Never Again ON HOLD

Scars

A headache pounds through my skull, and try as I might, I can't open my eyes quite yet.
I try and sit up, but I fall back, groaning. Where am I?
"A place not for you to remember," says a man's voice, and I try to make sense of his words but can't.
I groan once more and finally work my eyes open, but blinding light immediately hits my pupils and I have to close them again. The man chuckles, and after a while of alternating between squeezing my eyelids tight shut and flickering them open for a split second, I am able to open them fully. I realize the light is not as bad as I had thought at first, but the reflective white walls of the room I'm in certainly don't help.
Now I see that the man is the same one that had been standing in my dining room earlier. His face, up close and in the light, is twisted. One cheek has a mottled scar slashed across it, starting at the corner of his right eye and stretching all the way down his cheek. It almost curls the skin in upon itself, and I am barely able to refrain from gagging.
And on his forehead, above his left eyebrow, there's patches of pale skin, pink and pearly in a gruesome way. It's splotched across that whole side of his forehead, and one spot actually goes into his eyebrow, making it look like it's split in half. I shiver.
But then I think of Messes of Cupcakes, and how the scarred man in it, running a seemingly polluting and icky factory, is really nice on the inside. A person with pretty looks may be dangerous; a person with scars may be kind pops into my head, and I smile inwardly(perhaps a bit on the outside, too) before turning ,y attention back to the man.
"Who are you?" I hate how my voice quavers, because I know I have no reason to be afraid. How do I know this? I just do.
And he smiles, and laughs a bit more, supposedly at my question, before saying, "No one that you want to meet."
I surprise myself by speaking out boldly now. "Well, too late, though you're right, I do not want to be in this situation right now."
"Sadly, that comes with the deal," he replies, and then says, "My name is Zared," before I have a chance to ask it myself.
"Zared," I say, feeling the name on my tongue, then raising my eyebrows. "Zared?"
He winces, the twitch made frightening as the cheek scar ripples. "Yes, I suppose so. But I've said too much, haven't I."
On the contrary, I want to say, but I stay silent and simply stare at him for a while before he suddenly breaks into a broad smile. It's infuriating, but I force myself to stay calm on the outside.
His gaze flicks around before lingering on a bright red what-looks-like-a-headlight-on-a-car by the uppermost right corner of the room's door, then resting once more on me. I try and focus on his eyes, not scarred as they are, but even their lightish brown irises sent ice-cold feelings through me.
"I am not one to explain," he says quietly and somehow simply, after a while, and then does a sort of jerky half-bow by the door before stepping outside and shooing someone else in. I can hear their words, but it's in an unfamiliar language, and then a woman in a red shirt comes in.
Funny how I notice the shirt first thing, because a shirt holds no significance in this situation. But after staring at a white room and a man in grey for a while, a bright red shirt really flashes out at me. My gaze travels upward, to pink lipstick-- or maybe just tinted balm, as it looks like a mild color but not a completely natural one-- and then to red hair, a smile, and green eyes.
She steps forward slowly, then spins around and closes the door behind her before turning back. She leans forward, and then over, and I frown as she puts her hand over her face and the other one next to her eye. Then I realize she's popping contacts out, and watch in fascination as they slip into her pocket, she bends upward again, and brownish-hazel eyes are revealed.
She smiles again, straightening her back, and says, "Welcome."
"What is it with these people and smiling," I mutter, feeling slightly uncomfortable in a plain room with a stranger and a still-there headache.
She smiles even more.
"And why was I kidnapped?" I yell, my voice rising as her smiles seem to cut into my skin with their intensity. "Why are you smiling? Oh, you kidnappers are just so proud of yourself, aren't yo--"
"We have no time for chit chat," the Red Lady(as I have decided to call her) announces, and I nearly punch the wall in frustration. Who are these people, and why do they find everything so amusing and unimportant?
"We have business to attend to," she continues, spitting out the word business like it's a slimy worm she had in her mouth. "This business does not include answering pointless questions."
"This business," I counter, "better include me getting back in my life and you getting out of it." I rise to my feet, my voice nearly a snarl now. "And it better happen soon. . . . Or you will regret your life." Oh, great. Now I'm starting to sound like Lucy, with all her emphasized meaningless words. But in this case, I hope, my words aren't meaningless.
The Red Lady looks startled by my anger. Heh. "Oh, no. Dear. There's no going back."
"Did you just call me dear?" I've lost all thoughts of purposeful intimidation now, but I'm still angry, and to her credit she's starting to look a little scared.
"I wish I hadn't now," she mutters under her breath, and she's lost her smile. But she looks up again and flashes me a new one. "Look, we both are here. Right?"
I stare at her.
"Right?" she pushes.
I give an almost imperceptible nod. "Right," and it's almost a whisper.
"'Kay. And we're clearly both frustrated. Right?"
"Nah," I say, but give no explanation for my answer, tempted to draw this out as long as possible.
She raises her eyebrows.
"No," I say, in a louder, clearer voice, having fun with this now. "Nooo." Drawing it out. "N-o, no." Frustrating her.
I think it's working.
She rolls her eyes and sighs, and though I can tell the Red Lady is trying to look like she's above me, trying to look down on me in all my apparent foolishness, she's still annoyed. "I know. But why do you say no?"
"Because only one of us is frustrated here," I "clarify."
"Mm-hm. . . ." she says.
"What?"
"Which one?"
I consider asking what she means, but I'm quickly getting tired of these games. I'm still here and there are yet to be answers.
"Look, tell me why I'm here."
"Because we need you," she answers simply. And yet, not so simply.
I start to say something else without even knowing what that something is, but I am cut off by a held up finger.
Then she walks out, glancing up at the red headlight thingy before she leaves. I have to wonder what's so important about it.
The rest of the day is in a dreamlike haze, and I barely notice the person who comes walking through the door with a tray of sludgy food. I scoop a few spoonfuls into my mouth absently but barely have the appetite to finish the rest. I don't know, maybe this is all a dream.
The end of the day supposedly comes, marked only by a difference in the light flowing through the white walls of my hopefully temporary prison-- I have come to realize in this state of nothingness that the light does not reflect, but filters through these apparently slightly transparent walls-- and my urgent need for sleep. That need is quickly doused as I fall through a bottomless hole into the floor yet somehow still land into a pit full of green writhing snakes and now a purple monster is after me and it's the end of the day and I'm dreaming now and I still have no answers.