Thank you so much for the kind words! I’m glad you enjoyed it. I really love how much your prompt inspired me to write and to get out of my own comfort zone (I do like horror, but I usually shy away from the super dark and gory stuff). I’m looking forward to doing more prompts here on Lemmy after a bit of a break from this one :)

5 Outsider

“Do you need stimulation?” The question rips me from the trancelike state the highway has gotten me into.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you bored when you’re in the back? Will you be less prone to disruptive behavior if you have something to pass the time?” He’s putting his book back into the glove box.

“I mean, I guess I’d be grateful if I had a distraction from”—I gesticulate around the van—“everything.”

The man hums in thought. Man. Now there’s a big question mark I’d love to be able to ignore. No matter how often I tell myself that I hallucinated back at our last stop, the image of nerve endings dangling from that lady’s eyes is glued to my mind.

“Um . . .” What did he say he wanted to be called again? “Seventy-Eight?”

“Hm?” He was looking out the window in boredom like any other regular human. I keep bouncing wildly back and forth between feeling stupid and scared shitless.

“I know this is a silly question, but . . . okay, I don’t have a clever way to ask this that won’t make me sound stupid. Are you human?”

He gives me his signature chuckle. That’s a totally human reaction. Or great mimicry. This is dumb. “That is a silly question. I already told you what they call me. You just forgot most of it because of the way your . . . data retention works. Your brain.” Except I didn’t. Part of it has been living in my head rent-free.

“Designation Inversion,” I say automatically. “Outsider Seventy-Eight. So that’s the name of your . . . species or what? Outsider?” This conversation isn’t happening.

I barely catch his shrug from the corner of my eye.

“That’s not a thing.” I don’t know who I’m trying to convince. “Like, that’s not real.”

“I suppose that’s why they say ‘Outsider’? From outside of what they designate as real?” He offers, clearly amused by the conversation. I get the distinct impression that he doesn’t care for or necessarily understand our form of classification.

I feel very small. My mind struggles to wrap itself around a vague concept of exactly how much.

I can’t accept this.

I saw my twisted finger.

If the proof I’ve gotten so far isn’t enough, then what would it take?

Would I be as confused if I’d paid more attention in epistemology? I chuckle, lose control, and have to slow down to stay safe as I break down into a mix of desperate laughs and sobs.

“You will wish you were never born if you harm this van. It’s special,” he says casually. Something settles within my mind. The conversation had been so relaxed, I had almost felt comfortable, but I’m not building rapport. We’re not working towards an understanding. I’m doing what this thing is asking me to do and that’s why it’s not harming me. No matter how well I’m doing, if I fuck up enough, it won’t feel any different when turning my guts inside down, whether I felt like we were having a good time together before or not.

Conversely, it might not be cruel for the sake of being cruel. “Seventy-Eight? Can I go to an actual restroom?” It’s mainly indifferent, barring any of my actions that actually affect its goals, isn’t it?

“I suppose.” It stretches lazily. Ever since that little massacre, it’s been giving off an air of satisfaction. Lunch, it had said. It had been testy because it had been hungry. It probably doesn’t even care that it permanently damaged or killed these people. My stomach is twisting again, but I manage to keep it down.

I take the next exit and park the van. The thing next to me is watching me unbuckle the seatbelt with disinterest. “Don’t make me get you again,” it notes almost like an aside.

I pop open the door. “I won’t, but I’ll need a moment. You know what I mean?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Mind if I get a coffee while I’m at it?”

“Knock yourself out. Just get moving already.”

It’s definitely less irritable right now.

“Do you . . . want me to bring you one, too? Do you do coffee?”

It sighs. “No. Now go. We need to keep going.”

I hurry off to the gas station, finding the restrooms quickly. Once I’m in the stall, I pull out my phone, staring at it. Five percent battery.

I don’t have much battery left. I’m at some truck stop called Kranenkamp.

I stare at the message before deleting it all and shutting off my phone. This isn’t going to help me. At this point, I wouldn’t be calling for help, I’d be feeding police officers to that thing.

