a cloth to my nose and I inhaled a sweet perfume that had my vision going dark.