The Shadows Over Us

Five

The last thing I remember before I lost concuousness was my small interaction with Toby.
I slowly opened my eyes, letting them adjust to the dim light. When I sat up though, my back was so sore. I looked below me and seen only concrete. It was cold and damp, and the air was stuffy. Once my eyes adjusted to the light, I looked around and noticed that I was in a dingy basement. In a panic, I tried to stand up only to hear the rattling of chains, and I felt a weight on my ankle. These fuckers chained me up to the cement wall. I didn't even have time to look around before I heard a low, animalistic voice. I snapped ny head over to the left and noticed a figure sitting with their arms crossed in a folded chair. It was the Masked Man before.
"Toby had business to attend to." He started right off the bat "I'm in charge of watching you for now." I could feel my body temperature drop significantly as I stared at him. He was so much bigger than me, I wasn't even thinking of escaping. Suddenly, he got up and pulled his chair closer to me, getting a flinch in return.
"Relax, I'm not going to hurt you." There it is again, that quiet hum as he spoke. It was of he had a voice changer inside is mask, no one's voice is that deep.

"W..where am I?" I ask in a softer tone, laced only with fear.

He tilted his head to look at me, then chuckled as he sat back down.
"I know you probably have a lot of questions, but I'll start by answering some of them." He returned to his position with his arms crossed and legs spread, as if he was uncomfortable in the laughably small chair. "My name is Jack. You weren't supposed to be here this early." He began. "Our... Boss, has been watching you, scouting you for a while now."

He seemed to be satisfied with that, as he "looked" at me. I couldn't tell if he had eyes, or if it was just the mask.

"A..are you going to hurt me?.." I stammered anxiously, expecting a cruel fate. He seemed to find humor in that as he bursted out laughing, right in my face. "You will not be harmed under our care. We have strict orders from the big man upstairs." That helped to relieve me a bit, but now I just had more questions. Who's this "boss" he keeps mentioning? What does he want with me. Jack seemed to have read my mind somehow, because he answered in perfect order.

"Our boss is more of an entity of sort, a mere hallucination. He is real, but his form doesn't appear to us as human." He clears his throat, allowing him to speak again, but just as he did the basement door swung open, allowing a crude light to shine through blinding my unadjusted eyes. I squint and put my hand up to my face to block it. When my eyes adjusted again, I seen a silhouette begin to walk down the creaky stairs. This time though, the figure was.. twitching? I blinked a few times and finally see Toby's form come into view. He was covered head to toe in blood, dried at that. He slowly approached me with a limp in his step and threw a plastic bag at me. He dismissed Jack with a wave and walked over to him. The two men exchanged words that I couldn't hear, and Toby took the chair that Jack was previously sitting on.
Jack hurried upstairs, probably having something better to do and Toby pulled the rusty folded chair right infront of me. I backed up slightly into the wall and stared at him defensively. Instead, he grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and dragged me back infront of the chair, the chain on my ankle rattling as my body was pulled forward. Toby sat down, still holding me.
"I went through all that to get you food. Eat." He said with a harsh tone and sense of annoyance. I looked up at him, tears threatening to fall. From thin angle he looked ethereal. His goggles were over his eyes, but his mask was pulled down. I could see through his mouth gape that he was grinding his teeth angrily. The lighting made him look even more threatening than he usually does. He finally let's me go and grabs the bag of food he threw at me earlier. He pulled out a Styrofoam container and opened it up, setting it on his lap. He grabbed me by the jaw, and pulled me closer to him so that my chin was just above his knees. He smirked a bit at me, then shoved a fork of unknown food at my face. I looked down at the food with an unsure demeanor, but I looked back at Toby as he squeezed my jaw again roughly.
"Eat." He growled out, pushing the fork towards me. I took my first bite. The food wasn't horrible, but it was nothing to write home about. He didn't even need to do that, I am perfectly capable of feeding myself, but it seems he feeds off my fear. He just does things for his own pleasure and satisfaction. Eventually he let me eat on my own, sitting back in the chair with his arms behind his head, and his legs hanging loosely infront of him. Fucking perv.

Now that I think about about, I am actually really hungry. How long was I out for?