Chapter Twenty-Eight

The man who called himself Russell sat quietly at the corner of the room. His left leg was crossed over his right one and his hands were resting gently against his thigh, fingers interlaced, thumbs touching at their tips. His beard was gone. Shaved clean to show a squared and strong jawline. His dark brown eyes seemed full of mystery and anguish. He'd been sitting in that same exact position for several minutes… his breathing controlled… his gaze locked onto Jennifer, who was lying on the floor in a fetus position, just a few feet in front of him.

It had been around twelve hours since the cocktail of sedatives that he had poured into her coffee while she had gone into the bathroom had taken effect, and Jennifer still hadn't come to yet. But the man wasn't worried. In fact, he'd been expecting it. According to his calculations, the dosage that he had used would be wearing off at any minute now. That was why he was sitting in the room with her. He wanted to be there when Jennifer woke up, just like he had been there when all of them had woken up.

The man casually checked his watch before his eyes returned to his subject on the floor. He liked observing them. He liked watching as their chests rose and fell at odd rhythms and at different intensities. He liked watching their erratic breathing go from deep, to shallow, to almost no breathing at all, before repeating the whole cycle in its own randomized way. He liked watching their rapid eye movement pick up speed behind their heavy eyelids for almost a minute, only to slow down to total stillness in the space of a second. All of those symptoms – the odd chest movement, the erratic breathing, the crazy REM – they were all side effects of the drugs combo he had used.

He scratched the underside of his chin and, right at that moment, Jennifer jerked on the floor, as if she'd been kicked hard in her stomach.

The man had seen that before as well. His cocktail of sedatives were known to trigger a barrage of bad dreams. Nightmares so real that the subjects would sometimes jump, shake, twist, turn and scream in their sleep, but no matter how terrifying a nightmare they were having right then, it would all be a dream of angels when compared to what they would endure once they'd woken up.

On the floor, Jennifer jerked again, but this time the jerk came accompanied by a couple of short moans. Not the type associated with pleasure and the release of oxytocin. No, these were a sign of distress and an indication that Jennifer was about to regain consciousness.

The man calmly waited.

Jennifer jerked yet again – three times in rapid succession, as if three quick surges of electricity had just passed through her body. Each one followed by a new moan, gaining intensity as they progressed.

Here it comes,the man thought. The Neo Burst.

The ‘Neo Burst' was what he had come to call the explosive waking-up process that all of his subjects inevitably went through. It reminded him of how Neo, in the film The Matrix, woke up in his pod after taking the red pill – just an explosive burst out of the dream world, back into the real one.

The man uncrossed his legs, leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. His hands were still together… his fingers still interlaced. His eyes settled back onto Jennifer's face. Despite everything that she had gone through in her life, she had somehow managed to keep at least some of her attractiveness from her younger days.

‘What a waste,' Russell said under his breath.

Jennifer's rapid eye movement came back, but it was now somewhat different – a little slower perhaps – with her head moving from left to right in snatches.

The ‘Neo Burst' was mere seconds away.

Russell didn't move an inch. He simply observed.

Three…

Two…

One…

‘Argh!'

Jennifer jolted awake with a gasp for air so desperate it sounded like a horror scream.

Russell said nothing.

As she finally broke free from her deep, twelve-hour-long sleep, Jennifer's lungs gulped oxygen as if they could drink it… as if she'd been submerged in water until a millisecond away from drowning.

They all had reacted in a very similar way when they woke up – seemingly starving of oxygen. Russell began to wonder if, for some reason, they all had similar dreams as the drugs were just wearing off.

He had also dimmed the lights in the room they were in down to a comfortable level. He might've not known if his drugs induced his subjects to have the same dream, but he certainly knew that they would have caused Jennifer's pupils to dilate to about double their normal size. That effect would only wear off a few minutes after a subject had woken up. Not that he wanted her to be comfortable. Far from it, actually, but he already had quite a lot in store for Jennifer and, in all honesty, the dimming of the lights wasn't exactly for her benefit.

Russell watched as Jennifer's eyes blinked awake, but he could easily tell that her eyelids still felt heavy, as if they were telling her that they weren't done with sleep just yet. Still, Jennifer somehow found the strength to force them open.

She's a fighter,he thought. No doubt about that.

Another drug side effect that Russell knew for sure that Jennifer would experience was the brain numbing, leading to a slow understanding of what had happened to her.

First – the typical wooziness of waking up from a long slumber that had been chemically induced. For the first several seconds, maybe even minutes, nothing would make sense.

