Shadows of Redemption

Chapter Three

"Put the dress on, put the dress on, put the dress on" The words repeat over and over, each time my body gets warmer and warmer. The words don't stop. Sitting here with my knees up to my chest, looking around myself for some sort of dress to slip onto my bare body, but all I see is black. The ground feels like wet concrete and it's almost painful. It smells like burning flesh. The words get louder and the heat continues to rise. I can't seem to stand, the ground is getting too hot to move anymore.
"Put the dress on" The voice now sounds demanding. The atmosphere is blisteringly unbearable. I attempt to move my body, but every inch I move, the heat gets more extreme. I scream. Crying out for any type of help. The voice overshadows anything I say.

          "Put the dress on, put the dress on"

It's getting hard to breathe. I can't hear myself think anymore. Everything is getting louder and hotter as the seconds go by. Fear paralyzes my body. My mind understands nothing. Headaches form as I wonder if it's my flesh that's burning. I'm going to die here. I'm going to scream until my lungs give out. Someone has to hear me. How do I stop the voice? I can't imagine getting through any of this without help.

"SOMEONE HELP ME,"

I scream and scream but the voice is getting deafening. My body can't make a loud enough noise to save me. My body is practically cooking. I feel the sweat dripping down my back and my hands are threatening to undo its grip around my legs. My feet feel the worst of the heat and I know if I stand, the agony will be insufferable. "Put the dress on," Sweat, it soaked every inch of my body in sweat and I can't help but to wonder if this is the end. Will they leave me here to die?

