Louhi

It feels like someone took a battering ram to the inside of my skull, my limbs heavy as I regain consciousness, though I don’t dare open my eyes. I’m not prepared to let my captors know I’m back in the land of the living. Instead, I allow my other senses to speak.

The air is thick and damp against my skin, not wet, but humid. It’s warm wherever I am, bordering on hot. It smells of tepid, stale piss and sweat, and I resist the urge to bring a hand up to my nose to block the smell or curl my lip in disgust. My mouth is dry from a combination of the drugs and the cloth gag. There’s a faint metallic taste that lingers on my tongue from where I bit my cheek at some point.

My hearing is what screams at me the loudest, nearly overpowering my other senses. Heavy metal music blares through the speakers, filling the space of wherever I am, contributing to the throbbing in my head. Under drastically different conditions, I’d be jamming out, head-banging along to whatever song is playing, preferably smashed against the barricade of a festival or concert. From what I can make out through the haze of the drugs I’ve been pumped full of, it sounds like something I’d enjoy.

When the song ends, I catch the brief resonance of voices not far from where I lie on a hard surface. Another loud song booms, and I risk a deep, centering breath as I attempt to focus on the sounds beyond. I curse internally when the music prevents me from making out the content of any conversation, but based on the register, they’re deep and male and not all that far away.

Despite the music, the thumping cadence of footsteps suddenly reaches my ears, growing louder. The footfalls give way to the grating of metal scraping against something hard and unyielding. Concrete, maybe?

A second later, something solid connects with the soft skin of my side, and I deduce that someone kicked me. Kusipää. Cunt.

“Wake up,” a man growls.

There’s no longer any reason to keep my eyes shut, so I blink a few times, the room coming into focus as a vicious scowl forms on my face. Room would be a generous word for where I am. There’s no other way to describe it: it’s a cell.

A moldy-looking substance covers the dank concrete surrounding me, climbing toward the ceiling like a revolting form of ivy. The only light is from the hallway, but I wouldn’t need light to know there’s nothing in here with me. No bed, no toilet, no sink, no cellmate. Just me and four concrete walls. A far cry from my cozy bedroom that I’ll likely never see again, not even after I bust out of this joint.

I may as well make the most of my time here, though. While the conditions aren’t ideal, fun can be made anywhere—especially my version.

The wanker rams a booted foot into me a second time, and I grunt as I roll over to protect my vulnerable side. Glaring up at him from where I lie prone on the floor, a string of insults and Finnish curses fly from my mouth, but they’re closer to unintelligible noise due to the gag.

Fantasies of bloodletting, violence, and mayhem fill my mind, daring me to dip into the pool of violence where I prefer to exist. What I wouldn’t give for just thirty seconds alone with this äpärä. Bastard.

His dodgy chuckle bounces off the walls around me as if he could determine exactly what I just said. Catching me by surprise—which is not easy to do—he squats down and slices through the zip tie holding my ankles together.

No matter how badly I want to kick this arsehole in the balls, I don’t dare move my freed legs. Though, that’s mostly because they still feel like they weigh eighty pounds apiece. Despite my lethargy, I don’t know what they plan to do with me, so I study his next move. I’m nothing if not patient, even if the need to make him bleed is threatening to eat me alive.

He proceeds to snip through the plastic holding my wrists together in front of my body. The apprehension bubbling through me doesn't reach my face, though. I’ve spent years working to hide my emotions behind an irremovable blank mask.

My eyes dart to the second man in the room, who hasn’t yet spoken, as he steps over to the entrance of my cell where he waits for his mate. The man beside me slaps my face in a way that would have me snorting smoke if I had been born a dragon. In a sense, I suppose I was; my scales just happen to be invisible.“Welcome to Ex-I, sweetheart,” he drawls, in a distinctly American accent. I clench my jaw, and he flees my cell as if he’s on fire, likely knowing that if he lingered a second longer, I’d do much more than breathe smoke.

The barred door to my cage shuts with a reverberating clang, sending ripples through my brain, and I crane my neck, locking eyes with the two masked men clad in army uniforms on the other side. Yanking the gag from my mouth, I wad the cloth in my closed fist to keep for later, since it doesn’t appear that this five-star government resort will be providing me a roll of toilet paper. The smile I give them through the bars is malicious, unnatural, feral even. It’s an expression that promises death.

And I always keep my promises.

I wake sometime later, the drugs in my system to blame—or to thank—for my ability to have fallen back asleep. Much to my chagrin, I find that I’m still in the cell and the same deathcore music thrums loudly through the building. Carefully, I sit up, trying to control my movements so that I don’t nauseate myself by moving too quickly. The last thing I need to do is puke in my new home. I doubt my captors would be so kind as to clean it for me.

Once I’m upright, I scoot my way to the back wall to prop myself against it. The lighting is low, and I glance up, noticing there’s a single unlit light bulb dangling from the ceiling. I’m not sure if it’s burned out or simply not turned on, but it doesn’t matter. There’s no switch on any of the walls, so it’s controlled by a panel elsewhere, assuming it functions at all.

The same offensive smell from earlier lingers, and I breathe through my mouth to avoid making myself sick. I shouldn’t be surprised that there’s no window to open to access fresh air or sunlight.

I’m unsure how long I’ve been here, but if I had to guess, it’s been less than twenty-four hours.

Suddenly, shrieks pierce through the heavy guitar riffs and harsh vocals of the metal music, that blare like a siren warning of an impending storm, coming from somewhere beyond the concrete walls of my castle.

Alright, so I’m not alone here. It’s not as if I thought I’d be the only prisoner in devil-knows-where, but knowledge is power and paramount to my survival in this situation.

The lights flicker in the hallway beyond the barred door to my cell, giving off a spooky ambiance. I’m sure that’s by design, but unfortunately for my jailers, I’ve always been a sucker for the eerie, preternatural parts of life.

Another scream slices through the music and I’m reminded of the earlier arsehole’s parting words, “Welcome to Ex-I, sweetheart.”What the bloody hell is Ex-I? Where is it? And most importantly, what the fuck happens here?

‍