[WP] Write a story that makes absolutely no sense until the last sentence
...
The Goldfish was left behind, so Taylor decided his life was pretty much over.
Not that it really mattered, considering the talk around town for the last few months had been mainly centered on the world ending- with a strong consensus that it probably was. It also didn't help that the men who had kidnapped him hadn't been especially responsive to his questions, nor his muffled "shouts beneath the hood they'd roughly tied over his head.
But again, none of that really mattered compared to the goldfish, Sunny.
He'd had one job. One: "Watch Sunny"
Taylor had to figure by the time the team of special-ops soldiers dragged him from the helicopter and threw him on the pavement, he'd botched that job pretty terribly.
Though he couldn't see anything, on account of the hood, Taylor thought it smelled a lot like someone had set a fire on a mountain top, and then crashed a plane filled with cinnabuns into it. If he judged on what he could hear though, he'd have to just assume he was in some top secret military base.
"We've got him, no casualties." A man's voice shouted, somewhere up in front of him as two powerful sets of hands dragged Taylor back to his feet and began the process of guiding him away from the helicopter's drone. "With all due respect though- He doesn't know shit!"
"Doesn't matter!" A woman's voice hollered over the background of heavy winds, "He's leverage if we need it. Get him inside, put him with the rest of the POI."
"Yes Ma'am!"
The heavy grips on his arms and shoulders worsened, and the pace picked up. Somewhere in the background, there was a bout of shouting- guttural and unfamiliar, followed by the sharp crack of gunfire.
"Fucking monsters." Someone muttered to his left. "Should kill that lot instead of study, if you ask me."
Taylor didn't ask them, actually, and he wasn't quite sure what to think of that statement in particular, other than to try and walk a bit faster.
He soon found himself inside.
One set of doors lead to a quite calm, and a second screeched with the melody of heavy metal and lacking oil, slamming shut like a tomb as the calm turned to total silence.
The hood came off, just before a rough hand pushed him inside a thick cell of concrete, shutting yet one further door closed and bolted behind him.
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"Three meals a day, no loud noises, no resisting, and no fucking magic."
Stunned by the sudden power of ambient light, eyes half-blinded by the removal of the black hood he'd had tied over his head: again, Taylor wasn't quite sure what any of that meant, exactly.
He soon found out, though soon is a relative sort of term meant in context to events transpiring, and not indicative of time.
Nothing happened for a long time, and Taylor sat in a rather bland sort of jail cell.
"Ah... so... I've been arrested?" Instead of screaming that question in a blind panicked frenzy, recklessly throwing himself at the thick steel door and a futile attempt to free himself, he spoke it quietly.
Well, not entirely quietly- not silent, but not screaming like he sort of wanted to. This was all a bit much for him, after all.
He wondered how long a goldfish would survive without someone changing its water, or feeding it.
Taylor wasn't sure, though he felt the question was likely a rather pitiful attempt at escapism.
"Hey." A voice whispered in his ear, and Taylor turned, surprised by the sudden noise.
Eyes wide in the dim light of his concrete cell, he found no one.
"Hey." The voice spoke again, this time in his other ear.
Madness, Taylor decided stoically. Only a few hours into what was likely some form of government solitary confinement and he'd already begun to go insane. For some reason he didn't find it all that surprising.
"You're not insane." The voice said. "You're actually taking this a lot better than most people they bring in."
Taylor didn't find that very convincing.
"It's true, most people break-down into a screaming fit by now."
Taylor wasn't sure if he should be proud, or deeply concerned.
"Relax, they brought you in as leverage. You're perfectly safe in here."
Taylor wasn't entirely convinced.
"Well it's true. That's why you're here, with all of us."
The voice in his mind was persistent. Enough so that Taylor finally decided to reply.
"Who are you?"
"Me? Oh, they call me 53 in here."
53? Taylor wasn't entirely sure why someone would have a number for a nickname, and much less a lame number like 53. There wasn't a tremendous amount of context in such a number, and he didn't really see any "they" to call anyone much of anything-
Oh, don't worry. They let us out to mingle a few times a week. It apparently keeps certain people from trying to kill the guards so often. Calms them down a bit."
Taylor pondered that. So much to take in, and all at once.
"I know, it's a pretty disconcerting sort of shift, but you'll get used to it. Probably... you learn to roll with the weirdness around here."
Taylor wasn't convinced.
"Why 53?" He finally asked. Aloud, he suddenly realized, unlike the rest of this conversation.
Was this all in his head?
"It's not all in your head." A voice replied, also aloud this time. It came in from the slots by the thick metal door at the end of his cell, muffled- but still drawing Taylor's attention as it continued. "And 53 is what they called me, before they brought me in."
Taylor approached the door to the hallway, peering at an angle to try and gleam some sort of sight outside the cell.
"You're never going to see anything like that." The voice laughed, ringing inside his head again. "I already told you: you're going to have to learn a few tricks, and roll with the weirdness around here."
"What? How?" Taylor asked, turning again to confirm one last time that there was truly no one else in the cell with him. "Who are you? How are you talking to me?"
"I already told you, I'm number 53."
"What does that mean?" Taylor whispered, anxiety growing as he stepped back from the door to turn about the room, eyes darting.
"That's what they called me, when the Government brought me in: Person of interest number 53." The voice replied, followed by a distant reply from the door- aloud and echoing, as if from far away. "But you can call me Sarah."