A VERY DARK tale (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 3

Carrying on with a silent phase of this conversation, I just gave up on my fear and started taking a better look at the men.

The two out of five had hazel eyes, and they were curiously following each of my moves. The other two blue pairs looked thoughtful even interested, and the last greenish gray had no emotions written in them. I lingered longer than necessary on them and cleared my throat nervously.

"May I please have some water?" I asked in a small voice.

"Sure," the oldest one got up from his seat and took a plastic bag from one of the guys that came back. In the bag, he fished something out and threw it across the room to me.

First of all, it came as a big surprise that water nowadays was packed into bottles. What's wrong with a good old tap? Second, I was so not expecting the bottle to be thrown at me that when it has landed on a floor with a thud and made a short roll under my chair, my eyebrows raised and silence again spread in a thick tensed cloud through the room.

Six pairs of eyes again started dancing from one another expecting some kind of outbreak to happen. From blue eyes, I shifted my gaze to hazel one, then to another pair of blue, then to greenish-gray and then returned to Hazel again. Then I shrugged my shoulders and very carefully, aware of the pain in my entire body bend and picked the bottle up.

For a minute I've been staring at the top, figuring out how to open it the correct way. Then, relying on my logic, I decided to screw the top off.

My hands, as it turned out, were weaker than I've estimated. The top hasn't budged a stir as I tried to force the cap off, and swallowing my pride I looked up seeking for help with my pleading eyes.

"I'm sorry. Do you mind helping me out?" I addressed to the first person I glanced at.

"Sorry," the oldest one said and advanced to me. "I was sure that you'd catch it." He grabbed the bottle and in one move removed the top.

I took the bottle back and pressed it to my mouth taking a small sip. The water tasted like spring water that I drank in the forest. Maybe not quite as fresh and clean, but definitely it didn't lack pleasant flavor.

I devastated the whole bottle and closed my eyes savoring the moment of tranquility. Then something cold touched my forehead. Startled I winced forcing my eyes to open and saw that it was a hand of the man who assisted me with my drink. Fatherly he examined my face and sighed deeply. It was written all over him, that he had no idea what to do with me. I couldn't blame him. I had no clue what to do with myself.

"All right..." he tsked and shook his head. "Let's feed you, then I don't know...you need medical help. I'm no doctor. Did you bring ointment and Advil, Mike," he looked at one of the guys who came back with the plastic bags.

"Yeah..." Mike scratched his head and looked at me unsurely. "Yeah," he nodded and started walking towards me.

In a moment something strange was placed into my hands. I looked up and noticed that all eyes were on me watching me intently. The thing smelled like chicken and tomatoes, but was stuffed into a long loaf of bread, and a size of it was of my mother's main courses at one of her fancy dinner nights. I sniffed the air feeling my mouth watering and hesitantly took a bite. I gave the food a nice chew and swallowed the piece.

"What is it?" I asked Mike.

"Sub," he replied quietly. "Something like sandwich just round."

"Thank you," I nodded and took another bite.

Even starved to death, I couldn't swallow more than seven bits. On the fifth one, I felt nausea rising up to my throat and not to seem rude, I've sent two more pieces down and rested my hands on my laps holding the sub carefully.