Alec woke in an unfamiliar room, feeling better, but still in pain and in hunger. So in other words, he feels practically the exact same as he had the last few months. Perhaps a little worse.
Alec sat up and the first thing that he noticed, other than his hunger, was how comfortable he was lying on his back. The slums didn’t offer any real good places to rest, and he didn’t have a comfortable resting place back at home either, so this was the first time he had slept in a comfortable piece of furniture—which was obviously a bed—for quite literally as long as he could remember.
Alec looked around the room he was in about to assess his situation. However, his assessment was interrupted when he saw a plate full of juicy meat on a small table to his right, causing all other thoughts to dissipate from his brain and gobble up all the meat in the matter of seconds like a horse.
Alec licked the plate clean, not leaving even a speck of oil or grease.
Alec’s stomach was obviously small, as he had been malnourished for the last three months. Even so, the meat didn’t fill him and he still craved for more. However, he was fuller than he had been for a while after eating that.
Alec regained his thoughts and looked around the room. The bed he was sitting in was pressed up against the wall, and it faced the door, which Alec could only assume led to the rest of the house. There was also a wardrobe against the wall to his left and a glass window to his right, which wasn’t in Alec’s previous home. Aside from the bed, closet, and small table with a drawer, there wasn’t anything else.
The room was clearly well-kept and clean despite seemingly not being in use for some time. There was hardly a spec of dirt or dust on the floor or walls. The walls didn’t have holes or paint coming off of them. It was quite the contrast to quite literally any building interior in the slums.
Alec hearkened back to what had occurred before waking up in his room. He was running away from thugs, before ceasing their chase by running into the shopping district. He recalled that just before everything went black, an older looking lady approached him and said something about taking him in.
Realizing that he was in a stranger's home and being taken in, he immediately got out of the bed and tried to escape, immediately looking at the window.
I will never rely on someone else.
When Alec stood under the weight of his own two feet, he became dizzy, and he stumbled. He had clearly not recovered from his injuries.
While Alec wobbled, he caught sight of the spot on his arm where he had been cut and saw that the wound had been stitched back together, perhaps by the old lady. Alec decided not to focus on that for the moment.
Alec steadied himself and went up to the window. The window was at eye level to him, so he wouldn’t have to climb to reach it or anything.
Alec began looking for some way to open it and looked around the window. He saw this small knob on the side of the window and tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t budge. It was clearly locked.
Alec then tried to punch the window in an attempt to shatter the glass. Of course, his weak little 8 year old body couldn’t break the glass. Alec was clearly desperate, as he wouldn’t have tried to do that if he had stopped and thought about it logically for a moment. Even more unfortunate for Alec, he naturally punched the window with his right hand, as he was right-handed, which caused the wound on his arm to reopen, causing blood to spill out of his arm. A misstep facilitated by desperation.
Alec then looked around for something he might be able to break the window with. However, as stated earlier, there wasn’t really anything in the room, let alone something convenient for breaking a window.
Alec’s eye did eventually catch the table legs and he decided to try and rip one of those things off of the table and attempt to break the window with the wooden leg.
Alec flipped the table upside down, knocking down the empty ceramic plate that was there and shattered it. Alec was just about to try to pull one of the legs off when he heard a raspy but firm voice coming in the direction of the door.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be utterly calm at your situation,” Alec froze in surprise, “but you’ve surpassed my expectations.”
Alec was surprised because he didn’t hear the door open or close, nor did he hear her footsteps. It could’ve been from Alec’s desperation or perhaps the lady had had a similar experience to Alec that allowed her to hide her presence.
The old lady seemed to be in her late 70s. Her back was slightly hunched over, but she didn’t have her cane with her.
She must’ve heard the ruckus I was making… Never mind that I need to get out of here.
However, it was clear that there was no escape. The only way out other than the window was the door, which was being blocked by the old lady. Alec knew there wasn’t anything he could do, so he let the table fall out of his hands and he just stood there staring back at her.
The old lady then caught sight of Alec’s arm. She gestured toward the bed. “Sit. Let me fix your wound again.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The lady approached him and Alec took the chance to slip past her and try to escape through the door. Alec was able to get past her, but the door was also locked.
Dammit. She must’ve locked it when I wasn’t listening.
“Listen,” came a voice from behind Alec. “You’re trapped in here. The only way you’re getting out is if I let you out, and I’m not going to do that unless you let me treat your wound. I know it might be hard to put trust into other people, but unless you want to bleed out, you should probably make an exception right now.”
