CHAPTER 0 – PART II

When I finally wake up again, my head hurts a lot less, but there's still a dull ache. Like a crown of tension compressing every part of my skull at once. At least it's only a little, now. The sickness is still there too, but it's not dizzying any more, just alot of stomach acid with nothing to do.

"Man, am I hungry."

I rub my eyes. I rub my face a little too to try and massage the last of the tiredness and nausea away. I blink groggily into the darkne... wait! It's not that dark. THERE'S LIGHT OUTSIDE!

I sit up as quick and as cautiously as I can, flicking up the corner of the curtain as I go. Light! A little higher. More light! My eyes start to hurt a bit from the brightness. Used to the dark, fresh from sleep, and maybe some left over sensitivity from whatever knocked me out, they take a while to adjust. I steal peaks out the little gap I've made above my head. Blinking slowly up at a beaming summer sky. The building is warmer, but I still feel a little cold. Definitely hungry. I wonder when I'll be fed?

The realisation of that last thoughts cuts right through my excitement at not being in pain and the warmth of the daylight touching my face and fingers. I let my arm go limp and my body slumps into the bed. The weight of sadness flooding over me again.

After lying numb for what feels like both hours and milliseconds, hunger growls and bites at my stomach. I listen with little commitment for a guard in the hallway, or the sounds of someone cooking in another room, or anything really. Silence.

Still an emotional void, I let my legs slide from under the covers. Socked feet press heavily upon the bare floor, and I semi-cautiously sit up on the side of the bed. And still, there is silence.

I stand.

Nothing.

I step.

Nothing.

I search out creaky floorboards with my toe and avoid them until I'm at the door.

And still, nothing.

I lightly place the side of my head against the door. The cold hard wood is soothing and I let myself enjoy it just a little while trying to concentrate on the rest of the building beyond. I tap lightly on the door and clear my throat, but can't muster any words for potential kidnappers nearby. No response.

"Err... Excuse me?" is all I can force out, quiet and croaky, and after a while longer, "Hello?"

The soundless structure continues to offer no reply. Emboldened by my hunger and rising curiosity, I try the door handle as gently as I dare. It gives. The mechanism clicks like an explosive booby trap in a film. It chills me to the bone and I stiffen in place. I remain in my paralysis for a few long draining moments until the muscles in my arm begin to tense up. I take a quick deep breath and slowly pull the door towards me.

Again...

...nothing.

Another door faces me. It's dark form, illuminated by the small amount of indirect light coming in from behind me, framed in contrast to the pale walls around it. To either side a narrow corridor stretches out, shadowy and still. There are no windows, just closed doors, empty walls, and depthless black at each end.

"Hello?"

I take one step into the hall.

A little louder, "HELLO?"

Another step so that I am completely out of my room, hand on the door frame for moral support. An anchor to the known. I look up and down the what now appears to be a relatively short hallway, my eyes having adjusted to the pitch of the enclosed space.

A door at each end, two doors on each wall. I reach a hand out to the door opposite, let go of the frame behind me, and give the handle a slow turn. It clicks with ease and I push the door open with the delicacy of handling tissue paper or crystal. It's a small storage room with ladders going up into an attic space.

There's a tiny window letting in a pathetic amount of light, but it shows that the room is neat and tidy, just a little dusty. Not enough to hurt my eyes, so I'm thankful for that. No one has been here for a while. The built-in shelves are mostly empty except for spare bedding. It has that musty smell of an old linen closet... well, I guess that's what it is, so makes sense. But, isn't this more like what you'd find at your Grandma's house, not some kidnappers hideaway?

"Huh?"

I close the door behind me and check the one in-between, at the near end of the hall. It opens centrally onto a big room, with almost panoramic windows on the three external walls, all curtained like mine. Slivers of light have managed to slide in through a couple of gaps around the edges, but it's mostly a void. I don't feel comfortable putting myself in such a large open space, so I lock it away again and check the other three doors. Another western style single room right next to mine, a giant empty expanse at the other end, and a small landing with more storage and stairs going down make up the other three rooms. It's like someone just mirrored the side of the house I'd already seen except for the direction of the stairwell.

I think of calling down the stairs, but am still a little too ill at ease. I retreat back to my room for a minute to collect myself. "Hmm..."

I decide to open the curtains.

At first, I pull them apart just a crack, but have to avert my eyes, so sit on the bed to give them as long as they need to get used to the light, then sliding one curtain all the way, waiting again for a bit on the bed before, eventually, fully opening the other too. Once I am finally adjusted to a room full of sunshine, with only the slightest bit of additional tension in my head, I find myself staring out into the canopy of a forest. It's a good few meters away from the window, but very dense. The summer sun blazing down from its clear blue sky like none of this is out of the ordinary. There's a manicured lawn below that seems to wrap around the whole house. Head height white washed walls keep back the encircling trees beyond. Is this someone's private estate?

Have I already been sold to some old pervert? I freeze for a moment, but the thought is so absurd I actually expel a short laugh. It's relieving. After being scared and in pain for hours, it's nice to have a brief moment of, well, comfort. I mean, if someone was here, they'd have heard me moving about by now anyway, right?

