I came to in a haze. My vision was blurred and my body was chilled. Out in the palm tree jungle it was humid and warm so I’d never really noticed the weather properly, being naked was actually kinda nice in that climate.
Wherever I was now it was the opposite. I was chilled through. It reminded me of getting out of a sleeping bag when you’re camping. The sweet embrace of sleep is warm, but then you wake up and have to get up and suddenly its cold and no matter how much coffee you drink it’s still going to take an hour or so to fully warm up again.
I hated that feeling.
My vision felt fuzzy and unfocused as I tried to look around, then I realised why as my eyes began to focus. My HUD was dominated by warning notifications that flashed like angry wasps in my vision.
*WARNING*
You have been poisoned with Passout, the effect is instant.
*WARNING*
You have been captured by a hunter. Death is imminent.
Well, that’s not good. I thought as I read the warnings and mentally clicked on them to get rid of them. The hunters were mentioned in the opening announcement. If I remembered correctly, they were the guys that were trying to skin me for the tattoo I hadn’t located yet.
My heartbeat raced as I began to panic. I started looking at my surroundings. I seemed to be inside some kind of stone building, or maybe I was underground? There were no windows or natural light.
The room had a lot of, what looked like, medical tools. A scalpel, a bone saw, a syringe with some weird purple liquid inside it.
Wait, those aren’t medical tools. They’re torture tools!
My heart sped up again and I found it hard to breathe. My breathing became laboured as I continued to look around the room. There was a single door on the far side, my only possible escape. There was a cauldron-looking thing in front of me, it was huge. If I was stood up it would easily reach my navel.
Speaking of my navel, I wondered if I was still wounded.
I looked down to see a faint, white scar where the stab wound had been. My HUD said my HP was full, so that was good at least. The deer meat must have healed me.
My hands and feet seemed to be bound. I looked down and saw that it was rope that bound my feet, I couldn’t tell with my hands because they were behind my back and they’d gone numb.
I needed to escape, but how?
Calm down, remember, one small task at a time.
I took a deep breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth. Keeping it circular, trying to slow my heartbeat. I would not get out of here if I was panicking.
As if the system had read my thoughts, a new quest appeared.
New Quest: Sink or Skinned
You have been captured by a hunter who wants to take your skin and sew it together with other skins to create the map. It’s probably in your best interest to not let that happen. This is what you get for ignoring my friendly advice when I told you not to eat the stripper.
Objectives:
Escape 0/1
Free yourself from your binds 0/1
Free or kill the other captive 0/1
Kill your captor (optional) 0/1
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
What no reward? Cheapskate. I grumbled internally.
It seemed that the quest had multiple parts. I needed to focus on the second objective first, getting out of the rope. However, I couldn’t help noticing the third objective. There was another prisoner. Were they in here with me or were they somewhere else?
I began looking around again and noticed a large wooden X on the other side of the cauldron. It was dark in the room so I couldn’t be sure, but there seemed to be a human shaped outline strapped to the X. I had to look really hard to notice it though. I needed to raise my perception somehow if I ever got out of this room.
I began thinking of ways to escape my rope binds when a thought occurred to me. I hadn’t tried to use my inventory yet. If I could summon my new dagger into my hand I could cut the rope. It would be awkward, but I could try.
I mentally asserted that I wanted my dagger in my right hand. Instead, I got another notification.
*WARNING*
The summoning of weapons is prohibited in this area.
“Well that’s just great.” I muttered sarcastically.
“Hello?” A feeble voice called.
I jumped and looked towards the wooden X. The voice seemed to have come from over there. I guess there was another captive in here with me after all.
“I saw them drag you in, I didn’t realise you were awake yet.” The voice continued, it sounded strained.
“Where am I?” I asked, saying the first thing that popped into my head.
“I don’t know where we are, but it seems to be some kind of flaying room. I’ve been here for about a day now. Some guy keeps coming and chanting spells at me, they finally tied me up on this cross thing just before you arrived.”
If he had been there a full day then either I’d been unconscious for a really long time, or he was captured as soon as he got to this world.
I wanted to ask, but I had more important things on my mind.
