Cold. Hard. Rough. That certainly does not feel like how a bed was supposed to be. Fluttering his eyes open, Elliot scanned his surroundings. As he supported his upper body with his elbows to sit up from the cold metal floor, his vision slowly got clearer. There were bars all around him. His legs were tied to a chain.
It finally clicked in his mind; he was trapped in a cage.
Using his hands to drag himself closer to one side, he scanned the area outside him. In every angle he looked, the view was completely unfamiliar to him. Everything was dark. The ceiling, the walls and the floor. The place was spacious and had nothing in them, except himself.
He glanced at his body. The clothes he was wearing were his. However, more importantly, Elliot had no idea where he was. He had no recollection on how he ended up there. As much as he tried to recall what he was doing before, his mind could not think of anything.
The chains made a sound everytime Elliot moved an inch. The clanking of the metal echoed through the atmosphere. No matter how hard he tried to break free from the chains, it was inevitable. They were locked solid to his ankles.
"Hey."
A voice emerged. Based on the ray of light surrounding the outer part of the cage, there was only one light that was lit up. Elliot could not see who the owner of the voice was. Then, a pair of legs appeared in Elliot's sight.
"You woke up sooner than I thought."
A man revealed himself from the shadows. He seemed short and petite. The man walked towards Elliot and stopped right in front him. The man looked down on him and had his hands behind his back.
Elliot's throat was as dry as a bone. That was the result of not drinking water for what seemed to be a few hours. He had to clear his throat aggressively before he could start talking.
"Who are you?" although his voice was still hoarse, Elliot continued talking. "And, and where am I?"
Instead of answering, the man went back into the shadows and came out again within a few seconds. This time, he had brought a wooden ladderback chair with him. Adjusting the seat to be right in front of Elliot, the man took a seat. He crossed his arms and legs and smiled at Elliot.
There was something about his smile that did not seem... sincere. The corner of his lips stretched widely but his eyes did not flinch an inch at all.
"Hey.. Answer me..! Where the hell am I?" Elliot demanded, fuming.
He slammed his hands on the bars repeatedly. Elliot had enough. Being in a place he had no idea of, being kidnapped in this day and age, he had enough. Frustrated, screams and shouts came out of his lips as he continued demanding to know where he was.
As if the person was a statue, the man outside did not react at all. His smile slowly disappeared. His eyes grew huge as he continued to stare at Elliot.
"Oi," Elliot stopped his tracks to look at the man who spoke up. "Do you not remember me?"
The man leaned forward closer to the bars. He stared straight through Elliot's eyes. The man's facial features was slowly becoming evident for Elliot. However, his face still did not ring a bell. He slowly shook his head, careful not to cut off eye contact from him.
"I don't even know your name," Elliot glared at the man in front of him.
"Hmm," the man leaned back as he began to be in a deep thought.
While he was in a trance of thoughts, Elliot managed to hear a few words from him. He mentioned something that he might have given Elliot too much. He also kept muttering something about losing a memory. Other than that, Elliot was not able to catch it. Breaking his train of thoughts, the man shifted his eyes back at Elliot.
"It's me, Aidan. Remember me now?"
He tried to brainstorm for the name Aidan and whether he had heard or seen the name before. Nothing rang a bell. No matter how many times he murmured the name, nothing came to his mind. Elliot shook his head again to indicate that he still did not remember the man and the name Aidan.
Hearing no response from the man called Aidan, Elliot looked up. His eyebrows were furrowed together. His lips were pouting. He was breathing a little faster than usual. He looked upset. Aidan got up and went back into the shadows again. This time, he did not come back out. Elliot had kept shouting for his name but there were no sign of that man.
Whether it had been hours or only minutes, Elliot had no idea how long Aidan had been gone for. Every second of the whole place to himself was a complete torture. Starved and dehydrated, Elliot laid against the bars helplessly.
With no source of light from the outside world, Elliot stared into the void. He wished that Aidan would come back. Although he was the one who kidnapped Elliot, he would rather have a company than be alone.
Elliot's vision had gotten better and he was able to get a better sight of his surroundings. With his brain and eyes, his only answer was that he might be in the basement of Aidan's house.
With all the time on his side, millions of thoughts ran through Elliot's mind. His brain made new questions every minute with no signs of stopping.
Why did Aidan kidnap him? Was he planning to eat Elliot? Would Elliot be sold to other people he would not know? Why him? How did he met Aidan? Did they really know each other before all this? Why would Aidan abduct him?
