On My Own

Bed Time

Clementine waited patiently as I situated myself better on her bed. When I'd finally made the pillows bend to my will she smiled sorrowfully, making me wonder if her story wasn't sadder than what I'd heard of my own. For the first time since I'd known her- which admittedly hadn't been long at all, she looked a little broken. And maybe even lost.

Maybe that's what had drawn me close to her in the first place, I didn't know what I came from, and she looked as if she wasn't sure where to go from there.

"Okay, so as I'm sure you've probably guessed I didn't always live with the boys. I didn't know you before your accident.. Actually I came into their lives around the time that you were pushed out. When I met them they were a mess," she paused and made a face.

"I'm sorry, that's not the beginning," a slight laugh, "This is harder than I thought."

"That's okay if you don't want to tell me now we can do something else?"

She shook her head, "No I got this... okay. The beginning. I guess the beginning would be-"

Her words were sharply cut off by a loud crash downstairs. I jumped and nearly toppled off the bed, being caught only by Clementine's quick reflexes. We met each other's eyes and seemed to get the same idea.

"You stay upstairs and I'll check it out," she crawled off the bed and started towards the door.

Okay maybe we'd been thinking different things.

"How about we both go downstairs and see who broke what?"

She looked at me in confusion, as if the idea that someone had simply dropped something hadn't even occurred to her. After a moment's hesitation she nodded.

"Yeah, sure, I guess."

I smirked and got off her bed, opening the door for us both, "Like you could have stopped me anyways."

I laughed when she didn't bother hiding the fact that she was rolling her eyes at my sass. Together we walked down the hallway and when we got to the stairs, she went first. She had barely stepped halfway down the stairs when we smelled the unmistakably scent of smoke from a fire. It was too thick to have been a small stove fire, and I didn't hear any of the guys panicking.

Clementine and I exchanged glances.

"You stay here," She said, as the power went out in the house. She paused before continuing, "Sang. Stay here, I'm going to run and grab my phone so that we can call the fire department and see where we're going, okay?"

I nodded agreeing to her words, but once she was out of sight I silently ran down the stairs- something I'd never been able to do in my life until this point. But then again I don't think I'd ever tried. On the first floor of the house the smoke was thick, I could feel the heat but I wasn't completely sure where it was coming from.

Even without the power on, it was hard to see through the thick layer of smoke. I stumbled over to a window, using my shirt to filter some of the air I breathed in. My eyes stung, and I couldn't figure out how to open the blinds up so I did the only thing I could think of: I ripped them down.

"Sang?! SANG! Where are you?!?"

I turned back towards the stairs, "Clementine?"

Something, or I should say someone, came up from behind me and grabbed my arm. The touch was familiar, and unwelcome. Chills shot down my body and I felt my brain spike pain off of the sides of my skull as flashes of something blinded my eyes. Images so fast and vivid that I couldn't grasp any one of them for too long. It had only been a second, but the pain was enough to make my body shut down, pulling me under a heavy blanket of sleep to ease the pain.

My knees crumpled under my body and I heard Clementine's voice try to ask me if I was alright, tell me something was wrong, and then even her voice was gone. All that was left was darkness.

***

Sunlight streamed lazily through a set of blinds in just the right angle that it danced red spots over my eyelids. I scrunched my nose, unsure why the sun was trying to wake me up from such a deep sleep. I took a few more seconds of the light's abuse before sighing.

It was then that I was made aware of just how dry my throat was. The world must really want me to get out of bed and be productive, I thought to myself and pulled my hands towards my chest in attempt to push myself to a seated position. Only, my arms moved about four inches before coming to a stop. I pulled a little more, and felt the scratchy tendrils of an old, frayed up rope.

This coaxed my eyes open without any further assistance. I was completely still, taking a mental note of everything around me. Dark, bare wooden walls, and one window with a set of blinds that looked like they'd seen better days.

I tugged my hands again, this time a little harder. The rope pulled at my skin and pinched it uncomfortably. My eyes shut once more. Where am I?

The answer didn't come to my brian and I felt my throat start to tighten. Did I forget again?

No, my brain assured me, you still remember Kota, and Clementine, and Gabriel, and Luke.. and the fire. Was this another house of theirs? No. It couldn't be. They wouldn't tie me up like this. Would they?

I lifted my head as much as I could to try and get a better look around, but all I saw was a big belly and some cleavage. My clothes had been changed, and despite smelling like a foreign body wash I felt more dirty than I'd ever dreamed possible.

"Hello?" The word came out as a pathetic croak.

I used a little bit of spit in my mouth to moisten up my abused windpipes, "Hello?" There. That one was much louder... surely someone heard that.. But did I want them to?

What kind of person saves someone from a fire, washes them up, and ties them to a bed?

I knew what was going on, but I couldn't admit it to myself. I waited a few more seconds, willing myself to call out again but I just couldn't. The fear of someone being alerted that I had woken up was too strong. I hadn't been saved, I'd been kidnapped.

Somehow saying it in my mind made it seem less real, like this was all a dream. But as the sun in the window slowly sank, and then disappeared all together, I knew that this couldn't possibly be a dream. There had been no sounds, neither in the house nor outside of it.

I was half asleep, drained from all of the worry and possible reasons for kidnapping a pregnant woman when the first noise since waking up reached my ears. It was faint, but since it was the only thing I'd heard in hours it was deafening as well.

The tick, tock, tick of the clock felt anything but comforting. Instead of counting the time that had gone by, I felt like it was counting the time I had left.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened my mouth, no noise came out of it. I tried again, this time I was able to whisper.

"Please don't hurt me."

A few seconds later there was a tick that was different than the clock. The tick was going faster, and faster still. After ten clicks there was a pop, and then the light in the room shut off and a mechanical voice came out of no where.

"Bed time."