Feeling

Chapter Six

All my life, I'd never been very scared of horror movies. I could handle gore, I could handle monsters, I could even handle awful scenes that made a lot of people gag and leave the room. I loved it all; on occasion, I even found the movies funny.

My love for the genre had not prepared me for this torture room. Weapons hung along this back wall; not only traditional weapons like guns and knives, but duct tape, plastic sheeting, common household tools, blow torches, jumper cables, even a series of metal stakes that grew increasingly larger in circumference. I shuddered to think of what they could possibly use those for.

The lighting was dim, only a singular bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. It shone down on a person seated in the center of the room. They were slumped over, a dark pillowcase encompassing their head and preventing them from seeing anything. A set of ropes confined them to their chair, similarly tied to how mine were earlier.

Now that I was seeing how I could have been treated, I was feeling a lot better about the fact that I had somehow ended up on the Memento Moris good side. This person, though...

"Bella..." I whispered, grasping the girl's arm. "Bella, I really don't like this." She immediately shushed me, but the person in the chair sat up straighter, their clothed head poking towards us.

"Who's there?" asked the person. From the voice, it was clearly a man. Bella and Nate froze, trying their hardest to remain silent and keep our presence unknown.

It didn't work.

"I know that someone's there, I...I heard your voice. Come out and face me like a man." A slight waver. He was trying to be brave, but this definitely wasn't how he'd expected his day to go.

Bella walked over to the man as Nate steered me so we were standing at the back of the room, away from the man's face. She yanked the pillowcase off of his head, revealing a head of overgrown brown hair. "Hello there, friend," said Bella, smiling as she let the pillowcase slip through her fingers and fall to the floor.

"Well, you're definitely not a man," said the man in the chair. "But you are facing me. Who are you?"

"Bella. It's exhilarating to finally meet you," she said, getting a chair from the side of the room. She set it down in front of him backwards, straddling the chair and using the back of it as a chin rest. "Can I get you anything? Water? A snack? I know you've been waiting here a while and it can get very difficult for some people."

"Listen, I just want to know where I am, beauty queen. You get me?" he asked. Bella smiled warmly at him.

"Well, you're actually in a location that I'm not allowed to disclose. So while I'd love to give you that peace of mind, I'm really not supposed to--"

"Listen, Miss America, as much as I love being tied up by someone who's missing out on a proper business venture by not running a side business as a professional dominatrix, I'm really not feeling this whole game. So why don't you either tell me where I am or let me go free. I swear, I'm not a person you want to have on your bad side."

Bella's eyes, which had narrowed in annoyance as the man had been talking, now filled with a sort of humor at his words. I could still practically feel her anger from across the room, but now it was like she was marveling at his stupidity. I didn't blame her; I was, too. Slowly, I started strafing around the edge of the room so I could better observe what was going to happen to this man who clearly had no idea what he was getting himself into.

"I apologize for the confusion here," she said, rising slowly out of her chair. Her fluid motions reminded me of the lionesses I'd seen at the zoo when I was a child; she managed to ooze equal amounts of beauty, grace, and dangerousness without any effort at all. "See, you've completely misread the situation by mistaking me for someone who cares for your well-being. The reality is that's simply not the case. I was being courteous offering you something and you've rejected that courteousness. It doesn't seem very fair that respect only goes one way here, does it?"