To Conquer Fear

[Mishka]

Quinn groaned loudly as he awoke, his hand flying up to his unruly, red hair to rest on his aching head. Man, he must've partied hard last night to wake up to a hangover as rampant as this one. It was odd though, as he could've sworn that he promised his girlfriend that he wouldn't drink or party anymore. Too risky, she said. She didn't want there to be any chances that he could cheat on her. Funny though, because he was cheating with her best friend. But hey, what she doesn't know won't hurt her. And there was no way in hell she'd find out about it.


Pulling his hand away from his hair, he was weirded out to discover that his fingers came away damp and sticky. For the first time this morning (afternoon? evening? night?), he forced his eyes open. The first thing he noticed was how damn bright the room was. Everything was white and illuminated, like he was in a hospital with no beds, tables, medicine, or doctors. The second thing he noticed was that his fingertips were covered in blood, which meant that his head was bleeding. What the hell happened last night? The final thing he noticed, and perhaps the most disturbing, was that there was a girl directly across from him with a delicate cheek sporting a nasty bruise.


Had he gotten into a fight with this strange girl? It didn't make much sense, especially seeing as how he'd never hit a girl. Perhaps he got to drunk to retain his morals. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temples (effectively smearing his blood on his face), desperately trying to remember just what the hell had happened last night. Bits and pieces came back to him. A struggle, a dark van, and the face of a strange man. Had he really been kidnapped? What the hell was going on here?


Opening his eyes and climbing to his feet, he found his legs to be weak and unstable. He leaned heavily against the wall as he looked around, growing angrier by the second. What kind of person kidnapped a guy in his twenties? It wasn't like his presence would appease a pedophile or anything. It frustrated Quinn that he didn't know what was going on, and he punched the wall angrily before storming over to the other girl who was in the room with him. "Who are you!" he demanded, a frantic look in his eyes.

 

[RiversEdge]

She hadn't felt this awful in a long time and that was really saying something. Not to say that she got into trouble a lot, but this...this was so bad. She wasn't even doing anything last night! She wasn't cliff diving, didn't practice parkour around the city, didn't go to a party, wasn't even taking a jog for pete's sake! She was just walking home minding her own business. Then.....then....god she couldn't think striaght. Her head was throbbing and she almost felt physically ill. Of course the first thing she tried to do was open her eyes but the light was so blinding that she was forced to close them. It made her headache worse.


There ws a van....okay she remembered a bit. There was a guy who tried to snatch her. But, really, she hadn't lived in the city for this long for that to work. She distinctly remembered being able to punch someone and follow through with her tazer. Then there was a stinging sensation...they must've drugged her. Matty winced as she felt her forehad and cheek. They must've drugged her after she got punched in the face that is. Slowly, she let her eyes adjust to the light. Suddenly feeling her ears getting assaulted by loud stomps heading in her direction. She hadn't even noticed anyone had been there. By the looks of things, it was guy not much older than her. But she could hardly focus on the details when the volume of his voice grated against her eardrums.


"Fucking Christ!" She held her hands over her ears and massaged the sides of her head. Matty looked at him with a pinched expression on her face. "Lower your voice...god damn it...why am I even here?" She muttered, trying to think. If she ever found the person who had the nerve to drug her.... "Give me a second...." She took in a long breath and waited for the ringing to stop. "Matty." She said eventually. There wasn't any harm in gving her name. He seemed like he was dealing with the same thing she was....essentially.

 

[Mishka]

He hadn't meant to yell, but his voice reverberated against the walls whether he wanted it to our not. For a moment, he actually felt bad. The young woman had clutched her head and cowered against the wall when he yelled, and she seemed just as confused and off put as he did. She asked the same question that he had wondered when he'd first opened his eyes. Why were they here? Why was it that some sick bastard had chosen the two of them for whatever game he was going to play? Quinn could understand why the girl had been chosen. She was young and skinny, her arms thin too which meant she was probably weak as well. But he still didn't understand why he was chosen.


"I-I... I don't know why either of us are here..." he said exasperatedly, beginning to pace back and forth from one end of the room to the other. He had waited until after Matty had spoken to say what was on his mind. "I'm Quentin, but everyone calls me Quinn. But Matty, we need to find our way out of here before whoever brought us here decides that he needs to come back for something. What if he wants to hurt us? What if we're going to be tortured to death." Quinn's pitch rose nearly an octave as he imagined the terrible ways that they could be murdered in this eerily white room. His breathing was turning into hyperventilation, and he was on the edge of a panic attack.


This time as he paced he stuck to the perimeter of the room, running his fingers along the wall to find something that could be a hidden door or something. "Cmon, Matty. Help me. There has got to be a door in here somewhere," he cried desperately, attempting to push at any sort of indentation he could feel on the wall. He couldn't take much more of this mindless searching, and after a few minutes he suddenly stopped. Quinn's eyes focused on the only source of color in the room that wasn't coming from him or the girl who was there with him. High up on the wall, almost hidden in the corner, there was a slow blinking red light. "Is that a camera?" he asked aloud, but mostly to himself. This sick bastard was filming them.

