Stockholm Syndrome? ✔

S.S 18

My eyes flew open. The world in all its glory came banging on my door, assaulting my senses with much vigor. Everything was surreal, too bright and too close it was blurry. I blinked a couple of times, willing the banging in my head to go away.

My vision cleared, my headache didn't. My temples were being hammered and opening my eyes made it worse. My brain wasn't ready to make connections. I could feel every signal being sent and it was unpleasant. It felt like a bomb went off in my skull. Only, my skull was still intact so you could guess how my brain looked; mushy mixed with a lot of...

"Ow", I said when I tried to raise my head. I felt like someone had just kicked me in the back of my head.

I forced myself upright, ignoring the beatings I was constantly getting from an invisible force. And then I got a taste of it –my mouth. It was dry, but that couldn't mask the taste of acid latching onto my tongue. By instinct my lips contorted to make a disgusted expression.

I took one long conscious blink, opening my eyes to look around. It was no longer uncomfortable to look, though my heart lurched at my surroundings. I was on a bed draped with white sheets. It looked like I was in a bedroom. There wasn't much in the bedroom, just the bed, a dresser, a nightstand and a small one-man couch with a bedside table near it. The door was just near the dresser.

The walls were wood, something I didn't expect to see. It looked like I was in a cabin. The light entering told me it was daytime. I got up from the bed slowly, careful not to further upset my complaining head. I was about to walk out of the room when I noticed something on the nightstand. It was a medicine vial, and it read "Flumazenil 0.1 mg/mL". It was almost empty. There was a syringe next to it.

I couldn't remember ever seeing it. And then I realized I couldn't remember anything. I could remember going to the club with Clark and his friends. I just couldn't remember what happened there and why I was in a cabin.

I instinctively checked the part of my body I could see for puncture wounds, but I couldn't see any. But something told me even if I couldn't see entrance spots, whatever flumazenil was, it was used on me.

I put a hand just below my ribcage to try and dwarf the gnawing pain I was feeling there. I hadn't realized it up to that point. Fear ran to engulf me. It didn't have to run far. I already knew from my hammering headache that something was wrong. The scene was eerily familiar. Something was terribly wrong.

I was about to desperately look for my phone when something exploded. For a second I forgot about my headache and abdominal pain and focused on making sure I was out of harm's way, falling down to the ground and covering any part of myself I could. I could only manage covering my severely ill head.

My heart was threatening to jump out of my body and free itself. I didn't blame it; I wanted to jump out myself. I must have lay on the ground for quite some time before I realized the explosion hadn't been in the room, and had sounded like a gunshot.

I got up slowly, making a snap decision. If I was going to die, I wasn't going to die lying on the floor. If someone was shooting outside, they were probably engrossed with whoever they were shooting. I could attempt to sneak out.

My legs protested of course, but I ignored them for a bit. I just needed to get out of the place unseen. I could hide somewhere else, just not in the house.

I got to the door wondering why I was attractive to crazy people. This was the second time for goodness' sake.

A thought crossed my mind. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe someone found me sprawled somewhere and rescued me. Maybe I wasn't a captive. After all I wasn't shackled to anything.