Everything was random. It was a bit strange that of all people, fate chose to play with my life, hung me in its randomness. Random circumstance is scary.
The smell of the rotten flesh, of the decaying lumbers and of the rusty irons burdens my nostrils, piercing through my senses as I sat in a wooden chair, chained and tied up. The cord that knotted my wrists at the back was secured at the chair’s backrest and my legs were constrained to two separate sacks of stones. The cord was an electrical wire; its outer covering was peeled unevenly exposing the red and white slender rods. I have been in this situation for eleven straight hours now. My left wrist was scraping to the copper rod, wounded my skin. I felt the pain every time it deepened into my wrists, and I thought it would be more tormenting in the next hours, unless, there would be deliverance--something called miracle--to get me out of this mess.
Where I am? This question kept me floating. I do not know. All I know, when I was brought where I am now, there were sounds of engines--roaring--like big trucks, and two or three minutes later, they were all gone and silence became a home. Not that it comforted me. Sitting here wasted in the middle of nowhere was hell itself. Silence though, was better than the voices that echoed nothing but the plan about me, of how to eliminate me when the time comes.
I do not know them personally nor what were running in their minds but I know their faces, have seen them at school and in the strangest place where I should have never been. Yet instinct told me that this whole thing has something to do with it. I heard them talked about it for some time.
My eyes hurt behind the piece of linen cloth that was placed slightly slanted at the left side, its edge sunk at my lower eyelid. Darkness was baneful. Perfect. Now I knew what torture means. For everything that was happening, hope was a farfetched thing. There was no escape, no assurance, no salvation, and just plain freedom--death.
The people that abducted me were not really the typical kidnappers. First, I was not a kid anymore. I was a seventeen year old Architecture freshman. Second, there were no negotiations about a ransom between them and my parents. But even there was one; they would get nothing because we do not have money. My parents were fish vendors in a public market and I was a scholar who was trying so hard.
The wind blew calmly but whispered an impending doom. Footsteps echoed through the disjointed iron gates. I shifted my head, hoping to have a better attention. They were the same footsteps that kept on lingering from time to time. When they come, something in me shivered.
I put away the lump on my throat but failed haplessly. One strong hand clenched my hair, tilting my chin up. Hard breathes and air of local whiskey greeted me as the person spoke close to my face.
“So are you ready to talk little brat?” the voice was of a male. He was always the one who talked to me. But I do not know if he was the leader of the pack because everyone seemed to be in command.
“Who are you?” I asked. My tone betrayed the panic inside me.
“It’s not necessary,” said a female voice.
This was the first time I heard her talk. But I noticed her voice before. There were two or three of them, the females, in the gang.
“You’ll know soon.”
“I don’t think it is right,” another female commented, the most reluctant of them all.
“Shut up, Irish!” the male shouted. “We are doing this because we need to. This is for us. So stop talking nonsense, will you?”
He pushed my head away. That was good because the smell of liquor was killing me. I heard the other girls grumbled, saying something to Irish that appeared to stagger her. I never heard her talk again. The male, who I named Whisk, that’s obvious enough, walked away and told Irish to stay. She was hesitant but could not have the guts to disagree. There was silence.