 

[RiversEdge]

She wanted to say 'nice to meet you' but it didn't really seem appropriate at the moment. At least not when Quinn was losing his cool like this. She inhaled deeply before exhaling and carefully rose to a standing position. It wasn't like she knew him well enough to tell him how to handle things. But it would be for the best if he just calmed down. It wasn't like she wasn't anxious herself, of course she was. She didn't know where she was or why she was there. There was nothing to extraordinary about her besides the fact that she did a lot of physical activity and extreme sports. They were in america, so there were plenty of people who did that. Hell, there were plently of people who did that around the world.


Matty shook her head, glancing around the room. The chances of there being a door they could just walk out of were slim to none. It couldn't be that easy. But she walked around a bit anyway. There was nothing.....nothing easy to find at least. Her eyes glided over to Quinn when she heard his observation. Her mouth quirked into a smile. "Well, I'll be damned." There was no humor in her tone. Her chest felt tight as her eyes lingered on the light. Matty flexed her fingers and walked closer. There a a tenseness in her shoulders and back. As calm as she looked her nerves were fraying. She didn't like feeling trapped. She didn't like not being in control. She didn't like not knowing what was going on.


"I bet they can probably hear us too huh?" She posed the question, but it wasn't meant to be answered. "You know, it's not doing much to just watch us try and figure things out. Why don't you just explain yourself? Not that I mind waiting. But really.....watching us walk around clueless like this. It's got to be dull. Not to mention freaky." She ended that note with a certain edge in her voice. Matty shoved her hands in her pockets, staying grounded.

 

[Mishka]

Quinn watched Matty as she navigated around the room with a sort of grace that he could never possess. He was reckless, easily angered, and a nervous wreck when confined. He had no experience with controlling himself, and where Matty showed emotional control, Quinn showed disarray. When she commented that the person taping them probably could here them as well, he felt dumb for not being able to come to that same conclusion himself. He was too busy freaking out to be able to chill out for a second and actually think of a way to bargain with their capturer.


Matty was right next to him, and he could feel the contained anger radiating off of her. He wanted to speak first, threaten whoever locked them in this room to either release them or face the wrath of the people who would be searching for him. Quinn didn't have many friends, but being in a gang meant that if he went missing for too long, people would come searching for him. He didn't owe any money as of yet, but he had a payment due by the end of the week. If it wasn't in, then he was certain that the doors to this place would be blown down. If it weren't too hidden at least...


There was an awkward silence that followed Matty's snappy words. He wanted to butt in but part of him was hoping that the man would respond. After a bit though, he began to grow impatient and was just about to speak up when a sinister laugh filled the room. It came from everywhere, it came from nowhere. The sound surrounded them yet there was no visible place that it could be coming from. It only made sense that the speaker were in the walls, but even that wouldn't explain how the sound seemed to permeate every air molecule in the room.


"A good attempt at being clever, Matty, but I'd like to remind you of who's in charge here. I know all, I see all, I hear all. During your stay here, I am your God. Beyond the hidden door in this room, lies each of your worst nightmares. I admit, I could've done this in a more straightforward manner, but where's the fun in that? The horrors beyond each door will grow progressively more terrifying as you progress until you reach the end. At that point I'll let you out, I promise. I assure you to remain calm, Quinn. As I assure you that anger will not allow you to conquer your fears."


There was another laugh, shorter this time, and then they were plunged into utter silence. The room vibrated slowly, as a small area of the wall slid away to reveal what looked to be a dark corridor. Part of Quinn wanted to run into the new space, eager to escape. But a larger part of him forced him to remain still. "This is sick! You can't keep us here and play games with us like this!" Quinn punched the wall angrily with all the strength he could muster, then whimpered in pain. His knuckles were split and blood was now oozing down his hand. "What do we do?"

 

[RiversEdge]

"You have a shitty personality. You....have a nasty God-complex." She said after a moment of shocked silence. "Is this a Saw movie or something you sicko?" She laughed, but there was anxiouness hidden in her tone. She could hardly believe that someone had the balls to do something as fucked up as this....and for what? "You trying to test if we're afraid of the dark or something?" He must've done a piss poor job of researching their fears because she has never in her life been afraid of the dark. Just who did the hell did this guy think he was anyway?


No one ever dictated what she could and could not do. Freedom....was so important to her. Whether she was rewarded or suffered the consequences of her actions....they were her choices to make. In the end, as long as she was free do to what she wanted that was all that mattered to her. There were many moments where that was all she had. But now she was being told that he was her God. That was rich...utter...bullshit. She was tempted to sit down and refuse to do anything. She was patient. She could wait for days just out of spite, see how entertained he would be then.


But.....she was smart. Matty was no Eintsein but she had a decent head on her shoulders. She probably could really sit and stew in her own stubborn will and refuse to go any further. But in the end....it would make her weak. There was no food or water in sight. She had too much she wanted to do to ruin it by being defiant. Matty took a deep breath and sighed, smile looking more relaxed then before. "I don't know about you...." Hey eyes traveled to Quinn before facing the corridor again. ".....but staying here. I don't think it'll do me any good." Her steps radiated a practiced sense of ease. There was a calm about the way she carried herself.


