Dents

[+] Every Planet We Reach Is Dead

((The following chapter contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised.))

"Dreams are bad, our heads are mad -
I love the girl,
But God only knows it's getting hard
To see the sun coming through..."

Blood pulsed behind my eyelids. I listened for a sign of where I was, searching for some reassurance that I was still alive. Distantly, a raspy whisper cried in symphony with plastic wheels grating against concrete.

I was barefoot. The atmosphere was chilly.

I could sense I was far from Beirut. I had wound up someplace else entirely, perhaps. Yesterday felt like a foreign daydream, a faraway memory of safety that was no longer within reach.

I tried to open my eyes. Only vague outlines of my surroundings were perceptible from beneath the blindfold.

I was bound to a rolling office chair with my wrists and ankles wrapped generously in duct tape. Even though it was cold in the dingy cellar air, a nervous sweat formed underneath my bonds and along my hairline. My breaths hopelessly tried to escape through a folded cloth secured in my mouth by layers of tape wrapped around my head. The sticky glue residue was embedded deep in the strands of my hair.

I'd been kidnapped before, and still, I found this to be quite excessive.

My casual minded manner dissipated quickly when full awareness returned. If I were the only one at risk, none of this would matter.

But I was not.

I struggled against my bonds. My desperate cries were muffled beyond recognition.

"I love you...
But what are we going to do?"

2D's voice was frail and quiet from the other side of the wall. He choked out a tune to a rhythm only he could hear. The weakness in his intonation spread with each note as he fell in and out of key.

I screamed his name. The itchy fibers of the blindfold scraped against my corneas.

There was a scratching noise followed by a heavy-handed crack.

"Would you shut the 'ell up already?"

My heart sunk to my gut. That familiar voice, like flayed vocal chords over a cheese grater, jumpstarted my adrenaline.

That was when he entered the room.

The stench of booze and anger clung to him. His labored breathing grated on my eardrums. The odor radiating from him made me queasy.

His oily thumb traced along my left cheek. I flinched away. His fingertips were as coarse as his tone.

"Why 'ello there," he snickered, "Been a while since I seen you now, hasn't it?"

I bit and spat fiercely at the rag down my throat to no avail.

"Well since you ain't one to talk, guess I'll just carry on then, yeah?"

I grunted in defiance.

"Riiight," he droned, "So 'ere's what's gonna happen."

He untied the blindfold. My anger swelled into unbridled rage. Murdoc stood before me with a smug look on his face. His eyes lingered on me for an uncomfortably long time. His gawking was akin to a predator hungry enough to eat me alive.

"You 'n faceache are gonna finish my album. I can assure you, you'll be paid marvelously once we've finished," his tongue ran along his chapped olive lips, "And then I'll let you go."