When I’m done, I wash my hands, splashing water into my face. Dark bruises ring my neck where the monster from the van choked me with the rope. My pants and shirt are covered in stains that I’m no longer capable of smelling. I need a shower, and I need to sort my thoughts. Seventy-Eight seems reluctant to leave the van, and it said something about throwing them off the trail. Going out to pick me up when I first tried to escape led to a detour and to the earlier slaughter. My stomach knots together painfully.

There’s something else I’ve been desperately trying to avoid thinking about. It told me I’d get it lunch in the future. It can’t leave the van. Having lunch meant doing unimaginable things to those people earlier. Is it going to ask me to kidnap people for it? Is that my grand purpose?

I shouldn’t waste too much time. The worst thing that could happen would be to make it think that I willfully disobeyed another order. I head to the little kiosk and order a coffee. Then again, I’ll have to disobey sooner or later if I don’t want to drag others into this.

The woman behind the counter aggressively ignores the state I’m in and leaves through a door towards the back as soon as she’s received my money, wanting nothing to do with me. She must think I’m some homeless junkie.

Does it matter if this inevitable confrontation happens now or later? Maybe it’s better to bait it into killing me. Then again, it’s just going to nab someone else off the road, isn’t it? Sooner or later, someone will comply. The longer it takes, the more often it might have to go on rampages to throw whoever is hunting it off-course.

Purpose . . .

We’re condemned to be free because we weren’t made for a purpose, like a stapler for instance. There’s no higher being that created us with a goal. Except now this thing is trying to force me into a form so I can fulfill the purpose it chose for me. Am I still condemned to be free? Or would that Sater guy or whatever he’s called be turning in his grave if he could hear my musings?

One thing’s certain, no professor would accept adding superhuman entities into any sort of rational reasoning. Or maybe they would. This lack of understanding might be why I keep failing.

I want to shake my head, but that would mean immediately proving that I did not in fact learn anything. My thumb absentmindedly brushes over the bandage where my pinky used to be, sending a jolt of pain through me. “Understood,” I say because logically, I know I have to come along, or he’ll keep mutilating me, but my body is frozen. I’m about to cry again. “I’m trying. My legs . . .” I dig my thumb into the bandage and flinch from the pain. My legs unlock and I stumble forward.

The guy seems satisfied. He turns to lead the way without checking if I’m following. I stumble after him, reaching the van’s door in time to see him carrying the ice box to the back before plopping into the passenger seat. I slip into the driver’s seat, pulling the door shut. How am I supposed to drive like this?

“Strap yourself in,” comes his voice from my right and I grab the seatbelt. My head is swimming. My body is going through the motions on autopilot. “Are you capable of driving right now? If you harm the van, it’ll be hard to replace.” I nod because I don’t want to find out what’ll happen if I refuse. He’s watching me, head cocked, as if trying to figure out just how shaken up I am from what just happened.

I must have had a break with reality. I can no longer see that man or woman. Don’t look at the streetlights. All the stress must have gotten to me. It’s the only explanation. I’ve gone insane. I pull out of the parking space and towards the exit. I use the turn signal to get back on the highway.

“Take the next . . . off-ramp and then get back on in the opposite direction,” the man next to me says. I imagined it all because what I saw can’t have happened. He’s pulling one of the books from the glove box. Something about that book and what I just witnessed this guy do and the way he treats me wants to connect somewhere at the back of my mind, but I focus on driving instead. It’s a good distraction.

There’s no way I saw what I saw.

It’s the stress.

Just like that rat in the alley.

4 Mass Inversion

When I come to, the van is quiet. Even the steady hum of the motor has disappeared. I don’t know for how long we’ve been stopped. Is my kidnapper taking a break?

I check my phone. It’s eleven in the morning. When does this guy sleep? How much longer will he be out?

I hesitate. I could wait to listen for any obvious signs on whether he’s up and about or not, or I could hurry to try whatever I can try before he wakes. Either way it’s a gamble and I have nothing to base my decision on.

In the end, sitting here and waiting feels like I’m wasting precious time. I try the sliding side doors first. No dice. The back is also locked. I don’t know if I could break out of either even if I repeatedly threw my entire body weight at them. I check the door towards the front last. It opens without protest, briefly making me squint against the sun outside the windshield.

