Chapter 1

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All credit goes to Valentinesdaygreen a great deviantart wrighter.  

{Reader's POV}

            When I went to the basement, I didn't know what I was expecting to find, or even what I was looking for. As I descended the stairs I couldn't help noticing that the lights were already on their dimmest setting, giving the room's contents an eerie glow. Horror movie posters and weapons lined the walls, with action figures, replica masks, life-size standees of horror icons and other horror-oriented merchandise lining the floor and tables. Glancing around as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, my heart came to an abrupt stop.



            Leaning against the far wall was a figure clad in black, barely visible in the darkness save for a navy blue mask and tufts of brown hair sticking out of a hood. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed its arms were suspended above its head and shackled to the wall with metal cuffs, and the hands stuffed into some weird mittens that looked like steel balls. For a moment I felt too numb to think. Please, please be a prop, I silently pleaded. Please don't be real, please please don't be a real person...



            As if hearing my thoughts, the mask shifted and raised, the black eyes with dripping black paint seeming to meet mine.



            My stomach sank upon seeing the movement, and I felt like I was about to throw up. No. No no no no no. Buddy was keeping a person down here. He had a person chained up in the basement. How long had he been here? I was eating dinner right above here while a person was locked in the basement, sleeping in my warm cozy bed while he was forced to sit here with his hands freezing inside steel fetish mittens. That mask... It looked like something out of a horror movie. Had Buddy forced him to wear it this entire time?



            Somehow I managed to swallow back the bile and opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I didn't know what to say, what to do. No, I did know what to do. I staggered across the room, and knelt in front of him. Pain shot through my side again, but I gritted my teeth and resisted the need to cry out as I clutched the wound. "Are... are you okay?" I managed to ask, my speech halting and slow as I tried to keep the pain from showing in my tone. Right now, that was the last thing he needed. After a moment he gave a single nod, filling me with relief. "G-good... My name is [Name]... H-here, let me help you get this off..."



            I reached for the mask to remove it, but he recoiled and shook his head violently, catching me off-guard. "You... Don't you want it off?" There was a pause, and then he shook his head. I took that as a no. This puzzled me, but I wasn't really in the mood or mindset to ask questions. There was still too much to process. My beloved uncle figure had just tried to kill me and now I found out he was a kidnapper. Everything felt like a horrible nightmare, but the pain in my side was a constant reminder that this was all too real.



{Jack's POV}

            When Jack saw the unfamiliar girl, he found himself catching his breath. Even in the dim lighting, he was able to clearly see her [h/l] [h/c] hair was messy, her [e/c] eyes wide and almost seeming to glow against her face. Everything about her was disheveled and messy, but at that particular moment she seemed to glow like an angel. After a few moments of staring he realized the red splotches on her shirt and pants weren't part of a design, but were blood. Seeing it made his mouth water even more, hunger quickly rearing its ugly head, but he fought back his desire to attack. He wasn't exactly in a position to do anything anyway, and at the moment she was his only hope for freedom, the first ray of hope in weeks, maybe even months.



            She approached and knelt before him, her face visibly distorting in pain. Up close he noticed there was a large tear in her shirt through which he could glimpse a large bleeding cut, which didn't help his hunger pangs. Was all of that blood hers? He hoped not, she couldn't pass out on him now or they'd both probably die. Obviously fighting off the pain, the girl asked about his well-being. Her voice was musical compared to that man's raspy voice. That man... Where was he? Was he upstairs? He'd worry about that later. For now, Jack needed to focus on escaping. He didn't dare speak, not wanting his... inhuman nature to slip out. It had been a while since he last spoke, and his hunger didn't make him very trusting of his ability to speak "normally".



            For that same reason, he recoiled when she tried to remove his mask. If she saw his face...! He needed her to free him first. The girl seemed a bit taken aback by it, but she accepted it without question and began inspecting the cuffs. "Do you know where he keeps the keys for these things?" she asked, her voice still slow and halting. Hmm... That cut in her side must really hurt. Reflexively he tried to move his hands to point, but obviously that wouldn't work, so instead he nodded his head towards a desk behind her, hoping she'd get the message. She turned to look and asked, "Do you mean the desk? Like, one of the drawers?"



            Relieved she'd figured it out he nodded, and she staggered to her feet and slowly made her way towards it. Sorting through the drawers for what seemed to be forever, she finally returned with two keys. If he had eyes they would have lit up at the sight of the small, metal objects. Freedom was finally in his sight (no pun intended).



{Reader's POV}

            Keys in hand, I reached for the padlock on the shackles and tried to open it. Panic overcame me momentarily when the key didn't fit, trying to jab the lock desperately, until finally a simple realization hit me: this lock went with the other key. Dropping the first key, I picked up the second one and it slid in perfectly. Click. The first shackle opened and his arm fell to his side limply, soon followed by the other one. Clearly they'd been suspended for quite some time, he didn't seem to have any strength.



            "Almost done," I told him, giving him a shaky smile. The pain in my side seemed to be getting worse, but I needed to stay strong, or at least look like it. I couldn't show any weakness, he had enough to worry about as was. I lifted one of his hands by the wrist, my hand shaking the entire time, and used the first key to undo the padlock. Click. The ball had a hinge at the top, apparently meant to be open in a way that made it split it in half, and I steadied my hands long enough to do just that. Lifting it off of his hand, suddenly my body went tense and the mitten fell from my hand, landing on the ground with a clatter.



            His hand was gray, a color unnatural for humans. His fingernails, meanwhile, weren't just nails—they were more like claws, sharp enough to shred something. I stared at them with wide eyes, unsure what to make of it.



            "What...?" I sputtered, but then suddenly he lunged at me, knocking me onto my back and pinning me to the ground. His one free hand wrapped around my neck, squeezing tight. I was so shocked I didn't even try to fight back, I just stared up at that navy blue mask.What the...? At that moment, everything seemed to crash around me. All of the insanity of the night came to a head in my mind, and I just... I just couldn't take it anymore. Eyes fluttering, my vision blurred and I blacked out.  



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