Second – she would notice that the air that she was so desperately gulping in felt musty and clammy, a clear indication that she was probably locked in a cramped room with bad ventilation.

Third – muscle and joint pains coming from just about everywhere, the consequence of spending so many hours asleep in a bad position on a hard floor.

And fourth – and this was where it all started to become fun for Russell – since her vision would still be blurred from her pupils' dilation, Jennifer would probably use her hands to feel around, her dizzy brain dying to understand what was happening. And she only needed to stretch out her arms in any direction for the first big surprise.

Russell waited.

‘Where the fuck am I?' Jennifer whispered in a raspy voice that didn't sound like her own. ‘What the hell is going on?'

No reply from Russell. He was waiting for her pupils to return to normal so her eyes could focus. Images would be more shocking than sounds.

Despite not being able to see much, Jennifer placed both of her palms against the floor and, with a painful-sounding moan, pushed herself into a sitting position. The effort, even though it was done slowly, nauseated Jennifer, causing her to dry-heave.

She immediately placed her left hand against her mouth, but not fast enough to stop a drop of bile from spitting off her lips.

‘Argh… God!'

Russell watched as Jennifer tried to gather herself together, fighting the awful bitter-acidic taste he knew would have taken over her taste buds.

As he had predicted, Jennifer slowly extended her right arm out to her side, tentatively searching for something… anything that could help her identify where she was.

Russell sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. He couldn't wait to see Jennifer's reaction.

Just a little further,he thought, mentally urging her to carry on.

As Jennifer fully extended her right arm out, her fingertips finally reached something.

Russell held steady.

‘What the…?' Jennifer paused, her eyes squinting at what she had touched, trying hard to focus. She opened her hand and allowed her fingers to wrap around something solid… something metal.

There was a second of hesitation before her left arm reached out to meet her right one. The fingers on her left hand wrapped around something identical to what she was already holding on to – two parallel metal bars.

‘No!' The word came with an exasperated breath. Jennifer squinted again, but this time not so hard. Her vision was coming back to normal.

Devastating realization followed.

Russell waited, but he didn't have to wait long – half a second perhaps – until the expression on Jennifer's face changed from the stupor of confusion to utter desperation, her pleading eyes already filling up with tears. Still Jennifer hadn't noticed that she wasn't alone in that room.

‘What the fuck is happening here?' she asked in a voice strangled with emotions, as she shook the bars with all the strength that she had in her, which wasn't much.

Solid steel.

Jennifer looked up and Russell watched as the desperation that had cloaked her until then turned into core-shaking fear. The reason for that was because Jennifer saw more metal bars just above her head – two feet above her head. But Jennifer was sitting down, not standing up. That meant that Jennifer wasn't back in a cell, like she had clearly thought she was. She was locked inside something much worse. She was locked inside a cage – an animal cage.

Her body twisted left. Her left arm followed, reaching across to the other side. More solid metal bars.

For a couple of seconds Jennifer sat still, her arms stretched out in a crucified position, her fingers wrapped around metal bars to her left and right.

‘No…' she whispered, clearly holding back tears. ‘This can't be.' She once again tried shaking them.

Nothing… not even a squeak.

‘No…' Her voice was starting to regain its strength. With each cry out she would yank at her cage, her body shaking with anger. ‘No… no… nooooooooo.'

‘I can see you're awake.' Russell finally broke his silence, his tone calm and controlled.

Jennifer's head immediately snapped up, her gaze moving to the dark corner directly in front of her, where Russell's voice had come from. Her breathing was shallow, and tears had run down her cheeks like thick raindrops. The look on her face was desperate… confused. It took her eyes a second or two to refocus and her brain a few more to identify the outline of a face, the contour of the nose, the shape of the eyes.

‘Who… who are you?' Her tone was desperate and full of fear.

‘You don't recognize me?' Russell asked.

Jennifer squinted and frowned at a face that triggered no memories at all.

Russell smiled, but there wasn't the slightest hint of human sympathy in it.

All of a sudden, Jennifer paused, her neck slowly craning forward. Not only had her pupils gone back to normal, but she was also getting used to the dim lighting in the room.

A new smile from Russell. He knew exactly what Jennifer was looking at… and it wasn't at him.

‘Watch this,' he said, the smile never fading.

‘Oh my God!' Jennifer felt fear envelop her like a suffocating blanket. Something pirouetted inside her stomach before rushing up through her throat and into her mouth.

This time, it wasn't just bile.