I determine it's best to not make it too obvious that someone is in the house, just in case, so I opt to not open any more curtains, for now. I let the light into my room, leaving the door open, and bask in my new found relief. Realising that my window only has a simple latch keeping it closed, I give it a pull. It sticks for a moment, then gives, sliding open on chunky wooden frames. The breeze it lets in is warming, and cooling, and refreshing, and comforting, all at once. Even the thought of this being a kidnapping starts to flutter away on it.

Did my parents rent a holiday villa rather than a hotel? We haven't been away since I started middle school, so if they really saved for this over a few years, it could actually be possible. Where are they then? Maybe they took a room on the ground floor, or there could be a master suite in the attic? They might have just had one of the big rooms on this floor and have already gone out for a walk, it is nice outside.

Rather than staying in my room, or messing about with the others up here, I venture onto the landing with the stairs going down.

"Hello?"

I make it down to the half landing, big step, turn in the stairwell, thing...

"Mom?"

My foot plops onto the ground floor with a light fearless thud...

"Dad?"

Not...

A...

Sound.

My gulp of hesitation is cartoonishly audible. I snicker at how childish I'm being. They've totally left me to sleep off the long trip and my travel meds while they go be embarrassing with each other in front of the locals.

"Maaaaaaaan~"

I sigh with ever increasing relief. Stretching and scratching and slouching my way from room to room in an overcompensating attempt to make up for how self conscious I now am at all my panic the night before.

This place is super traditional. Like, all wood. Where there's not wood, there's that straw plaster stuff. Must really cost a lot to keep everything so well maintained. I'm both impressed and cringe a bit at how dorky it is for my parents to choose somewhere like this. I didn't realise they liked historical places so much. I mean, they always encouraged I go on school trips to castles and stuff, and I think we went to a couple of those living history villages when I was a kid too... I bet this was my Dad's idea. What a nerd!

I shouldn't say that... he's trying to make up for being at work all the time. He probably thinks I'm still into this kinda thing. How can I tell him it was always the costumes and swords and staged re-enactments of events and battles that I liked, not the replica buildings or restored ruins. Hell, that I haven't even been into this stuff since the middle of middle school, either!

I bumble through the rest of the rooms.

The whole back of the house is one long room, with sliding doors that let you open the walls onto the outside, and a recessed firepit at one end for sitting and eating around. The ends of the house are two smaller rooms. The one next to the stairs is a real simple kitchen. It's basically empty. There's some shelves like the ones upstairs, a single small window high up on the front wall, and a long stone bench, half the width of the house, with what looks like a built in oven at the end. At first I'd thought it was an earthenware kiln like you'd see in a pottery class or something, but then I remembered you get this old style of oven at stone baked pizza places, and with the general feel of the house, I guess they're going with historical authenticity down here, even though the upstairs felt a bit more modern.

The room on the other side of the stairs is the entryway to the house. Big and wide, with steps down to a double front door and more storage. Probably for shoes and coats and stuff. It's actually pretty grand. The last room, basically a mirror to the kitchen on the other end, is locked. Either a secure room for valuables or where the boiler and utility meters are...

Come to think of it, I haven't seen a light, switch, plug, outlet, radiator, wire, pipe, AC, or any other kind of device, anywhere!

"uuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhh..."

I stomp through to the big room, slide open the doors with a clatter, slump down on the stoop overlooking the garden, and realising that I won't have a computer for however many days we're here.

"I bet they don't even have wifi!"

WAIT!

WHERE'S THE BATHROOM?!.

I whirl around the house like a mini-tornado looking for keys to the locked room, but all I find are bare cupboards and empty draws.

"God no!"

An unsettling realisation dawns on me. I step down from the back of the house. I go along to the right first. I freeze on the corner. That better not be what I think it is!

There's a shed against the side wall.

Thankfully, there's a pathway around the edge of the house, and the areas at the sides are completely flagged with the same kind of stones. Huh, so the lawn doesn't wrap all the way around. Better than getting my socks mucky from walking on the grass at least. I can see that the front looks pebbled like an ornamental garden. There's also a well right in the middle of the paving. Guess I'll be the one getting sent out to pump wate... It doesn't even have a hand pump! It's literally a bucket on a rope and a hole in the ground. Great. This was definitely Dad's idea, I'm sure of it.

"Tch!" I click my tongue and turn back to the shed. Then that means...

I take a step forward, hold my breath, lift the wooden latch, and brace myself.

"Oh thankffffuuuugghhh~"

It's a wood shed.

There are logs, an axe, and a bunch of other ye olde gardening tools.

"At least I know how to heat the place now." I shrug with relief, but it's short lived. Still need to find the bathroom, damnit. I trot to the other side of the compound. Sure enough... there is it.

Another shed.

I open the door.

It's a latrine.

"What is wrong with you, Dad?!."

There isn't even a sink or toilet roll.

It's just a wooden hut with a bench you balance your ass over so you can poop into a giant hole in the ground.

"I hope you fall in!"

Slamming the door, I spin around and then jump slightly. Something huge and black had loomed out the corner of my eye. I kick myself for doing so just as quickly. I find what looks like a witch's cauldron over a fire pit. I tentatively wander over and inspect the oddity.

"You've got to bekidding me..."

It's an outdoor bath.

One person at a time can turn themselves into soup. How the hell do you regulate the temperature? At least emptying it is easy. You just open the spout on the side and let gravity do its thing. I guess it drains down towards the poop pit after that. How do you fill it though? "Oh!"

By my feet there's a bucket.

"I'm done."