So many questions, none answered. Elliot could not find any answers to any of his questions. His brain could not stop. He kept thinking about his job, his pets, his family and friends. Elliot wondered if they were worried about him.
If he had been missing for more than a day, they would notice, right? However, what if they did not care? What if they did not bother to search for him and just continued on their lives? What if?
He could not stand the silence. He hated how he could not see and hear anything from the outside. He could not stand the isolation. Being all alone in that room had been messing up with his mind.
He had been seeing unusual things. Vines were winding around every bar and flowers were popping out from them. Bubbles were floating in the cage from nowhere. He thought he had seen his friends outside the cage, calling out his name.
However, there were nothing. The bars were not wrapped in vines, there were no bubbles and his friends were not even there in the first place.
He rose up to his feet and started to make a fuss. Screaming and shouting, Kicking and punching the bars. He did not care that the rough metal chain kept scrapping hard against his skin. He did not care that his ankles started to bleed because of it.
He called out to Aidan; still to no avail. He kept shrieking. His tears were formed on his lower eyelids. His hands aggressively wiped them away. But it did not stop the tears from appearing more. The more he wiped them away, the more they appear.
"Aidan, let me out! I wanna go home! Aidan! Let me out, godammit!" He bellowed at the top of his lungs.
After running around within the cell to vociferate in every direction, his legs surrendered. His hands held him up against the ground. He faced the hard cold floor. Tears kept falling, plopping down onto the ground. In that moment, only one thing was in his mind. His cries got louder as he kept thinking; he was really going to die in there.
"Elliot, I'm back!" a voice called out from the shadows.
He looked up and saw Aidan popped out. As if it had not just lost its energy then, his legs sprinted toward where Aidan stood. His hands held the bars for his dear life as he stared at the man outside him.
He noticed the man smelled.. different. There was a slight pungent scent that itched his nose whenever he took a whiff of the air near him. Aidan did not smell like that before.
"Where were you? I've been, I've been calling you for so long!" He screeched in desperation.
If eyes could be ice cold, that would exactly describe Aidan's eyes. Although his eyes looked as if they did not hold any emotion at all, his lips smiled widely.
"Were you waiting for me?" Aidan placed his hand on his chest. "Aw, Elliot.. I was out collecting food for you."
The pair shifted their attention on Aidan's hand, holding a red plastic bag. As he stretched out his arm to hand it to Elliot through the gaps of the bars, the latter snatched it right away. He rummaged the bag and found only fruits. Apples, grapes, strawberries, rambutans and more. He immediately devoured the fruits in a second.
He did not care that there were only fruits. It was no doubt that Elliot was starving. He just wanted to fill up his stomach. His stomach had been growling nonstop. One after another, he finished all of them in a speed he had never done before.
"Wow, you're really hungry," Aidan uttered, staring at him eating like an animal.
Fruits were gone in a second. Before Elliot knew it, there were no more fruits left in the bag. He looked up to see the man outside staring at him. Aidan still had the same exact expression. Did not change one bit. His hands were placed behind his back.
"Hey, Elliot.. Do you remember me now?" Aidan asked with anticipation.
Elliot swallowed the last bit of the mango before glancing at Aidan.
Just then, a vision appeared in front of his eyes. Aidan was smiling and looking up at Elliot. They were walking together, arm in arm. Everything was blurry but he was able to identify Aidan facial features. Aidan was talking but it was muffled. The pair stopped in their tracks and they were standing in front of a river.
"River?" his thoughts slipped out of his mouth.
The stance of Aidan changed as he inched closer to Elliot. "You saw a river? The place where we went for our date?"
Aidan beamed as soon as he realized that Elliot had just remembered a memory of them together. Before Elliot could utter another word, Aidan rushed to the door of the cage. Sticking his hands in the pockets to reach for the keys, Aidan quickly tried to unlock the gate.
As soon as Aidan had unlocked the gate of the cage, he let himself in and went straight towards Elliot. Kneeling in front of him, Aidan stretched out his arms and wrapped them around Elliot. The latter, on the other hand, was too preoccupied to notice that Aidan had gone inside the cage and was hugging him.
Elliot kept replaying the scene he saw in his vision. Were they really on a date? How did he forget that? It looked like they were having fun together. Aidan looked quite adorable from his vision. But how could that person be the same as the one right in front of him?
The only thing in his mind at that moment was the scene. The warm sunlight glowing above them, the wet grass they stepped on and the fishes they saw in the river. He did not want to think that it happened. However, as much as he tried to convince himself, he could not deny the truth. Everything was real.