Tommy felt himself being shaken awake. His eyes shot open immediately and he began to quiver in fear, whimpering from the pain that shot through his entire body.
He looked up to see the man standing over him, grinning profusely.
'I knew you were the one, when I saw you in the news, I- I knew it, and... and now you're here.' The man began to ramble in a raspy voice that sounded as if his throat was coated with sandpaper. 'I saw you on the television, a-and now I have you, and you're mine, and...' Tommy zoned out halfway through the blathering; the man was clearly insane, and he realised that he had been right about this linking to everything that had happened with his parents; he had quite literally been scouted off the news.
'Are you listening to me?' Tommy's thoughts were cut off as the man raised his voice angrily.
'Uh, y-yeah, I was listening.' he mumbled, shaking.
'You weren't fucking listening. Y-you were ignoring me. I h-hate being ignored.' To Tommy's shock, the man began to sob, letting out high-pitched yowls.
He lay there, frozen, not knowing what to do, terrified that he would aggravate this man and he would hurt him. As he continued to blubber, Tommy tried to gather his courage to talk to him. He had to talk his way out of this somehow, and this man seemed to be very vulnerable and perhaps prone to manipulation.
'H-hey,' Tommy started shakily. 'I-I can listen to you, we're f-friends right?' He flinched slightly when the man looked up at him.
'I don't have friends.' He stated.
Tommy tried to put on a cheery voice despite the adrenaline rushing through his veins. 'But I'm y-your friend. U-uh, what's your name?'
The man stared at him with watery, bloodshot eyes. 'Derick.'
'W-well hi Derick, uh, what do you want to t-talk about?'
Derick launched into telling Tommy stories about himself. He talked about how misunderstood he was, and that he wasn't a bad person but people always accused him of bad things.
'W-what have you been accused of?' Tommy asked nervously, trying to find out more about his captor, perhaps something he could use against him.
'Oh, just the usual. Theft, mostly. Oh, and I hurt on this little girl. They couldn't prove it, though.' He giggled a bit, and Tommy's heart clenched with terror as he realised just how dangerous and evil this man really was.
'A-and, uh what... what did you do to her?'
Derick shrugged. 'I killed her. But it doesn't make me a bad person.'
Tommy felt his lungs tightening with each sentence. This couldn't be real. He had to get away.
'I, uh... I'm t-thinking we should m-maybe go for a walk? That would be f-fun. I, uh, normally g-go to the park when I'm with friends.'
Derick's eyes flashed.
'You're... you're trying to get away, I know you are. Friends don't leave friends, Tommy, I'm g-gonna have to punish you. You're trying to escape.' Derick's voice was high-pitched and his eyes were open wide, staring directly at Tommy.
'N-no, no, please no, please don't hurt me.' Tommy instinctively tried to raise his arms to protect himself, forgetting that they were tied behind his back. Derick placed both of his hands around Tommy's throat, squeezing tightly. His facial expression was blank, his eyes emotionless. Tommy choked, thrashing on the bed, desperately trying to get even the smallest amount of air.
It was going to stop soon.
Surely it would stop?
His mind was going blurry.
His head pounded.
The last thought he could muster was: 'This is what it feels like being murdered.'
A/N: Thanks everyone for reading; we've almost hit 3k reads which is insane! Every read, vote and comment means so much so thank you all so much <3