My kidnapper is out cold with his head resting on the steering wheel. A string of saliva trails from his open mouth onto a small wet patch on his knee. He must have been exhausted after all this driving to have passed out like this. Did he always plan to sleep in the van or is this an accident? At least he didn’t drive us off the road and into a tree. Then again, that might have hurt him more than me, letting me escape.

I carefully reach past the passenger seat and towards the glove box. Even if he’s physically stronger than me, he’s unlikely to win a knife fight. They always tell you to run away when you see someone pulling out a knife.

The glove box pops open with relatively little sound. I glance over the contents. The knife is at the top, resting on two paperbacks about . . . dog training? Maybe he stole the van. I ignore the books and take a firm grip of the knife.

“What are you doing, Lukas,” asks my kidnapper calmly. When did he wake up?

I whip around, pointing my knife at him. “Making a break for it. Don’t move.” I scoot past the passenger seat and to the passenger side door while holding the knife between us. The guy observes my actions with what I can only interpret as mild amusement.

“That can’t really hurt me,” he states matter-of-factly. I’m not surprised by the delusion. He has to be insane. I grab the door handle, but it doesn’t even move.

“Let me out. You might think you can take me, but I will hurt you and I have nothing to lose.” I keep trying to press down on the handle. It’s not even like it’s locked. The entire thing seems stuck in place.

He grabs for the blade. I swing wildly, hoping to at least slice off a couple of fingers so he’ll think twice about trying this again, but instead, he takes a hold of it, stopping my motion. He’s not bleeding. My hand erupts in pain and I let go of the knife with a surprised yelp. Two angry red lines are welling with blood where I clutched the handle.

Is this a trick knife? It’s the same one he cut my finger off with. Why is the handle suddenly sharp and the blade dull enough for him to take a firm grip? It doesn’t make sense and somehow, my mind keeps circling back to my mutilated finger with the bone on the outside and the slurry of meat and nerves and skin on the inside and there’s something that almost makes sense except it doesn’t make the least bit of sense, and it’s making my head hurt.

“I’ll have to get a new knife, now.” My kidnapper says. “That’s bad. You shouldn’t be trying to attack me, Lukas. Show me your hand.”

He’s going to make the insides come out again. I pissed him off, and he’s going to make all the little bones in there spring forth like a bunch of tiny little flowers. I swallow down yesterday’s sandwich, shaking my head. Somehow, this seems to set him off more than my escape attempt.

He gets up from his seat, encroaching on my already cramped space. I can’t back up any further. His hands grab a hold of my head before I can draw away. There’s nowhere to go. Maybe this is it. He’ll turn my entire head inside out, squishy brains decorating the ice box as my skull blooms forth like a flower. I freeze.

“I’m hungry and testy,” he says. A lazy smile forms at the words. His eyes . . . the issue isn’t that they aren’t smiling along. I’d expect that from a psychopath or whatever you call this. It’s that whatever is behind them just feels so vast. I don’t believe in souls, but whatever is staring at me doesn’t even feel real. Like nobody is home because my brain refuses to recognize whatever is in there as a person. “And I thought you’d learned to follow orders by now.”

Something deep within my subconscious is absolutely terrified of the situation, but I can’t put a finger on exactly what’s triggering it. I drop my eyes to my hand before holding it out to the man before me. “I’m sorry. I get scared.”

“The only thing that should scare you is not doing as you’re told.” He lets go of my head, voice dry again. Less like a threat and more like a law of nature. He pulls out the first aid kit before disinfecting the cuts along my palm. I hiss. “Maybe I should take another finger. That seems to matter to you. You only have the ten,” he muses. I almost flinch hard enough to pull my hand out of his grasp. My left arm snaps behind my back.

“It was a mistake. I’ll do better,” I try. I don’t really have anything else to offer, considering I still don’t know what he wants from me. “I can buy you lunch if you want,” I then add, remembering what he said a moment ago. Maybe using my credit card will help the police locate me faster, too.

The man chuckles. “You’ll get me lunch in the future. Right now, I want to make myself known. Throw them off my trail.” Oh. So he wants to get flagged by something like using a credit card to lead the investigators here and then hightail it in another direction? “I had to take a detour so they won’t know where we’re going after you made me chase you. That’s why you really mustn’t do that again. Do you understand? I’ll do worse than cut off a finger if that happens again.”

