A dark and dingy place, a place full of shadows and fright, where torture was evident and one's imagination could skyrocket. The smell of rusting metal lingered at every corner, followed closely by the unmistakable smell of blood. The mixture of blood and iron, a horrible combination, stung one's nostrils and made him gasp for air.

A gasp could be heard from one corner. Oh, was he awake already? What was that? 

A shift. Stillness. Deep rattling breaths. Silence. And one by one, tears trailed down his dirty cheeks, his eyes hidden behind a blood-stained dark cloth. Whose blood? We might never know.

His lips, apart, chapped, ripped, bleeding and dehydrated. His throat too parched to speak. Too parched to make a sound. Too frightened to move. Yet the constant internal struggle between keeping his fears down and the urge to scream madness was evident.

It was fun to watch him. Watch him see everything; see nothing through those blindfolds. See him struggle against his environment, nevermind his state, he was already being suffocated by the smell, already being restrained by the chains that locked him against a wall and the blindfold that covered him from the horror that was directly in front of him.

Oh how he would've screamed if he saw. If only he could have a little peek- wait no. This was better. This was much better. And then when he was dying, fighting to get a few final breaths before slipping off to heaven... or hell or wherever, I could slip my fingers under that blindfold and push it up a little, so he could see the worst nightmare of his life before it slipped away.

Oh this was going to be fun.

Himchan felt many eyes watching him. He felt , obscured, divided, vulnerable and most of all, he felt pain. He didn't know why, he just felt it, and it wasn't physical pain, it wasn't emotional either, it was something that was crawling inside him; something that surged through his veins like a hot poker, all over his body.

He tried to breathe, he didn't know why he had been holding his breath. He took in one long and choked. The air was repugnant. It was like a someone with bad body odour and an open wound that was bleeding, had puked all over the floor. It was that bad. It was nauseating. 

Himchan turned his head to the right and he seemed to get a small whiff of fresh air. Whatever it was, it must've been in front of him, that foul disgusting thing and as Himchan thought about it, he gulped. He never wanted to know what was in front of him.

His senses slowly regained. His hearing caught nothing, but there was a certain ringing, or wait, was that a faint beeping in the background? Himchan had always been proud of his sound hearing, he used to always win hide and seek back in those days with his friends because he could hear so well that he knew instantly where someone was when they shifted. Or when someone breathed too loudly.

Right now, all Himchan could hear was his own heartbeat, loud, strong, but very surprisingly normal. It was too normal, too steady, given the paranoia and adrenaline that overcame his body.

There it was, that faint beeping in the background. It seemed to come in intervals. Once every ten seconds. No wait... not once. A few times. A few beeps. Himchan waited, and he counted. Five times. . . . . . . . . . Seven times. . . . . . . . . . Three times.

What did it mean? What was that beep? What what what?

Himchan's hazy mind was flooded with, in his opinion, useless questions. He didn't care about the beep, he didn't care about the smell, he didn't care about anything, anything except the urge to get out of here, to run away, to go home, to find Yongguk.

At the thought of Yongguk, when his image appeared at the forefront of Himchan's mind, his knees gave way, he gasped and a gush of tears ran down his cheeks. His heart ached, ached so much. He longed for him, for Yongguk, he had never wanted him so much, to be in his warm embrace, to be safe beside him, to have his fingers caress his cheeks, his hair, his neck, his back. He had never wanted the security Yongguk had always provided so much in his life.

Himchan cried, he cried whatever remaining tears he could squeeze out from his dehydrated body. 

Dehydrated.

Yes, Himchan was dehydrated.

Slowly, Himchan stuck out his dry tongue and ran it over his chapped lips. He felt the broken pieces of the flaked outer layer of his lips cut against his tongue. 

He swallowed a dry gulp and breathed slowly through his nose, trying to level his senses. His throat burned with every breath; as every of foul air hit the back of his pharynx.

His eyes started to water as he felt his pharynx constrict. He kept his mouth tightly shut, as well as his eyes, though it wouldn't make any difference seeing as he was tightly blindfolded. Himchan felt his stomach squeeze out gastric juices up his oesophagus, he knew what was going to happen and he so desperately tried to hold everything down. He was nauseated.

Suddenly, Himchan's head started feeling light, he felt giddy and he wobbled on his feet before he collapsed, not fully as the chains were still holding him up. His throat started constricting and relaxing continuously and he felt bile rush up his throat. Finally, when Himchan couldn't stand it any longer, he jerked his head forward and with a heave, bile came rushing out of his mouth.

He felt some of it splatter on his jeans but he didn't have time to think about it before another wave came up.

After Himchan had rid his stomach of any substance, he crumpled into a limp form and breathed heavily. Sweat that had accumulated on his forehead and temples was now pouring down his face. He was shivering weakly, his eyelids closed feebly over his eyes as he tried to regain his strength. He now smelt the acidic smell of the vomit that was splattered all over the floor (and on his jeans). Himchan stayed like that for five minutes, fifteen, half and hour, before raising his head up and desperately pulling his hands away from the chains that held them away from his body to wipe the sweat on his face. He failed. And he was left there, sweat sodden, dangerously pale, although he didn't know it, shivering, dehydrated and now with a pungent smelling mouth that was begging for a sip of water.

He thought all hope was lost, he thought he'd been left here to die, by torturous, inhumane, sadistic creatures. Himchan resigned to the fact that he would never get out of this place, for how many hours had it been? How many days? Himchan didn't know, he couldn't keep track of the time. Every second seemed like a minute and every minute seemed like an hour. 

As Himchan closed his eyes under the weight of defeat and resignation, ready to finally slip off to slumber and hopefully wake up dead, he heard a faint chuckle somewhere.

He forced his eyelids open and remembered that he was still blindfolded. He strained his ears to hear for any more sound, but none came. 

A few minutes passed.

And as Himchan shuddered, the hairs on his arms sticking out despite the sweat that lined his skin, a raspy, low, disgusting voice spoke, with a tinge of amusement.

"Hello Himchan. Hope you've been adjusting well to your surroundings. We are now going to play a little game."

A high pitched laughter followed afterwards, which seemed to grow more and more distant as Himchan eventually slipped into unconsciousness.