“I need to get out of these binds, then we can escape. Got any ideas?” I asked hopefully.
“The stuff in this cauldron thing works like acid, I think. It could melt your rope?” He replied.
Dipping my feet in acid was not high on the agenda. I sighed and began looking around for other options. Then I saw it again, the scalpel.
It wasn’t that far away from me; it was just behind the other captive. I began scootching my way towards it like a slug.
My naked body grated against the cold, hard stone floor as I moved. It was uncomfortable, but luckily it didn’t seem to be draining my HP.
After a few minutes of what was essentially an intense ab workout, I reached the torture table. I rolled onto my knees and grabbed the scalpel with my teeth.
The next step would be getting it into my hands, which were secured firmly behind my back, and still numb. I moved back towards my starting position and dropped the scalpel to the floor. I then turned around and basically tried to do the limbo until my hands touched the scalpel.
Believe me when I say, that wasn’t easy on the core muscles. I felt something brush against my hands. You know, how when your hands are numb you can still feel that you’re touching something, it just feels like there’s almost a barrier between your fingers and the object even though you can see that you’re touching it? Well it felt like that, and with some effort, and a few times dropping it, I managed to get the scalpel into my hands.
Next, I turned it around and began slicing at the rope. I could vaguely feel that it was working, but it was slow goings. Scalpels were designed for precision, not brute force cutting, but I was making some headway and pretty soon I felt the rope give way and my hands were free.
I dropped the scalpel and began shaking my hands, trying to get a semblance of feeling back into them. Pretty soon the pins and needles came and then I could feel again. I picked up the scalpel and went to work on my leg restraints.
“He’s coming.” The other captive moaned.
He’d been silent this whole time, I’d almost forgotten he was there. His voice still sounded croaky and feeble.
“Who’s coming?” I asked, still battling with the rope restraints.
“The hunter.”
Shit!
I began cutting at the leg restraints with a new vigour, hoping to free myself before his arrival. I was almost all the way through when the door opened and a crack of light illuminated the room.
I managed to see the other prisoner for the first time. He had untamed, mousey brown hair and was stripped to his boxers. He was strung up on the wooden X, facing forwards. It reminded me of an old history documentary I’d seen once where a soldier got tied up and flogged for disobedience.
He was facing towards me, looking straight down into the cauldron and its acid. His face looked gaunt and his eyes were poofy. His lips were swollen and cracked. He was not in a good state.
As the door continued to open, I did the only thing I could think of and played dead. Or, more precisely, I laid back down in the exact position I’d been in when I’d woken up. I put my hands behind my back as if they were still tied. My legs were almost free, but not quite. I held the scalpel firmly, waiting for a chance.
If I was lucky he’d leave before I needed to do anything.
The door opened fully and a stout man in a crimson robe entered. He was bald with a tattoo of thorns around his head. He had a wiry build and dark eyes.
He walked towards us, whistling a jaunty tune.
What a sadist. I thought as his eyes glistened at the sight of his first captive.
“Today is the day boy.” He said in a squeaky, but serious voice. “I can finally remove your piece of the map and move onto my new find.”
He looked at me, grinning from ear to ear. I stared back defiantly. I was trying to play dead, be the grey man, push attention elsewhere. But something about this freak really pissed me off.
“Oh, it seems we have a feisty one. Don’t worry number two, it’ll be your turn to break soon enough.” He chortled as he spoke, as if the whole situation was somehow amusing to him.
He walked over to the over captive and ran his slender hands over the man’s back. Then, as if catching himself, he jumped a little and moved to leave. He walked towards the door and I breathed a sigh of relief.
If he left then I could finish freeing myself, free the other guy and we could get the hell out of here. Hopefully I’d get access to my weapons again after leaving the room. If it was possible, I wasn’t going to leave this place without killing the hunter.
I wasn’t quite sure what had come over me. I’d never killed a person before. But looking at this bald fuck, I felt bloodlust.
Just as he was about to reach the door he turned back for a second, as if he’d just remembered something. His dark eyes darted towards the torture table. He was going to notice that the scalpel was missing.
Goddamn it!
“It seems someone has been rather naughty.”