The Hallow

9

Leighton

My drowsy eyes open to the sight of a very dimly lit lavatory-like room. After opening them wider and blinking the blurriness away, I notice it is a locker room setup. The white tiled floors are wet with fresh water, and the sound of a shower running rings through my ears. I groggily turn my head to the side and notice that only one of my hands are tied against a pole, the other around a stall. It is then that I notice I am propped up in front of a mirror, and the sight of myself terrifies me.

My wrists are tender from the ropes, but that pain is nothing compared to what I feel in my ankles. The numbness soon fades, and the pain hits me all at once. My abdomen has been slit and stitched lazily, blood trickling from the wound each time I try to sit up.

"What did you do to me?" I scream, but all I hear back is the echo of my own voice. The running shower water suddenly comes to a stop, then starts again. I breathe heavily as I force myself to look in the mirror again, and cringe at the sight.

My mouth has been painted in dark red to make it look like the corners had been torn; much like the Joker. The paint is an abnormal red, but the look is terrifying enough. My eyes have been turned from their original color of light green to an even lighter shade of yellow.

Banging on the wall from the other side of the mirror causes me to flinch and scream at the shock of pain from my abdomen and ankles. I yank at the chains holding my wrists, somehow hoping that with enough force, they will come undone.

The sound of a shower curtain being pulled back forces tears out of my newly faked eyes, and my vision becomes blurry once again. I hear the sound of bare feet slapping against the tile floor inching closer and closer to where my limp and nearly lifeless body lies.

A pair of feet with long toenails and hairy ankles appear in my sight, and I force myself to look up. My eyes rake the body standing before me, fear consuming every inch of my being the more I take in. When I finally reach the face, my body forces a violent regurgitation.

"Come on, I just mopped the floor." a heavy German accent speaks.

I cannot force my eyes up as I once had. Because of that, the rather tall man squats down in front of me and pulls at my chin to face him. His eyes are sunken in and there are holes in his cheeks.

"What did you do to me?" I ask, pausing after each word.

When the man smiles I begin to shake. All of his top teeth are sharpened, and perfectly straight.

"Ich gemacht Sie kraftvoll." The man's thick accent speaks. I have never learned German, but his words made sense to me. I understood them.

When I did not answer for a long period of time, the man grew angry. His face turned somewhat normal, and his eyes narrowed at me.

"Speak!" he screamed, his voice echoing the damp locker room.

"Es tut mir Leid." I reply fluently, causing the man to smile.

"Gut." the man nods and stands to his full height.

"How am I doing this?" I ask in normal English. The man's large feet slapping against the wet floor makes me cringe.

"Don't worry about it," he replies. "you will love what is happening to you."

I peer up at the ugly man angrily. "Where are the others?" I ask sternly.

The man leans against a stall with his arms crossed over his bare, tattooed chest. He lets out a fake sigh, then crosses one foot over the other.

"Your friends are being taken care of. Well, the rest of them. You already know what happened to, uhm, Alex, I think that's his name, yes."

"You bas—"

"Excuse me?" the man quickly appears at my feet again. "Were you going to call me a bastard by chance?"

"Don't talk about Alex."

"Ah," the man stands again, nodding his head. "you're emotional about that still. I get it. But maybe Jace, for a change?"

I stay silent, breathing heavily to keep myself from doing or saying something stupid. My stitches begin to hurt again, and eventually I let out a deep, loud scream. The man only laughs, then disappears into the shower room once again.

"Let me go!" I yell. My feet drag across the water on the floor under me as I squirm around desperately. The sound makes me cringe even more along with the dripping of a faucet.

"Lass mich gehen!" I scream again. The little sounds surrounding me are driving me insane, and I don't know how much more of it I can take. I continue to scream and scream until my arms suddenly come loose. I freeze and look around, noticing that all of the noises turn to silence. The thin puddle of water surrounding covering the floor quickly drains until it is completely dry, and I look up into the mirror.

My tender wrists ache and the pain from the stitches on my stomach twists inside of me, but all of this is ignored the moment I take in my appearance. I suddenly look normal again.