CHAPTER TWO

My eyes flutter open, one after the other, and they are immediately assaulted by the light coming from burning lamps in all corners of the room. Just then, I realize that I am on a very big square bed in a strange dark room so I jerk myself upward, dazed and confused. I look down at my naked body with apprehension. Fear over what might have happened to get me here grips me instantly so I pull the white bed sheet around myself.

The room I am in is reminiscent of royal Victorian rooms in both size and aesthetic. It is large and its walls are designed like the set of a movie in which classical music plays constantly in the background. Directly in front of me is a painting of a large dining hall with food spread over the table but no human elements. To my left, there’s a shelf made of glass and wood that’s been painted a shade of brown so dark, it’s almost black. On top of that shelf is a strange variety of empty flower vases arranged in an equidistant manner from one another, and inside the shelf, behind the glass, what appear to be collectables of animal parts; a large horn, a large tooth, hooves, eyes. I sit up on the bed as a gasp escapes my mouth. 

“You’re awake,” a deep gravelly voice booms around the room. Immediately I hear this, my head snaps in the direction of the voice and I am face to face with him – a monster. 

He is sitting in a big chair on the right side of the room and watching me with the same intensity that he had watched me with when he saw me in that clearing right before I lost consciousness. I watch him now and take him in properly. He is at least ten feet tall and even while seated, his body and posture take so much space and command so much attention that he makes me feel like he can hold me in one hand and snap me like a twig. On his head are two black horns, curved outwards like an upside down ‘s’. His eyes are orange and the more he watches me, the more they glow. He has on blue vest-like clothing with no sleeves and no buttons so that his arms and chest are mostly exposed. His hairy chest is so muscular and so wide that for a moment, I wonder what it would feel like to rub my hands over it just so I can feel the tautness of his muscles beneath my palms. His arms are as big as tree trunks and when he makes any slight movement, I can see tiny ripples go up and down them. But the sight of him is so jarring to me that panic swells inside me and propels me off the bed. I stand in front of the shelf with the sheet wrapped around my body and face him in a boxing stance. I don’t care if I can take him, I’ll fight if I have to.

“Where am I? Let me go this instant!” I demand with all the boldness I can muster but when he stands to his feet, my resolve slightly crumbles. There is no way that I can fight this monster. If he wants to fling me across a football field, he very well can. 

“You’re not going anywhere. You’re mine now,” he says. 

I stand up straight. “What? I’m what? What are you? You need to let me go right now.”

“You’re not in a position to make demands.” His voice is as strong as his tone is definite. I instinctively begin to look around for possible escape routes. In my quick glance around the room, I see no windows which I interpret to mean that I am possibly in a basement or a cave. Either one of those is an unnerving possibility. There are two doors leading out of the room, one of them is on the right side wall, a few feet away from the chair on which he is seated so I know that it is a no-go area. The other is right next to the painting of the dining hall and is, by all indications, my only possible option.

“Don’t even think about it,” his voice snaps me out of my planning and I see that he has noticed my glancing and has figured out what I’m plotting. “You’re not going anywhere unless I tell you to.”

“I’m your prisoner.” I intend for this to be a question but it comes out flat as though it is a fact to which I am trying to get myself accustomed. “Look, I don’t know what evil plans you have with me but I promise you I will fight you with all I have I will not stop until I gain my freedom.”

An emotion flashes across his face but it is gone just as quickly as it appears so that I am unable to make any meaning of it. In its place, a wicked smirk plays at his lips and his orange eyes wear a brand new glow that would have looked fantastic on a painting but only makes him all the more menacing. He narrows his eyes at me as if considering saying something else but he does not speak. Instead, he takes a long look at me from my head to my toes, causing me to hold the sheet tighter around myself, and then he turns around and walks out of the room.

“No! You need to let me go!” I scream after him. “Let me out of here!”

