Emerge from Isolation (Whumptober 2019)

Delirium

Ean’s side closest to the heater got too hot while the other side of him remained cold. With his hands locked above his head, it was awkward shifting around so that his ass was facing the heater to warm it up. His skin tingled as the heat hit him.

Someone let out a howl like they had just witnessed the most horrifying demon charging toward them. Then there were heavy footsteps and creaking as someone walked across the floor, and the wailing grew louder and louder as they came near the trap door.

The trap door opened with a slam. Baseball Cap and some other man with a knitted hat shoved over dark hair came in lugging a man who was shrieking and thrashing about. They were red in the face as they struggled to keep a firm hold of him.

“Let go of me!” the thrashing man screamed. “Demons! Demons are everywhere! Let go of me!”

They dropped the man in the corner of the small basement. They had bound his arms and legs with rope, so his only option was to squirm his way to the corner of the room. He shook and screamed at invisible monsters.

“Jesus, what the hell did they give this guy?” Knit Cap asked.

He examined the red whelps on his hands that the deranged man must have left on him before they tied him up.

“Something new they’re trying out, I guess,” Baseball Cap said, and he turned to Ean. “Be lucky we didn’t give that stuff to you. You wouldn’t be down here alive.”

Ean only shrugged his shoulders.

With the cluck of his tongue, Knit Cap turned and went back upstairs, and Baseball Cap was right behind him. The trap made a loud band as they closed it, and Deranged let out a startle wail.

Ean turned to him. He wore clothes, and most travelers had learned to keep wires on themselves to help them in situations such as this because it was becoming a common occurrence. Shoelaces were often overlooked in a body search, so he scooted as close to the new person to begin his search there.

The guy let out a startled gasp, and he stared at Ean through wide eyes.

“Hey, let’s calm down,” Ean said. “I just want to get both of us out of here.”

“Don’t eat me! Don’t eat me! Don’t eat me! Don’t eat me!”

Ean wondered if telling this guy he had no interest in eating him would get him to calm down at all.

Probably not.

“They’ll eat me, too, man, so we need to work together to make sure we don’t get eaten, okay? Will you let me help you?”

“No, no, no, no, no!”

“You got something in your shoes that’ll help me, huh? Mind coming closer?”

“No, you’ll eat me! Don’t come anywhere near me! Please stay away!”

Ean sighed. He scooted himself as close to the man as he could, and he hooked a foot in the ropes binding the man’s feet. The man screamed, and Ean ignored him as he pulled him closer to himself, finding it easy to keep control while the man tried his best to wiggle away.

“Let me go! Let me go!”

“Just trying to speed things along. You’ll be fine.”

“Help! Help! He wants to eat me!”

Ean watched the trap door for a moment just in case someone barged into the room and silence the screams, but he could hear nothing over the man’s wailing.

Ean locked his legs around Deranged’s legs, and he took a proper look at the man’s shoes. He noticed a small wire looped around the man’s shoelaces, and he made a mental note to thank this man as soon as the two of them were free.

Ean’s legs shook as he pulled the man closer and lifted his shoes closer to his hands, and the man’s wiggling intensified. He wailed and wailed more and more, and he kicked his feet to the best of his ability. The tips of his fingers brushed against the wire, and he pulled with his legs harder.

Ean heard a loud bang just as he grabbed the wire, but he made sure the wire was off the man’s shoe before he dropped his legs, letting the deranged man wiggle back to his corner. Then he stuck the wire in his mouth just before he saw feet descending the steps, and he pressed the wire to the underside of his tongue.

“No, no, no!” Deranged screamed. “No, please, don’t eat me!”

The Knit Cap man came down, and he scowled at the two of them.

“Shut the hell up!” he said.

Deranged squeaked in terror, but once he could huddle in his corner again, he was less screechy.

“We should just kill him,” Knit Cap said as he went back upstairs. “Fuck the ransom.”

The trap door closed with a bang, and they left Ean alone with the strange man and the helpful wire that he had stolen from the man. He pulled the wire out of his mouth, and he went to work on picking the locks on the handcuffs. It was not as stiff as he would have liked, but it was better than nothing.