Her words implied that after Alec relied on her to fix his wound, she’d let him out of the room. Realizing this, Alec thought that he’d be able to escape if he was able to leave this room so he reluctantly—very reluctantly—agreed to let the lady treat his arm. He also figured that it was probably a bad idea to bleed out. Alec’s brain was finally starting to think rationally again.
“Fine,” Alec said.
The old lady gave a little chuckle. “Good,” she replied. “I was starting to get worried that you didn’t speak the language.”
Alec then sat on the bed and the old lady then lifted the table and flipped it around, which surprised Alec since he didn’t think her old bones would be strong enough to lift a table. She then opened the drawer and grabbed something from inside. When she turned back around, Alec saw that it was some sewing stuff for his arm. One of the things was particularly sharp.
I’m an idiot. Why didn’t I look in the drawer for something I could use to break the window. Well, it doesn’t matter at this point, I’ll just grab it from the drawer when she leaves and then break out.
As she was heading back toward Alec she said “You know, I should probably tell you this now before you try something, but the glass on the windows is reinforced. Even if you were able to break a leg off the table, or stab the window with this sewing pin, you still wouldn’t be able to break it.” It was almost like she was reading his mind
The granny sat on the bed next to Alec, facing him.
“Face me,” she said. Alec complied.
The granny took Alec’s arm and prepared to put the sewing pin in his flesh. Her grip was a bit stronger than it should’ve been when holding an 8 year old’s arm.
“Now, this might hurt a bit,” she said before putting the pin in Alec’s arm.
Alec didn’t even move, let alone react. He simply sat still, saying nothing as she stitched his wound back together.
The old lady looked back up at Alec strangely when Alec didn’t react but continued her work a split second later.
The entire process, they were both silent. It only took a couple minutes for her to fully stitch Alec’s arm.
“Make sure not to put too much tension or stress on your arm,” she said after she was done, “or else the wound may reopen… and we wouldn’t want that, now would we.”
Her voice seemed to get a little softer at that last part. She also avoided her eyes and hesitated as if uncomfortable.
They sat in a strange silence after that,
“Now,” she then said, her voice still having that softer tone, “my name is Purizchka, but I am often just called Puri… but, er… you can call me Granny if you want… anyway, what’s your name?”
Purizchka is a strange name. Also, did she just realize that she should talk to me like a child, or something? Also, I shouldn’t have to call her anything. If things go correctly this should be our last, if not our second to last, interaction.
Purizchka had a strange pronunciation that he had never heard in the Hengren language before. Alec wondered if she was originally from a different kingdom. She didn’t look ethnically different from anyone else Alec had seen in this kingdom though. (A/N: Hengren is what I am calling this language.)
Alec didn’t answer her question. Instead, they sat in silence again. That was until Puri decided to break the silence by saying “Now, make sure you get some good rest. I’ll come back when you’re sleeping to get you more food. And I’ll make sure to clean the blood stain you made on the floor.” She then got up and made her way out. She opened the door just enough so she could slip through it and did so quickly. She seemed to do this so Alec couldn’t quickly run past her as she was opening the door. She seemed to have caught on to the fact that Alec wanted to escape really badly.
Didn’t she move a little too quickly for someone her age?
“Hold on,” Alec called out when he saw Puri pull a pair of keys out of her pocket as she was closing the door. “I thought you said you’d let me leave the room if I let you fix my arm.”
Did she lie to me?
“I never said anything like that. I’m sorry if you took my words the wrong way.” Her words sounded almost condescending, and she seemed to have a smirk on her face.
“I think,” she continued, “it’s best if I keep you in here for a little while longer. We can’t have you try to make more escape attempts, let alone somehow miraculously actually escape, now can we?”
I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. In any case, why is she so hellbent on keeping me here? It’s almost like I’m being held hostage.
Alec decided that the best course of action was to play along with her game until she gave him enough freedom for him to be able to easily escape. Of course, if he saw an opportunity before then, he’d take it, but he felt like that might not happen.
Puri went to close the door, but right before she fully closed it Alec thought he saw her expression turn into a very sad smile and whisper “Please. Let me make amends.”
It was so quiet that Alec thought he might’ve imagined it.
The door closed with a (insert door noise), and Alec heard the door click. The room fell into a lonely silence yet again.
Alec, feeling like a prisoner (again), felt a sudden wave of exhaustion and dizziness. His adrenaline seemed to have finally died down when Puri left. The added blood loss from reopening his wound didn’t do much to help either. It was clear he still needed rest.
As much as Alec didn’t want to, he crawled back into the bed with the intention to rest. The bed was comfortable, but something in Alec didn’t allow him to be comfortable.
He fell asleep almost immediately, not knowing what lay ahead of him. Though, that wasn’t exactly unusual for him.