Pain seared through my face, a fierce heat and sting that made me wince and groan. I tried to open my eyes, but they felt swollen and gritty, as if sand had been poured into them. The air was thick with a pungent odor that made my nose wrinkle in disgust. It was a nauseating mix of stale beer and horse manure.

Thump

Ow, there it is again like a brick being smashed against the side of my head.

The first thing I see as I open my eyes is a big man missing his front teeth, the rest of his teeth not long to follow from the rot in his mouth.

What the man missed in hygiene, he more than made up for with size and bulk. Looking like a larger-than-life wrestler from the 90s mixed with a homeless drunk looking for his next drink.

“Oh, look he is finally waking up,” the man said through slurred speech from his missing teeth.

Are those fleas?  Does the man have fleas in the little hair he has left?

“Hit him again, make sure he is good and awake,” said another man, who I could only see the shape of through my blurred vision from the repeated punches to the face and the shadows of the fire. 

“I’ll go get more to drink, and make sure he's ready to talk when I get back,” the man said to the monstrous-looking hulk who was getting ready to punch me again.

I see another person slumped over in the corner a ball of rags. Are they dead? Are they going to kill me too? I wonder to myself.

“What do you want,” I ask the man before he can hit me again. I try to move, but I’ve only got a little slack to the cuffs holding my hands behind my back making it difficult to keep my balance.

Thump right in the stomach, I started to throw up and realized there was nothing in my stomach as I dry heaved on my knees.

“You don’t ask the questions,” said the brute.

“You came into this town looking like you have some money. Give it to us without a fuss, and we will be nice,” said the man that I’m now calling Toothless.

“If by nice, you mean we will only sell him to the slavers,” said the other man as he brought another cask of some liquid.

He was a little cleaner. At least he knew how to brush his teeth. But something about him gave me the chills, while Toothless was all bulk and no hygiene this guy had the look of like a slimy, skeleton moving around like he could cut your neck from behind before you said thank you. When I say cleaner, I don’t mean to say he was the model of hygiene; his skin and hair had this greasy, slick look, but something told me he really didn’t care.

“Are you ready to tell us where it’s at” asked Slimy in a tone that sounded almost like the screeching of an owl. 

“Where what’s at,” I asked as I took in my surroundings. They had finally given me time to clear my head from the beating I was getting. 

It looked like I’m in an alleyway with a barrel to hold a fire. There was no one else around just Toothless, Slimy, the body in the corner, and me. Speaking of which, where am I and who am I? For whatever reason I don’t know what my name is or how I got here.

“I’m going to go get us some food and get the others. If he doesn’t tell you then just kill him. We still have the one in the corner to sell to the slavers,” said Slimy.

So that person isn’t dead, but I haven’t seen them move this whole time I’ve been awake.

As Slimy left, Toothless took a long drink from a mug and pulled out his knife.

“This is my favorite part you know, watching you squirm as I start taking chunks of your flesh. I may not be a torcher expert, but I’ll make it last long enough that I get pleasure out of your pain” said Toothless.

As he walked towards me, I panicked I’m not ready to die here.

I looked around once more and did the only thing I could think of as fear took over.

Staggering to my feet, I charged toward the barrel of fire slamming into it with my shoulder like linebacker, pushing it over toward Toothless.

He was startled that I still had that much in me, but the spurt of energy didn’t last long.

I did have a little luck on my side or at least alcoholism. What he was drinking wasn’t just beer but flammable alcohol. As he moved to get away from the fire, the mug tilted causing the alcohol to spill and ignite on his pants leg. 

“You bastard I’m going to kill you,” he said as he is tried to put out the flame.

I got to my feet as fast as I could with my hands bound behind my back. He just about had the fire on his pants out as I noticed the cask the other had brought. I moved and kicked it over towards him, not sure what was in the cask, just trying to buy time to get away. As it happened to be more of the same alcohol, he was drinking it splashed all over him and his still-on-fire pants leg, setting him and his surroundings alight in an instant torrent of flames. 

Toothless screamed and moved around like a... Well, “a madman on fire” trying to put out his blazing pants.

Engulfed in fire he gave up on getting it out or even living.

“If I’m going to burn, I’m going to take you with me,” he shrieked as he charged towards me knowing he didn’t have long to live.

But that endeavor was short-lived, the fire burning his flesh and causing almost instant blisters was too much. Before he made it 5 steps, he dropped to his knees, yelling “I’m going to kill you” as loud as he could. 

Man, what were they drinking I wondered. 

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

As he finally fell silent, I knew if I wanted to keep my newfound freedom and life, I had to get out of here, but I couldn’t run off with the cuffs on. If they do have slaves around here, someone would just assume I got free, and I would be back in a similar situation.

I kicked the man where I thought his pockets would be to try to stop the burning. I hoped the other guy wasn’t the one with the key.

After I finally got the fire out, I knelt with my back to the still-smoking body burning my hands as I went through his half-melted, half-char-grilled pants and flesh mixture.

The key wasn’t in that pocket, so I tried the other with no luck. 

As I got up to make a run for it anyway with my hands bound, I heard a small voice “it’s in his pack.” “What,” I yelled not knowing where the voice came from.

“The key, it’s in his pack over there,” said the voice again, this time I realized it was from the small lump of a person in the corner.

I moved to the pack and found the key; I managed after some time to work the key into the cuffs and remove them.