As she passed the threshold of the bright room she was silent. Her sneakers helped to muffle the sound of her feet a bit. Matty was still pissed. But the adrenaline rush, that was a very familiar feeling. It was almost soothing in a strange way. She was alert, gaze shifting from side to side, nerves stretched taunt. But it wasn't a new feeling. It made her feel....better. She didn't want to use the word excited, it made her feel sick. So far there was nothing out of the ordinary except for an extremely unsettling silence. 'Figures something like this would happen to me. Maybe I really am the best candidate for this.' She thought this to herself with dry amusement.


Nothing ever really came easy to her. From beginning to end she had always had to perserver. Everything she had was because she worked for it. She stopped asking why nothing was ever fair for her years ago. Matty chuckled. This time....she was going to have to work through something real shitty wasn't she?

 

[Mishka]

Quinn didn't understand Matty, not one bit at all. She seemed so cool, calm, and collected, focusing on her sarcasm rather than freaking out like he was. Her actions drew a certain level of respect from him and he unconsciously wanted to try and be more like her. Of course that would never happen, Quinn had never once in his life been capable of keeping calm in stressful situations. He was a violent young man, more focused on dishing out threats than being levelheaded and trying to think up solutions to problems that actually made sense. After all, he wouldn't be able to stab anyone if he couldn't see them.


So Quinn made a mental decision to let Matty be the decision maker. If they were out in the open world, he never would make a decision like that. Appearance was everything to him, and he'd be damned if word got out that a woman make his choices for him. But this was different, and he knew that inside of here, where they would need to work together to get out of here in one piece, he felt safer placing things in her hand rather than having them in his own. For that reason, when she turned to go into the dark corridor he followed, despite the feeling in his gut that it was unsafe.


The door slid closed behind the pair as they entered, submerging them in the complete darkness that he found fairly odd. He got over his fear of the dark long ago, when his brothers thought it hilarious to lock him in the dark basement for several days while claiming that it was haunted. Fucked up, sure. But it certainly forced Quinn to get over that childish fear. The odd thing was not that it was dark, but the fact that the man said he'd researched them carefully but was putting them in a situation that neither of them appeared to be afraid of. At least until an earthly glow from underneath their feet illuminated the room.


"This is weird as fuck," he said quietly, this time his words actually directed at Matty rather than just a thought said aloud. However, it was like his words awoke the room, because suddenly the wallpaper began to squirm as if wanting to be free. Suddenly, insects of every kind seemed to be set free from whatever was holding them back before. And they were headed. Straight. At. Them. It was a horrifying sight really, even for someone who didn't have a huge fear of bugs or anything like that. The sound of the bugs scuttling over each other to get to the only humans in sight was disgusting and certainly wouldn't vanish from Quinn's mind anytime soon.


"Shit, shit! What do we do?" The bugs swarmed at there feet, and Quinn tried desperately to kill them by stomping on them, but it was a pointless effort. After all, there seemed to be millions of the bugs and they were still pouring from the bugs. "They just keep coming..."

 

[RiversEdge]

She hated bugs so damn much. "Shit is right....holy-what the hell!" Matty was covering her mouth at this point to make sure the little demons wouldn't be flying into places they didn't belong. She wouldn't say she was....afraid of bugs. She was more creeped out by them. There was a strong need to kill them that struck her whenever she saw them. This was more than unnerving. It was repulsive. Where the hell did anyone find this many bugs anyway? If she ever saw the freak that got her into this mess she just might kill him. She ears were ringing badly.


"I'm just going to keep going forward. There has to be and end to the corridor. Stomping on them is just going pile them up at this rate." Matty couldn't even turn her head towards him. There were just so many bugs swarming around them that she could hardly see anything. She pushed forward, both hands over her mouth, one step at a time. She was trying not to think about how many showers she was going to have to take to feel clean again. Maybe mister mad scientist would provide them with hot showers and a full course meal after this. Yeah, in her dreams maybe.


She hoped Quinn was still with her. They may be strangers but they were in this together whether they wanted it or not. She would do her best to see them both through this. Not that she was going to lead him by the hand, but she would watch his back. He seemed pretty....pretty wired, in an anxious kind of way. Other than that, she hadn't had the time to really examine what kind of person he was. Well, besides getting angry. That was pretty understandable though. Maybe that was it? Maybe they were taken because their first reactions weren't to get scared. Quinn freaked out and got angry. She took in stride and got frustrated.


Eventually the insect were flying out of her way as she walked, since she wasn't going horribly fast. The first glimpse of wall she saw was a good sign. Now she just had to find a door. She carefully moved to the left, squinting for any details that might give something away. She hoped to God there was door and that freak wasn't going to keep them in there for a set amount of time. "Hey Quinn, you seeing anything?" Her eyes had adjusted to the lack of lighting so it was easier to see. But having another set of eyes always helped.