Pyro

IV

Sunny

Consciousness returns like drowning in reverse - painful, disorienting, unwanted. My eyelids feel weighted with lead, each blink a battle against darkness that wants to reclaim me. The first thing I register is copper - the taste of blood, metallic and stale. The second is pain. There is so much pain that I can't locate the source.

Inventory the damage. Survive.

My lungs scream with each shallow breath, my ribs are definitely cracked. Every inhale tastes like pennies and mould. The basement's damp air feels thick, almost alive. Something warm trickles down my face - blood from a head wound I don't remember getting. It's hard to remember anything through the fog of what's probably a concussion.

The chains above me clink with each tremor that runs through my body. My arms hang useless and numb, shoulder's screaming from supporting my weight for... hours? Days? The metal cuffs have carved permanent memories into my wrists. Time lost meaning when they first dragged me down here.

Down here. Tomas's special playground.

A laugh bubbles up, more hysteria than humour. Darkness and cold - sound like some awful indie band. The kind that plays in coffee shops where people pretend pain is poetic while sipping seven-dollar lattes.

This pain isn't poetic. It's primal. Raw. Every scream I've torn from my throat has left it feeling shredded, like I've swallowed razor blades. I wonder if I'll even be able to speak when Tomas returns. Wonder if he'd prefer me to be silent.

If you survive that long.

Memory floods back in fragments - each hit, each cut, each 'lesson' he wanted to teach. The way he smiled while asking questions I couldn't answer. The satisfaction in his eyes when I finally screamed. My body remembers even when my mind tries to forget, phantom pain ghosting across fresh bruises.

The concrete floor beneath my knees has stolen all warmth. They took my shoes first - psychological warfare 101. Keep them cold, keep them uncomfortable, keep them weak. But I'm not weak. Not anymore.

A crash from upstairs snaps my head up - mistake. The room spins violently, nausea rising. Through vertigo, I track heavy boots thundering overhead. Shouted orders in multiple languages. Then... Gunshots.

The sound jolt me fully awake. I strain to listen, counting footsteps as they race past the basement door. These men, armed to the teeth and led by a psychopath, are running scared. Running from something.

What makes monsters fear the dark?

More gunfire, closer now. Someone screams - not in pain, in rage. Glass shatters somewhere above. The chaos carries a rhythm, like someone's orchestrating it. This isn't random violence. This is choreographed.

This is hunting.

I force myself upright, biting through my lip to stifle a scream. The change in position sends fire through my shoulders, blood rushing back to dead limbs. Pins and needles dance across nerve endings - almost welcome compared to the constant agony. Almost.

My first attempt to stand ends with me face-first against cold concrete. The chains catch me, adding fresh pain to my already abused shoulders. I barely notice. You get used to some kinds of hurt, learn to catalogue them like collecting scars.

Get up, I tell myself. Get up or die here.

The basement door splinters - someone's trying to break in. Or out. The hinges groan in protest as something heavy slams against them. Voices argues in Italian, urgent and afraid.