I started to leave as I heard another sound from the corner, this time it was a sob.

I knew I had to go, who knows who that is in the corner; I should just leave them. If they can’t get away on their own, then they would just slow me down. But they didn’t have to tell me about the pack, I would have never known. They could have just let me leave and gotten the key for themselves, and I would have never thought about them. Maybe I would have made it, but maybe I wouldn’t have. Those cuffs would have made me stick out and if slaves were still here then I would have been screwed. 

Speaking of which slaves, isn’t this like the 21st century? Where in the world are there still slaves? I guess that’s something else to figure out after I’m safe.

I moved to the lump in the corner and moved the rag. There was a small girl who looked to be about my age. She was filthy and had an unusual kind of glow about her.  As I removed her cuffs and started to help her up, I heard a voice.

“Hey what did you do to Michael,” asked Slimy. 

I thought Toothless was a better name than that or maybe Ass Face going off his looks or maybe even Roasted Ass. I was brought back to the current situation when I heard Slimy yell to some others “kill that son of a bitch, and don’t let the girl go.”

“Hurry this way,” said the girl.

Bringing my attention to the other side of the alley. She had already started running not looking back. I chased after her having a hard time keeping up with her. How was someone so small so fast? 

As we cut down alleyways and roads, I heard men yelling behind me, “They went this way, just kill them both.” We continued to run cutting through alleys and roads for what seemed like miles. 

At one point, we came across a man he yelled “There you are. I’ll kill you boy and take the girl with me. The others will never know.” No honor among slavers I guess. But before he could do anything, the girl ran right at him, spinning at the last minute before he could grab her. Jumping on his back she grabbed his neck and twisted it sharply. All I heard from the man was a loud crack. Before his body had hit the ground, she had pushed off his back twisted in the air and was on the run again.

What am I involved with, and what is she, some kind of “Ninja Princess”?

After running for what seemed like hours, she finally slowed down and started walking.

As she did, she started talking. 

“Ok we should be safe for now. I would avoid going back to that part of town for a while. I’m sure they will still be looking for us.”

“What? Oh, right.” I said.

“Can I ask you something?”

She nodded her head yes.

“Where are we? Who were they? What did they want with me? Who are you?”

“What do you mean where we are,” she asked puzzled at my first question.

She stood there thinking for a minute. “Maybe the stuff they used to knock us out caused you to have some sort of amnesia” she pondered out loud.

Well let’s start with this she continued.

“You are in Maraschino, does that sound familiar?”

I shook my head no.

This wasn’t a town or city I’d ever heard of. How did I get here? The last thing I remember is going to bed last night in my one-bedroom apartment in my small Podunk town of Jonesboro thinking about my calculus test the next morning.

I looked up to notice her looking at me waiting for me to say something.

“I don’t remember anything,” I told her honestly.

“Ok well let’s start at the beginning,” she said, “My name is Ava. I was captured by those slave traders about two days ago.”

She continued.

“The Slavers saw you walk into town alone; they talked about how you looked pretty out of it like you were still drunk from the night before. They saw your unusual clothes and thought you would have a lot of money and were from out of town so you would be an easy target.”

I stopped her. I remember coming into town, I just wasn’t sure what town it was, or how I got here. Then somebody grabbed me from behind and before I could do anything they covered my mouth with something and then I just passed out.

“They probably used finely ground Earth crystals. I think it’s what they used when they captured me,” she said, “Earth crystal powder can cause whoever breathes it in to pass out.”

She stopped, noticing I was off in my head again. Of course, Earth crystals, what are Earth crystals they sound like they have the same effect as Chloroform, anybody who grew up watching murder or suspense movies would know what that is.

Ava continued, “Do you remember your name?”

“I didn’t think there were Slavers in the US I thought that had ended years ago.” I stated more to myself without answering her.

“US… what is the US? I’ve never heard of that” Ava asked puzzled.

“What do you mean you’ve never heard of the US, The United States of America? You know...the country we are in” I said questioning.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say the United States of America, you are in Maraschino which is a city in the country of Astria,” she said.

“I think you need to set down you don’t look well,” she told me.

“Jensen,” I said as I set down on the street curb.

She looked puzzled.

“My name is Jensen,” I told her again.

As I set down a blue box appeared in front of my face. 

“What?” I said out loud, and with some hesitation, I thought Yes. That box went away, and another box appeared. 

“Wow, what is this” I asked Ava, and she just looked at me. 

“What is what?” she asked.

Noticing that she could not see the blue box I read the second box.

Again, I thought Yes.

My view suddenly changed, the best way I can describe it is as some kind of HUD interface like you would see in an First person shooting or Role Playing video game

Everywhere I looked, I had information in the corners of my vision. 

I tried to ignore it for a minute as Ava continued looking at me like she needed to take me to a hospital or something. “Sorry,” I said looking at her. “I’m just not sure where to go or what to do right now.”

Ava started by saying, “Look I don’t normally do this, but you did help me out. If you want, you can come stay the night at my house and get yourself together.”

“That would be great,” I said maybe a little too eagerly, but I really didn’t know where to go.

She looked at me funny “I have to warn you the couch isn’t too comfy, but it’s better than the street;” and she continued “if you try anything I’ll do worse to you than I did to that guy back there. You know the one that can now turn his head like an owl.”

I held up my hands and said I would never even think about it.