Blindfolded- Circus and Daeya [ Adaptation Two ]

[Daeya]

The background thread can be found

here, please use this as a reference.

This is a version that Circus and myself have created off of the base- the idea is not taken.
​

 

[Circus]

The clock read three o’clock, the sound of a coo-coo clock reverberated along the walls of a disorderly apartment, drowning out the sound of shuffling feet along hardwood floor. Every day at three, the day’s mail would drop through the rusty mail slot. As the man shuffling his feet arrived at the door, a stack of mail sat in a crude pile. The same name appeared on every letter: Julian Redman.


“Damn, not another one of these invitations,” Julian picked up a letter from the pile and tossed it onto the doorway table. Over a dozen similar looking letters cluttered the surface space. The grey letter had a date, time, and location on the front:


2134 North Shore Avenue


December 12th, 4:00 pm, 2014


The letters had been coming for weeks. At first it was amusing, now it was borderline harassment.


Julian looked up from the table into the mirror. He needed a shave and a haircut. It’d been a good while since he left the apartment. Several days without shaving had left a layer of scruff on his face. It had been days since he’d last showered as well. A hand pulled the skin under his eyes, revealing streaks of red under his hazel orbs. Signs of age could be seen amidst the brown hair that teased his brow. Specks of grey were visible in his beard too; it made Julian look years older than his actual age. The man sighed at the sight, scratched his growing beard and returned to the computer he was sitting before the mail came.


The date read December 12 on the bottom right hand of the computer screen. It was an hour from the appointed time on the letter. Julian scratched his scruff again in thought, leaning back in his chair. “What the hell,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. He searched for directions to the address, grabbed his coat and left.


It was far enough not to walk so Julian opted for a cab. The yellow vehicle stopped in front of an apartment. It looked respectable enough from the outside: fairly clean, decent neighborhood and no obvious signs of danger. Julian paid the driver and walked towards the appointed address. He raised his hand to knock on the door but opted for the doorbell at the last moment. A sharp prick made Julian reflexively pull his hand from the doorbell, revealing a drop of crimson. The man sucked on the digit to stop the bleeding. “The hell was that?” The glare he gave the door was full of blame.


Footsteps fell from the other side of the door, first hard, then soft; echoing. The footsteps boomed and carried and melted; like drums, slow and steady. Julian’s eyes grew heavy and his knees weakened. He fell to the ground trying to grasp for the door handle. The door creaked open. On the other side was darkness.


Julian woke on the floor; it was cold against his face. There was something covering his eyes. The man sat, hands fumbling behind his head to remove the black silken cloth that fell into his lap. His eyes revealed a room, an apartment from the look of it. There was a bed. On that bed was a woman.


Julian looked around trying to adapt and understand the situation he was in. From one side to the other, he swept the room with his eyes. He made eye contact with the woman.


“What the fuck?” escaped from his befuddled lips. He stood and took a step towards the mystery woman.

 

[Daeya]

Day 34


These walls keep getting smaller and smaller- the angled dimensions less precise.. I can feel this cubic world imploding. This stone prison, where I see no life 24/7, has become my home until I'm a bag of bones slumped against the wall. Congratulations, Ara, you're hereby sentenced to life in prison. The life that I left has no definition any more. I can't remember my family, nor where I lived. I don't know where I am, or even who I used to be. Instead, I'm forced to survive with the little information I know. My name is Arabella Brown. I've been kidnapped.




Ara sat on the floor, her eyes shut while reciting her mental diary entry- the only thing that kept her sane in this small apartment room. A bed lay in front of her, as well as a mirror, and a door that she had never seen opened. She sighed, walking to that little sheen slate mounted on the stone wall, glancing at her appearance. Large brown eyes bore back at her- laced with tiny red lines in the white space between her eyelashes and her iris; a telltale sign of no sleep. She raised her bruised and raw hands to her face, mushing it up before falling back onto the cheap bed, exhausted sigh escaping from her pale lips. Eventually, Ara slipped into a deep lull.

"Move!"




A voice echoed throughout the stone room- jolting the young adult up from her state. She frantically sprawled off the bed- only to be replaced by a limp figure plopped down in her spot. Regardless, that jelly-like body rolled down onto the concrete floor, landing with a satisfying thump. Ara rose from her position behind the safety of the mattress, to the figure's side.

