Nightmares Within Me

Night 1

I woke up and realized that I was not where I fell asleep. I was looking at the floor of a dark room, the cool metal of my chair going straight through my jeans and jacket. I watched as figures appeared on a moonlight wall in front of me. I watch as my best friend, her boyfriend, and my own boyfriend were now chained to the wall. Lillian, my best friend, and Justyn, her boyfriend was already dead. My boyfriend, Ryder, was just standing there while is arms were chained above him. His head was hung low in defeat as if he knew already that he to would die here. I began thrashing and screaming, my gaze drifting back to Lillian and Justyn and their bodies.

Justyn looked like he had put up a hell of a fight, the premortem bruises dark like he had been hanging there for at least a day. But those weren't even the worst part. The way his body hung was what threw me into shock. His elbow had been dislocated and now hung at an unnatural angle while his other arm had been removed. His legs had also been amputated and thrown to the side of the room just before the shadow. His head was neatly set on the ground below is hanging torso as a puddle of blood pooled beneath him, the blood on his body dried meaning he had been here for at least an hour.

Lillian's body was even worse. She had lacerations down the length of her body, down to the bone, and her skin was hanging from her body. Her blood hadn't clotted yet so this had all happened recently. Her face was so cut up and bloody she was almost unrecognizable had it not been for her lion's mane of hair. She hung solemnly and her head was just barely connected to her neck. Her arms and legs were a dull black and in some places gray with some sort of toxin. Her wrists had been dislocated, like someone had grabbed them and she was trying to desperately to get away that they popped out and hadn't been reset again. She was strung up and looked like a marionette puppet but there was no trace of a puppeteer. She was turned towards Justyn like she had watched the entire thing and it broke my heart because I could see the tear stains on her face still. She looked so broken and mutilated I wasn't even sure it was her despite her hair. The only other indication was the ring she wore around her neck. The one that Justyn had the sister too. Both necklaces hung around there necks and not hidden. Neither of them were fully clothed either. Lillian was in a sports bra and leggings and Justyn was in gym shorts.

For a good while, I just sat in shock looking at my best friend and her boyfriend. They were my family, my friends. They had been with me through so much shit that I couldn't believe this. This had to be a prank or a joke or something, but nothing revealed itself and my voice didn't work as I tried calling to Ryder either. I couldn't move, couldn't speak, and couldn't get him to look up either. His breathing was shallow and fast like his ribs were broken or something. He was also just wearing gym shorts, like Justyn, and hanging on the wall but was only slightly bruised like he had gotten into a fight. One eye was black and bloodshot and the other was glassy, like he was zoned out or had zoned everything around him out. Suddenly the sound of metal scraping against stone had me on high alert. He simply hung impossibly lower and his chin then touched his chest as he heard the sound too. I couldn't hear footsteps but I saw a shadow moving amongst the darkness of the stone cell I was trapped in.

Whatever was lurking in the shadows seemed content to stay there, just running its metal object along the walls, building up the terror. I looked to Ryder and what I saw shattered my already broken heart. Silent tears fell down his face at the noise and then I finally heard the first sound of life from him as he lifted his head slightly.

" Please," he rasped out, " Please, whatever or whoever you are. Let me go. I won't say anything and I'll play off my injuries as a bar fight or something. Please. I have someone I need to get back to." he tried to reason with whoever was our captor and I felt a tear roll down my face. He sounded like he had been screaming for days without stop. The fact that he could think of me at a time like this made a noiseless sob rake through my body.

The creature stopped it's scrapping and seemed to contemplate it only to resume it's scrapping a moment later, finding that more entertaining than listening to its prisoner's plea. I sat in that cold chair for what felt like hours just watching Ryder go between spells of screaming, thrashing, crying, and just hanging there. It was absolute torture as I tried yelling and screaming but to no avail. In my mind, I tried pleading with whatever was keeping us to just take me and let him go but I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew, that it did nothing but break me more. I wasn't able to move anything but my face and Ryder never seemed to want to look away from the floor the entire time. Suddenly the sound of scraping came from behind me and then I had control of my body as it began shaking and thrashing in the chair. I screamed and yelled and fought but nothing. Ryder didn't look up and the creature never took notice. It was a one-way mirror and I was stuck on the side to see and hear everything. I could no longer tell if this was to torture me or my friends.

It seemed like days had passed that I had been in that hell. My mind completely broken and my face stained with endless tears from looking at my friends and listening to Ryder scream and plea and fight the restraints. My wrists had been cut deep from fighting my own and the rope tied around my chest to keep me from moving had broken at least four of my ribs by now.