He slams the door after himself so hard the walls shake and the painting tilts a little. I flinch at that and let my hands fall to my sides. This cannot be real. This has to be a nightmare. I am imagining things. I have to be hallucinating. Perhaps I fell on that mountain and hit my head on a rock. That has to be it. None of this can be real. 

I turn on my feet and head straight to the other door next to the painting. When I pull its handle and it does not budge, I am disappointed but unsurprised. I try to kick but the sheet around my body limits the movement of my leg so I throw it off myself, leaving my body completely naked, and I kick as hard I can. But for the low thump that my foot makes, there is barely any impact of my action on the door. I try again and again and again, trying as hard as I can to make every next thump louder than the previous one. Even if this won’t get me out, I am determined to let that monster know that I have a lot of fight in me. I don’t know how many times I kick exactly, but after far too many thumps that I can count, my heel begins to hurt and I fall to the floor.

I stay with my back on the floor and my two legs raised to the door. A lone tear exits my left eye and travels down my cheekbone to my ear. I cannot but chuckle dryly at the sad fact that this is the second time I am in this exact position in just two weeks; naked and crying on a bedroom floor. I close my eyes and try not to think too hard about the last time.

Barely thirty minutes after Brad had decided that our relationship could no longer work. I returned to my apartment and fetched all the things that he still had at my place; two white t-shirts, one blue t-shirt with a Jay Z line printed on it, his copy of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, a few socks, a guitar pick, a black baseball cap, a red and blue plaid shirt. I gathered all of these and put them in my bin, pushing them down until they fit, poured some oil over them and lit it match. For good measure, I took off all the clothes I was wearing because I knew my brain and I knew how it would forever associate these clothes with this day, and threw them in the growing flames. As these items burned, the tears rolled down my cheeks and I slid down my bedroom wall.

Charlotte arrived at my apartment about fifteen minutes after I started my bonfire by sheer luck. At this point, many of the items had not even burned but my bedroom was already filled with enough smoke to cause an observer to panic. The smoke and my tears had cast a fog over my sight, and I could barely see her when she walked in until she started to scream.

“Cathy! Cathy! Are you alright?”

I remember crying and shaking as she fetched the fire extinguisher from my kitchen, put out the fire, lifted me off the ground and led me out of the room to my living room. There, I broke down even more and she let me cry in her arms as she gently drew circles on my back.

Two days after that, as she pushed a plate of spaghetti towards me and gave me a stare that said she would not take no for an answer, she apologized for Brad. “I feel responsible for bringing him into your life,” she said. I told her immediately that I did not blame her in any way even though I did meet Brad because of her – four years ago on her 22nd birthday. 

Just as another tear makes a trail down my cheek, my attention focuses on the painting on the wall. I get up immediately and walk towards it. While I am not the biggest art aficionado around, I am still capable of recognizing when a piece is good. I am especially skilled at guessing the worth of a painting, so I realize for the first time since I woke up in this room why I just could not take my eyes off it. It looks really expensive and really old. Like the kind of painting that would mean the world to whoever had it. 

My brief epiphany is cut short when the door on the left side swings open and the monster trudges in. His eyes immediately dart over my body and I instinctively cover my breasts with my right arm. I look around for the sheet that used to be around my body but find it at the foot of the giant. I must have thrown it that far in my agitation.

“Are you ready to behave?” he asks. Even though his words, tone and behaviour are extremely upsetting, I find myself admiring the velvety feel of his voice still. It has the kind of deepness a person would want to fall asleep listening to. 

I don’t allow myself to spend too long swooning though. Before he can figure out what I’m about to do, I dart to my right and reach for one of the burning lamps. Once it is in my hand, I smash the glass covering the flame against the wall so that it is exposed and turn back to face the monster. 

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

The power of his voice and the way his eyes suddenly turn a dark shade of red threaten to make me fall to the ground and be helpless again. But I only flinch for a second and gather myself. I am not weak so I will at least fight.

I open my mouth and speak as slowly as I can, emphasizing every word so that he knows I mean business. “Let me go or your painting goes up in flames.”