Abducted And Tortured

CHAPTER 1: ABDUCTED AND TORTURED

Sam’s POV

The rain hammered against the cracked window of my dorm room like a ticking clock, counting down to a moment I didn’t even know was coming. I had just pulled my hoodie over my head, earbuds in, a slice of pizza in one hand and a psych textbook in the other. Thursday nights were usually dead quiet on campus, especially in the Honors block. I didn’t hear them come in.

The first thing I noticed was the smell,damp leather and sweat. Then something cold pressed against my neck.

“Don’t move,” a voice hissed behind me.

I froze.

Before I could turn or even scream, a bag was shoved over my head. I heard the splinter of my door frame breaking open fully. My hands were wrenched behind me and zip-tied so tight I felt the blood in my fingers stop instantly.

I heard nothing else after that,no roommate, no footsteps outside. Just silence. Then the world tilted sideways as they dragged me out of my room like a sack of garbage.

I came awake with a pounding headache and a coppery taste in my mouth. The bag had been yanked off, and I was lying face-first on a concrete floor. The air was thick with humidity and something else,urine, sweat, and fear. A single bulb flickered above us, casting shadows on the walls of what looked like a converted basement or warehouse.

Around me, there were other guys,maybe ten or twelve. All of them were young, around my age or a little older. One of them was sobbing quietly in the corner. Another had a black eye and busted lip. I realized my own lip was split open, too.

“What the hell is this place?” I croaked, sitting up.

No one answered at first. Then a guy with close-cropped hair leaned toward me, his voice low. “Welcome to hell, freshman.”

A steel door opened with a grinding squeal. Two men walked in ,dressed in black tactical gear, faces hidden under ski masks. One of them carried a clipboard; the other had a stun baton. They walked down the line, looking at each of us like they were inspecting livestock.

Then one of them pointed at me.

“You. Stand up.”

I hesitated.

The baton cracked once in the air with a sharp electric pop. I got to my feet slowly, hands still bound.

“Name?” the one with the clipboard demanded.

“Samuel... Preston,” I said through clenched teeth.

They wrote something down. Then, without warning, the guy with the baton struck me hard in the stomach. I crumpled over, gasping.

“That’s for not answering immediately,” he said coldly. “From now on, when you’re spoken to, you respond with ‘Yes, sir.’ You understand?”

I nodded, pain flaring through my ribs.

“Yes, sir!” he barked.

“Yes, sir,” I wheezed.

“That’s better.”

They separated us after that. I was taken down a narrow hallway with mold-stained walls and flickering lights. One wrong turn and we’d be in a horror movie.

My cell was small,barely big enough for two people. Inside, a bunk bed lined the far wall. Sitting cross-legged on the bottom bunk was a guy with dark skin, short dreadlocks, and tired eyes. He looked up at me without emotion.

“You must be new,” he said.

I didn’t answer. I was still trying to figure out whether this was real. A bad dream. A drug trip. Something.

“I’m Eli,” he said. “You?”

“Sam,” I muttered.

He nodded. “They picked you fast. You must’ve caught someone's eye.”

“What is this place?” I asked, my voice cracking. “Why are we here?”

Eli tilted his head slightly and studied me. “You ever hear of The Biden?”

I shook my head.

“You will. Everyone here’s been chosen. For what, it depends. They don’t care who you were before, only how you break.”

---

The next few days blurred together in a haze of beatings, labor, and humiliation. We were woken before dawn every day with screams and sirens, herded into a wide yard surrounded by electric fencing. Cameras tracked every movement.

The guards handed us sledgehammers, buckets, bricks. We were ordered to dig trenches, move stones, scrub floors. No food until after. Water came in metal buckets passed around like we were animals. Some of us vomited from exhaustion. Others passed out and were kicked awake.

Every moment was watched.

The second you hesitated, you got punished.

They stripped us of our names. We were given numbers. I became “Thirty-Two.”

“Why don’t they just kill us?” I asked Eli one night when we were alone.

“Because we’re worth more alive than dead,” he replied. “They break you first. Then they sell you.”

“Sell us?”

He didn’t elaborate. Just turned over on his bunk and faced the wall.

On the fourth day, I cracked.

I refused to lift the stones they’d ordered me to carry. My hands were bleeding, my legs shaking. I dropped the rock and stood up straight.

The baton guy was on me in seconds.

They dragged me into a separate chamber, cold, dark, lined with rusted chains and hooks. I didn’t scream the first few times they hit me. Or the fifth.

By the tenth lash, I was choking on my own blood.

By the fifteenth, I blacked out.

I woke up on the floor of the cell. Eli knelt over me, pressing a cold rag to my face.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he murmured.

“I couldn’t...” I whispered.

“I know. But they want you to fight back. They want to test your limits.”

“Then what the hell do we do?”

“We wait,” he said. “And we survive.”

That night, I lay on my back, staring at the concrete ceiling. My body ached in places I didn’t even know I had. But worse than the pain was the realization:

No one was coming for me.

No one even knew I was gone.

Whoever these people were, they were powerful. Organized. Invisible.

I didn’t know what “The Biden” was yet.

But I knew one thing already:

It wasn’t a place you escaped from.

It was a place that consumed you, body, mind, and soul.

And somehow, I was still here.

But not for long.

The pounding of my heart was so loud but I plan to make my escape louder.