I gasp. I'm disoriented as I sit up. My body is in a cold sweat as I try to catch my breath. I take a moment or two to realize the voice is gone. No more demands. My heart rate lowers a bit, closer to normal. My hands won't stop shaking, though it's not uncommon. Every time I have this dream, it freaks my body to an uncomfortable degree. My mouth always feels dry, yet I feel like I could throw up at any second. I feel almost sick. My eyes always open up just to blind me. Something is always obscuring my vision, and it takes a while for it to clear. My body is always soaked in sweat and my migraine never gets less painful.
It's around this time where I gain my vision back. The first thing I see is a blanket over my body. It's a faded red, and there are holes all over it. I scan around the room I'm now in and I can't remember how I got here. I try to piece together the mixed up puzzle that are now my memories, but the pieces are too small—too blurred together that I can't tell what came first or last. All I know for sure is that a man took me from home.
Ruth. My heart sinks down to my stomach, and I feel the vomit reaching up my neck. What about Ruth? She's going to come home and I won't be there. I can't imagine how hurt she will feel. I rub away the tears from my eyes. Ruth didn't like it when I cried. I don't want to disappoint her now.
When I look up again, I look at the room and take in the details. It's nothing like home. There are windows, but they don't have any curtains. It's still dark out, only the moonlight shining through to this room. The floors are nothing but cement. The walls are white, but there's old bits of paper stuck on it. The old wrapping paper is a light blue color, similar to the daytime sky. Ruth was always fond of walls- or the designs on them, anyway. I'm sitting in a bed which differs from my bed from home. This one is creaky and made of rough wood. At least it has a mattress. I look up and the ceiling has a decayed fan that is only hanging on by a few wires. There is another bed inside with the same blanket draped over it. It seems freshly made. The room is quite small, so the two beds hardly fit inside.
I pull the blanket off of me as I shift my body to be sitting on the edge of the bed. I find my slippers on the floor in front of me, and slip them on. The slippers are still wet, though they're cleaner than I remember them being. I look down at my gown and it's no longer on my body. Now, I'm wearing a brown shirt and loose gray pants. My body froze as I realized someone had changed my clothes. I have never owned a single pair of pants in my life.
I stand up and the pants fall down immediately. I quickly pick them up back over my hips. I hold them there as I walk slowly towards the bedroom door. I put my hand on the doorknob and slowly turn it. The door opens only a sliver. I put my head up to the crack and look through.
I'm inside what looks to me like a small home. Telling me to close the door and lock myself away, but despite it all—my hands defy my demands and open the door the rest of the way. It creaks open and I want to die right on the spot. I take a deep breath in. I feel like I haven't taken a breath in hours, maybe years. I stand still to make sure nothing has changed. Nothing seems to have moved and the metal sounds have not stopped. I exhale as I move out of the bedroom and into the living room. The moon's shine is more prominent in this room. The home smells like old books, but it looks as though it should smell worse. Dust has accumulated on every inch of the home, except for some surfaces that someone seemed to have brushed clean with their hand—finger streaks on a nearby table being the key evidence. There is a light blue couch, similar to the wallpaper from the bedroom. These walls were an orange color, but now it's mostly a dirty white. There is a black rectangle box on a short and thin table. That in particular seems to have the most dust accumulation. There are pictures on almost every wall of nature scenes; waterfalls, forests, sunrises, animals, and a select few have a family. The family has a mother, a father, and two children. In one image, they're all posing in front of a tree, all of them holding hands and smiling at whoever took the picture. I walk over to the picture frame on the wall and. take it into one of my hands, the other holding up my pants. The daughters have long blonde hair. The father has extremely short hair, almost bald. But the mother has the most beautiful hair I've ever seen. Her hair is shoulder length, and the way the sun had shined down on her made it look like it was so soft and glowing. Her brown hair was—
"You're awake."
I gasp and the picture frame drops from my hand. It shatters into an infinite amount of pieces. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" The words rushed out of my mouth like a river. I crouched down and began to pick up the bigger pieces of glass from the floor.
I recognized the slight muffle in the man's voice. It's the same man who took me from home. "I was afraid you didn't have a voice box."
I have a few pieces of glass in my hand as I look up at him. He is wearing the same cloth over his nose and mouth. His clothes haven't seemed to change either. "What does that matter?" My voice hardly whispers.
His eyes are scanning me, my body. I'm not sure if he heard me until he speaks again. "It just does." My heart rate speeds up as his eyes are glued to me. "Are you hurt?"
I'm not sure how to answer this question. I look over at nothing to try to think of anything that could be hurting my body. "My toes and fingers are sore.." I mumble as I stand up, holding the pieces of glass. "Where am I?"
The man ignores me. "Drop the glass." His eyes are wider than they were a second ago.
I look down at the glass in my hand. "Why? It's just glass," I mutter. "I was cleaning it up."
"Drop the glass now, or I'll shoot." His voice was demanding as he reached behind his back.
I watch him put his hand behind his back and pull out a metal device with a handle. I'm assuming that's what he uses to shoot. "Why do you want me to drop it?"
"Are you insane?" His confident voice seemingly weakened. "Drop the freaking glass!" He points the device towards me.
"I'm not insane. I just want to know why you want me to drop it. It's not hurting anyone." I sigh. His stance towards me seems like he's scared of me.
"Do you know what this is?" The man waves the piece of metal in the air. "It's a gun. So put the glass down or I'm gonna shoot you. That's the last warning I'm giving you."
I stare at him for a couple seconds. "What'd you say? A gun?"
"Yes, obviously."
"What's a gun?"
"What's a–What do you mean, what's a gun?" He looks stressed beyond belief. I almost feel bad for him.
I stare at him, trying to find the right words to describe what I'm thinking. "Well, you're pointing that random metal thing at me and I have no clue what it is." I gesture towards the so-called gun. "You know, I don't care what it does. I just want to know why you want me to drop this glass. I was trying to do something nice."
The man laughed. He actually laughed. "You're joking, right? I know you're playing dumb. Whoever told you to play dumb obviously didn't know about me. I can see through that crap." He explained before gesturing the gun towards me. "I swear to god man, I really will shoot you if you don't drop that glass!"
"You're making this much harder than it needs to be." I added, softly. "What does playing dumb mean? What is all of this coming from? I just wanted to help you with the broken picture." He doesn't scare me anymore. He's more confusing than anything.
"Oh my god, you're serious." He finally lowers his gun.
"Yeah," I nod my head slowly. I can't believe I was kidnapped by an idiot. "I am very serious."
"Who are you?" He asked, putting his gun back somewhere behind him, possibly in his pants.
"You kidnapped me, and you don't even know who I am?"
"Just answer the freaking question."
"My name is Bowie."