The lights had been turned out for the night, so she poked one of her long and skinny finger's in their face. No reply.

Time passed, and Ara had taken to on top of the bed, staring down at the stranger occasionally. Finally, after exactly 45203 seconds, the figure came alive. She shot her head down from the ceiling and to her left, watching as two hands raised up to their eyes and brought down some kind of cloth. Soon, the lamp flickered on after detecting movement, and she found herself bathed in artificial light.

“What the fuck?"

Ara laughed at the obscene language, a fluttering sound escaping from her two lips. She immediately covered it, however, as a man staggered a step towards her. Ara shrunk away defensively, placing her hands in a protective state outside her body. She eyed him carefully, but didn't lower the protection from her core until Ara deemed him not a threat. That took a while, indeed, but eventually her hands perched atop her hips.

"Nice to meet you too, stranger that was mysteriously dropped off in my prison twelve hours ago. Before you can get smart and start asking questions- I'll spare you the original thought and say you were kidnapped. And put here. Let that sink in for a minute."
​

 

[Circus]

“‘Prison’… ‘Kidnapped’?” The words sounded foolish in his mouth. “Yeah, right,” Julian walked toward the slate door and tried it. Push and pull, the door did not move. He tried harder, twisting the knob like a dagger in the back. Then he beat it, pounding his fists against the door, “Hey! Let me out!” he cried. Another pound, then a kick; each attack made a muffled thud, a barely audible sound.By the time he had stopped, the man was sweaty and pain radiated from his hands. It was futile.


Julian turned to the woman, “Let me out of here,” he commanded. He took a threatening step forward, anger seeming to rise from his body like steam. His hand curled into a fist. Julian had never hit anyone before, least of all a woman, yet anger and stress can breed actions not thought before possible. His blood was hot and the words coming from his mouth were foreign, as if another person was speaking.


No, this was all foreign. The letters mailed to him, the apartment he was sent to, this woman, it was not real. He took another step forward, then another. Julian grabbed the woman by the shoulders and squeezed. He looked deep in her eyes, red and full of fear. Something wasn’t right, but he pressed anyway. “Don’t make me force you," he said through gritted teeth.

 

[Daeya]

"Not going to work, stranger. Trust me, I've tried every trick in the book. When they give me food- I try to run after them. When they check on me, I try to grab their attention. Nothing. Save your breath, and your energy. "

Ara said, barely lifting an eyebrow as the bedraggled man made a struggling attempt to make the bulky door move. She tilted her head instead, taking in the view of her new comrade. The man was disheveled- a few weeks-old stubble growing on his chin and hair unkempt, as well as those crazy blood-shot eyes. She made a humph sound, as if to be condescending in a way. At least Ara knew how to keep her image well-kept given the situation. She rolled her eyes as he banged on the door, but her attitude quickly dissipated as the man took to threatening her.

His hands were suddenly locked on Ara's shoulders, mad eyes staring deeply into hers. The girl tried to look away, replenish her attitude, but instead found herself struggling to even breathe. Nobody had ever touched her since she had gotten here- so when his fingers clenched her shoulders, Arabella felt an electricity jolt throughout her, and she suddenly felt the most scared she had ever been in the few weeks she had been there.

After a moment of quivering, Arabella regained her wit.

"Do you think I would if I could? I'm in the same situation as you are. Nobody is forcing eachother to do anything. Let go of me!"

Ara quickly lost her cool, as his grip tightened and gaze intensified. She raised her knee to his abdomen, striking him briefly but with enough force to escape his grip.​

 

[Circus]

Julian reeled back from the knee strike. He fell to the floor clutching his stomach and gasping for air. He looked back at the woman with a gaze of newfound awareness. The way she looked back at him was that of a victim, the same as him. The man shuffled back against the wall, hugging knees to chest. Realization set in: he was a prisoner.


Anger left his body, replaced with helplessness instead. He didn’t know what to say to the woman, his actions were embarrassing and off-putting. Julian buried his face. “Sorry,” he muttered to the woman. It was the best he could do. What was there to say?


There were no tears, but the feeling was in the air, palpable and distinct. It all seemed so hopeless, so impossible. The endless stream of "why" filled his head like static. Was there any reason at all?