From China, With Love

Chapter 22 ~ Behind the Mask

CHAPTER 22 – BEHIND THE MASK

Dark. It was the only thing Cassandra could see. The pungent smell of the damp room, filled with what Cassandra thought as rat faeces made her nose scrunch up in disgust, she tried to wiggle but her fists clench as she felt a rope that binds her wrist, tied up tightly behind the old wooden chair that creaks every time she moves, the only sound that she could hear amongst the dead silence of the surrounding.

She tries her best to break free from those shackles that bind her, she twists and turns in every direction possible, but, alas, to no avail. She lets out a sigh of frustration.

"Who the fuck kidnapped me?" she mumbles under her breath, Cassandra tries to find a way to, at least, get the blindfold off, to get back at least one of her senses, to calm her growing panic, but one thing to note about Cassandra, is that she does not like to raise the white flag.

She shivers remembering what those people did to her, dragged out of the car, seeing Eduard's body filled with fresh wounds and blood, lying there almost lifeless under the wreck of the car, she remembers that she kept on yelling his name, for her peace of mind and for him to be constantly awake.

She felt a little bit of peace when halfway being kidnapped, and being drugged herself, she saw Alex and Galina help Eduard out. Cassandra smiles, with her eyelids going heavier by the second. Alex calls out to her, but she was already numb.

She shakes her head vigorously. Right, left, up, and down, in an attempt to loosen the knot on the blindfold, she raises and drops her eyebrows, while still wondering what happened to her.

"Who in their right mind would tie this tight? Are they insane?" she thought to herself, still swinging her head in the effort to get her eyesight back. She wiggles, shakes, and struggles. She tries again and again, and finally, after her numerous failed attempts, her effort bore fruit. The knot loosens.

"Yes!"Cassandra whisper-shouts, as she would not have the knowledge of who lies behind the wall, in her one final attempt, she shakes her head again, this time, with more force, and then suddenly she could see, and she does not like it. Not one bit.

Fuck.

Her eyes widen at the sight of the miserable room, she trembles in fear. It appears that Cassandra's speculation was right, she was held captive in a basement of some sort, with minimum ventilation, only one tiny hole on the wall. She definitely could not escape from it, not that she could move.

Her being held captive is not the reason why she trembles, but it was the room that she is in. The room filled with blood. The blood that envelopes almost all the crooks of the metal wall of the basement.

Cassandra looks to her right, and her breath got caught in her throat. She saw an old, weathered bed, with the springs and the wood supporting it has collapsed, making the concave in the middle, it is full of dust, and with the pattern in the basement, even the bed cannot evade the blood bath.

Cassandra tries to hold her voice in, as she realizes that the blood splatter on the bed draws vaguely, a silhouette of a young woman, who was probably held captive by the people out there, just like her. She pushes her lips together into a thin line, forcing the voice in.

Her eyes begin to water, her body shivers from the temperature of the room that just seems to drop as the minute goes, her hands and feet start to get cold, Cassandra squeezes her hands to calm her down, her nails bore into her flesh to distract her from the endless possibilities of outcomes that crosses her mind.

"Will I die here?" She says into the nothingness. She does not want her life to end like this, in a basement in the middle of nowhere. She never would have thought that her beautiful night would end up like this. Her night that was filled with the glimmers of the crystal chandelier, replaced with a dim, flickering yellow-stained bulb.