Markimash: I'm Afraid to Believe

Chapter Three

Yami came to his senses on a cold, hard floor. His head was throbbing slightly and his mouth felt dry and scratchy.

He tried to sit up, look around, anything- but his head refused to budge, it felt like it weighed a million pounds. Despite his best efforts, even looking up slightly produced a dizzy buzzing in his ears.

Talking was out of the question, even if Yami wanted to, his mouth was too dry to form any words. His lower lip stung a little, and when he brushed it with his tongue, he found a patch of dried blood.

Yami's thoughts were mostly a jumble of nonsense, he couldn't remember where he was until thinking about getting a cup of tea to wet his mouth.

That's right, I had tea with Mark... but where am I now?

When his vision finally focused a little, Yami was met with solid darkness. At first, he was worried he had gone blind and that was the source of the blackness, but as he lay cold and miserable, his eyesight adjusted slightly.

The best he could tell, he was facing some sort of rectangle, and beyond that was a mess of another shape.

Deep in concentration trying to guess his surroundings, it took Yami a moment to realize his hearing was coming back a little too.

Amazed, he listened to a dull hum from somewhere above him, and that was when Yami guessed he was under another floor. He supposed he was still in Mark's house, and his mind connected that he had to be in a basement.

Shortly after that, there was the sound of a door opening from somewhere far behind Yami and the muffled sound of shoes on carpeted stairs.

"Help!" He tried to call, but to anyone listening, it would have sounded more like a raspy cough than a cry for assistance.

There was some shuffling in the corner of the room, and a light turned on somewhere.

Yami discovered the rectangle to be a ceiling beam and the mess of shapes behind it was a table with chairs stacked on top.

He stared at these with wonder and then finally found he could move enough to roll over slightly, looking behind him expectantly.

As Yami had thought, it was Mark, who was carrying a bowl of something. He set it down on a table and then placed a piece of paper next to it. Pulling out a pen, he began scribbling some sort of note. He finished with a satisfied look and glanced in Yami's direction.

Yami, while still disorientated, did his best to look angry so his kidnapper understood the situation was not okay.

"I wish I had known you were awake," Mark said cheerfully, gesturing to the note. "Wasted a good sheet of paper. It was just to tell you it was tomato soup anyways, I didn't know how long you'd be out for. I know you had dinner a few hours ago but hey, never hurts to eat a little extra, huh?"

Crossing the room, Mark set the bowl of soup at Yami's elbow, murmuring a warning not to knock it over.

Frustrated at his lack of mobility, Yami forced himself to sit up, ignoring the dizziness and the way every muscle in his body seemed to be screaming to stop.

"How are you feeling?"

Yami looked up at Mark in disbelief and suddenly found he had regained his voice. "How am I feeling? Just fine! Mind telling me why in the world I'm in your basement?"

"So you can't escape," Mark replied simply. He nodded toward the bowl. "Eat up, before it gets cold."

Angry, Yami tried to stand up but he found his leg held in place. Alarmed, he looked back to see a dog chain fitted around his ankle, the other end tied to the support beam he had thought was a rectangle. A glistening lock hung off the place where the chain ended, securing it in place to another section of the same chain.