Silent - Caught In The Fire - Part 1

'Gavin!' A voice.

A hallucination in the dark – audible, not visual. Somewhere in the distance, water trickles down a wall.

'Gavin!'  The hallucination again.

'Gavin!'  Desperate almost.

I hear it three times. A powerful fantasy of rescue, like a mirage in the desert. The false and cruel offer of freedom.  

My name again, slightly louder.

I try to sit up, wince. The wires dig deep into my body, hurting. The voice gets closer. I hear footsteps in a corridor, running, and I try to shout out, but the gag prevents me from making a sound. Now the footsteps are fading away.

I feel like crying in frustration.

***
Finally.  Running again, and a key jangles in a padlock. A flash of torchlight, strong torchlight from an industrial torch.

A guy enters the room, his face hidden in the semi dark. He stands there uncertainly, hovering around the entrance of the room, out of my vision range. He seems to hesitate. Repeating my name a number of times, he shines the torch around the room. He hasn't seen me yet, and he won't. I already know that. He starts to walk away, back to the entrance.  

He stops once more. 'Hey, posh boy. I know you're in here. Where are you?'
It's Jace.

Help, I try to shout through the gap.

Jace peers in my direction, as if he senses my presence.

I make a garbled sound.

'You're there,' he says. 'We've got to get out of here. The bloke's got a knife. He's really, really mad.'

Jace struggles to untie me, using a pair of industrial cutters. Clearly, he's upset and agitated but doing his best to remain calm, although his hands shake and I keep expecting the cutters to plunge into my skin. Finally, I'm free, although not really free, as my legs are dead and I'm too dizzy to sit up.  Jace helps me up, but I almost wish he'd left me there. It's agony. The circulation returns to my limbs, the pain drawn out and unbearable. I shriek under my breath, bite my lips.  

'Come on,' he says, yanking my wrist. 'Don't go to sleep, mate. You'll never wake up if you do.'

'Where's Lucy?' I say through gritted teeth. The pain.

'Safe.'

Getting out of the room seems to take us for ages, as I have to keep stopping and Jace has to support me with one hand while carrying the torch with the other. He steers me down a corridor, dark and otherworldly.  We come to a half flight of steps with no light ahead, apart from the limited light coming from Jace's torch, and I start to lag back.

'Gavin,' Jace says, giving my shoulder a shake.  'Wake up, man. You can't do this.'

'Where are we?'

Jace names a place and tells me to shut up again.

'How did you find me?'

'No talking,' Jace says.  

Ahead lies a vast open space, murky and ghost-like in the semi-darkness and the glow of torchlight.  We step into a blanket of silence and the unmistakable smell of fuel.

'Petrol,' Jace whispers.  The torchlight settles on a piece of machinery by an elevated platform. 'We're in trouble.'

A metal object like a spanner drops to the floor with a clank, followed a pile of boxes collapsing in a corner.  A figure springs out from nowhere, pushing another pile of boxes over and brandishing a live fire canister at a distance, like a fire eater. The figure leaps out of sight, appearing a few seconds later by the machinery next to the elevated platform, the canister still visible.  

'Going somewhere?' the Angel of Mercy calls, holding something in his other hand that looks like a long piece of cloth.  'I don't think so.  You're not going anywhere, you two. You're both going to die, hah-hah-hah.'  

He shakes the cloth at us. 'See this?' he says, moving the live fire canister dangerously close to the cloth. 'This is capable of causing some great damage. You've both been very badly behaved children, haven't you? Now Daddy's going to have to punish you.'  He moves the fire closer to the cloth.    

'Don't,' Jace shouts.  'Just think, you'll have to spend the rest of your life in prison.'

The bloke extinguishes the flame. 'Says who? Anyone grasses on me, and my mate Arthur will send a legion of angels to slaughter them. Hah-hah-hah.  Just like he did with Lucy's mum and dad. Just like he's done with half a dozen other people who've dared to blacken his name. No one will care if you suddenly vanish.'

'Hey,' Jace shouts. 'This isn't right. Let us go.'

Switching on the flame again, the bloke set the cloth alight.

'No, don't,' Jace shouts.  

Taking a few steps back, the Angel of Mercy hurls the burning cloth on the floor and ball of fire leaps from one side of the room to another, narrowing missing him.

'Run,' Jace shouts.