Does It Matter

33

 

  Wu Xie groaned as consciousness returned to his body, bringing with it a raging headache and limbs that felt heavy as lead. He was glad for the lack of sunlight before he questioned it. The light would only make his head feel worse.
Wait... How did I fall asleep? Aish it's all foggy.... I know that it was late morning.... I wouldn't have slept at that time. He went to run his head but found that he couldn't move his arm, and quickly recognized the feeling of ropes binding his wrists. Fuck. Not again. With a growl he writhed in an attempt to free himself, suddenly realizing that he had in fact been staring into total darkness for a while now, and the lack of any light was not due to having his eyes closed. I'm so tired of the fucking blindfolds, why can't these idiots just leave me alone?! I don't know all of my uncles secrets, well... Rather, he doesn't tell me his secrets, and so I should not know them.

"Hey! Shut up in there!" He heard a grouchy, tired sounding man holler, presumably at him.

He ignored the man, and continued to work at his bindings, screw sneaky escapes, fuck trying to get away with minimal damage, I am not dealing with this anymore, they're gonna die someday anyhow, might as well make it now.
"Hey! I would calm down and sit still if I were you." The grouchy man addressed him again, but his seeming threat sounded weak, and Wu Xie somehow doubted the person was capable of much anyhow.
"Would you really?! This is the third time this week that someone has tried this shit on me, if you were in my position would you really give a fuck about sitting quietly?"  Wu Xie retorted, getting more pissed off the longer this dragged on, he could feel that his pockets had been emptied of anything useful, including his wallet, meaning that they had his ID. If all they wanted was money they could have stolen it while he slept, so why go to all this trouble, on the other hand, if they worked for any of his uncle's rivals, then they wouldn't have bothered to take his things, or to keep him here long enough to wake up. So the only answer was that they were an outside party.
   He suddenly remembered the other group of young travelers that had been at the inn, only to disappear the next day, he wondered if they had ended up in the same situation, in which case he had his answer.
These people, they were human traffickers.
  There were many underground dealings like this, all over the world, people would go missing, taken as slaves by traffickers, and sold to labor camps, factories, mines, some to... worse places.
  He pitied the poor travelers who must have been caught up in this mess of a town before him.
Wait... What about Qiling? He had been told that his friend had left him here, but was that really the case? Had he only stepped out, and would be returning any minute? No... If there was any chance of him returning then the villagers would not have pulled such a bold move. But then where had he gone? They hadn't seemed to have any real destination so far, hadn't even had the time to discuss it in between the constant running for their lives. Had he been kidnapped as well? No, Xiaoge couldn't be caught off guard, especially by these fools. But he also ate the food last night.

"Damn it!" Wu Xie hissed out.

"Hey! I said shut up in there!" The man from behind the door hollered again.

This is ridiculous, there should be a limit to how often someone is allowed to be kidnapped in a week. He rolled his eyes and tried to shift his weight to ease the numbness in his legs. Should just calm down, think of a plan. It won't be easy, I don't have anything with me. Will have to steal my stuff back. Am I still in the inn? Something he had heard a few years back came to mind, from a time when he was still in school, and had overheard some girl talking to her male best friend, about a guy that she was meeting up with.
She had planned to meet the person that evening after school, a plan which her friend strongly disagreed with. "Since you won't let me go with you, please be careful, and remember to stay in populated areas, no second locations." Her friend had stated with the most disgruntled and demanding tone. At the time Wu Xie had scoffed at his whining, figuring that the guy was just upset that she was meeting with a different man, after all, what could be so dangerous in the normal lives of these people. It wasn't like they were tomb raiders, all it should take is some common sense and they'll be fine.
Of course he hadn't kept that mindset for very long, as he came to the realization that most of his more dangerous situations had been caused by living people, not dead ones.
  Wu Xie allowed himself a satirical laugh as he remembered those times, and how stupid he had been. Yes, people are the most frightening creatures in creation. They will commit the most horrific crimes and then justify it to themselves through any means they can think of. 'it was a bad day, it can be understood that I hit that person.' 'my significant other was cheating, what else could I do but kill them. They betrayed me first.'
Yes, humans could be terrifying, and some didn't even feel the need to justify it at all, some don't need a reason to cause harm.
If only he had realized that a long time ago, perhaps he wouldn't have seen half of the things that he had, he could have escaped his uncles, this life, maybe he would have lead a life as simple as those he had looked down on in those times? Or maybe he never looked down on them, so much as resented that they could be so dissatisfied with the one thing that he had wanted, no, needed, so badly for his whole life.

Aish why am I thinking about this, just observe for now if your brain won't work. Eventually there will be an opening. Maybe in transit? There's no way that they would kidnap people just to keep them locked up, so one would have to assume that eventually they would move him elsewhere, during which time he might find a chance to escape. A small hope, but at least it was something for now.
Absently, he caught himself hoping, just a tiny bit, that his friend was nearby, and would find him soon. He couldn't deal with being dragged around to unknown places much more after this past month. He might just do something he would regret the next time someone tried.