There’s a pounding in my head that I come to realize before anything else. Opening my eyes slowly, I groan as I lean forward, laying against a hard surface was hard on my back reminding me of the terror of bad sleeping positions. I pat around my body to feel for my glasses, though I cannot feel over any of my athleisure wear where my glasses could be. I realized very quickly that I didn’t have my phone either. Oddly enough, I awoke in a dimly lit room I am not too familiar with, and a quick pump of panic flowed through my veins as I was dumbfounded by where I was and what I was seeing. The concept of being kidnapped was a foreign thought, something to mull over during a late-night special on someone’s disappearance, and how I may fare in comparison if placed in that situation. To say at the very least it was always just an imaginary scenario and not one based in reality, when have I been taken?
Where was my daughter?
When I looked around the room, I noticed four others against the wall, slumped and passed out, a state I had assumed I was in myself until recently. We were each spread across the room from each other, an older man sat opposite of me, a younger girl on the left side of the room and another guy and girl leaned against each other on the right. Were they perhaps acquainted with each other? More importantly, did any of them realize whatever bizarre situation we were in? Was it better or worse I didn’t see my baby here?
Ever so cautious, I looked around apprehensively to ensure there wasn’t anything I was missing, and then upon looking around the room I first had to pick who to interact with first. Rising slowly, I decided taking my chances with the teenager was the best bet, wearing a hoodie that covered half of her face, if not for her sleeping position I probably wouldn’t have been able to get a good look at her yet from my spot. My hand reached out slowly, tapping her as she finally woke up, at first confused before a panicked look took over, realizing that panicked look was most likely also because of me,
“Wait wait! I’m just as confused as you are” my voice cut through the silence, and as I realized perhaps I didn’t need to get up to wake the others, as as soon as I spoke I can hear someone else shuffling about, waking up from their own sleep too.
I’m sure the teenager screaming in surprise also had something to do with it, “Where am I? Who are you? What happened?”.
The girl now that I got a look at her, couldn’t even be out of high school yet, with a glance I can make a guess on her passions, given the athletics shorts and windbreaker with tennis shoes perhaps she was coming from some kind of sport, a track and field kid?
“I don’t know, I woke up here too and-”
“What the hell is this?”
another one of their gruff voices cut through the silence, the elder man was leaning forward and rubbing the back of his head, removing the blue baseball cap for a moment revealing a receding hairline and I could better see the wrinkles on his face as his eyebrows furrowed. I don’t know how to describe it per se, other than the experience of life but the energy this man held, he was definitely…something. I think it’s wrong to judge people based on the image they elude, especially since appearances can be deceiving
I don’t want to say whether that necessarily bad or good, but given the options between the high schooler, and the two others he would’ve been my last pick to wake up, “Are you alright?” I decided to ask instead, rather than trying to come up with a jumbled response, he knew just as much as I did, and just because I was the first to awake doesn’t mean I need to take the initiative.
“Does it look like I’m alright?” he snipped, and though there seemed to be a bit of a temper behind his words, he wasn’t as angry with me as I thought he might be. I was inattentively aware of something else, half-hearted mutters and soft-spoken words, the other two were talking but not to anyone else.
I glanced towards them, realizing just as soon as I looked how they were mainly communicating. One or both of them may be audibly impaired, the sign language they used was much too quick and fluid for any new novice; though they weren’t talking extremely loud, the little they did say anyway, the male’s speech was a little less pronounced, some sounds blurred into others. Finally, the other woman looked at me, and my stomach knotted up only for a moment when I suddenly had their attention as if they have finally chosen to acknowledge the rest of the room, “Does anyone see a way out?”
It was a question I had thought of myself, but I choose to focus on others in pursuit of more eyes meaning more help, and silence took over the room uncomfortably because no one had an answer anyone wanted to that. there was a hazy light bulb hanging in the center of the room, above all of us that illuminated almost all the cemented walls and floor, there were no doors or windows and the air felt uncomfortably still. There was nothing in the room other than us, and I suspected all we had were the clothes on our backs, “Can anyone read what that says?” the older man suddenly asked, nodding with his head in my direction, I was confused for a moment, but the woman shakes her head no and the high schooler doesn’t so much as even look up, but I turn to fixate my eyes on what they’ve seen that I missed.
It was on the wall, spray-painted though there wasn’t the scent of paint nor aerosol, long since dried from who knows when someone did it, black letters that were almost too illegible to read in this light, but even without my glasses, they’re big enough for me to understand.
juego de supervivencia
“Survivor’s Game”