I nod, mouth dry. “Yes. I understand. Crystal clear.” Most of his words made no sense, but he’s getting the general message across at least.

“Alright. You already cut yourself. If it turns out you didn’t learn as well because I didn’t take another finger, I’ll take two to make up for it. You are improving, so you get a break. I don’t want to overwhelm your little brain. Can you drive a car?”

I’m almost too relieved to answer. Tears are burning in my eyes again. The disappointed shake of my mom’s head when I cried after falling off my first bicycle pops into my head.

“Y-yes.”

“Good. I’m . . . bored of doing all the driving. You will take over for the next bit. Take sandwiches and water. Make sure you’ve got all the nutrition you need. I’ll be back.”

And with that, he leaves through the driver side door. I stare after him, mouth slightly agape. I never heard him lock the van. The key is still in the ignition, anyway. I wait until he’s vanished into the gas station we’re parked at before trying the door. It opens. If I take the entire van, he won’t have a way to chase me down like last time. I get in the driver’s seat, push the clutch, and turn the key. Nothing happens.

He’s messing with me. He’s doing this on purpose so he can catch me in the act of doing something I’m not supposed to be doing. Or maybe he’s just taunting me. Did he leave the door open on purpose to test me? It’s not like he even ordered me to stay in the van. All he said was to have some food and water. I check the ice box and pull out a plastic-wrapped sandwich and a bottle of water. Then, I push open the door. Wouldn’t want to litter in the van, now, would I?

It’s flimsy deniability, but it might allow me to test whether he’s trying to trick me or genuinely enough of an airhead to accidentally leave the door open. The next trashcan is a good ten meters away, so I head over there and dispose of the plastic packaging. This also means my phone is outside that cursed van for a few precious minutes. I eat my lunch next to the trashcan for good measure. Before I can finish, the screaming starts.

I scan the parking lot. A streetlight near the gas station twists with a horrible metallic creak, vomiting the cables and various plastic parts from the inside onto the outside. My brain struggles to comprehend what’s happening. Another light’s metal hull pulls back from top to bottom like it’s shedding skin. A ball of slimy meat and muscle falls from the sky only a few meters away. It splatters open, revealing a cache of bloody feathers, claws, and a beak.

Don’t think of the rat in the alley. This isn’t happening.

There can’t have been many people inside the dingy old gas station. Two of them come spilling from the doors, shouting something. One of them is moving wrong. She bumps into a car, almost falling, catching herself and then trying to sprint off. Something is up with her eyes. There’s blood. When she gets closer, I see thin, fleshy strands growing out of where her pupils should be.

Her eyes are backwards.

The terrifying thought is impossible, but some deep, deep part of me is certain of it.

They’re inverted.

The man that exited right after her has his arms full of a glistening, reddish mass.

He’s carrying his organs in his arms. His esophagus has spilled from his mouth.

I vomit my entire lunch next to the trash can. I’m so busy retching, I don’t notice anything around me until a hand on my back has me recoiling. “You decided not to puke into my van,” my kidnapper says. I try to get distance between us without taking my eyes off of him. “If you’re done, get back in there. We should get going.”

The van starts back up as I plop down on the mattress, pulling out my phone. He never even checked me for one. It would’ve been easy for him to take and smash it while I was out cold. My roommate answered.

Fuck, Lukas. I called the police. They’re on it, but they aren’t really keeping me in the loop.

There’s more. She’s asking how I’m doing, if I’m still alive. She’s encouraging me. I hold my phone close as I descend into fits of sobs. Oh, Helen. My entire body is convulsing as I let it all out. I’ve never been one to cry much, something I learned from both of my parents. But at this point, it’s cathartic.

When I stop shaking and the tears run out, I shoot my roommate a quick answer.

Thanks. I’m alive. Tell them to hurry.

It should get delivered the next time my kidnapper lets me out of the van.

3 Chop

I eat my sandwich. It’s one of those plastic-wrapped ones you can buy ready to go in the supermarket. I wash it down with the water. So far, there’s no reason to assume that I’ll have to ration it. For a while, I try to figure out if we’re taking any turns, but being on a highway and not knowing where we last stopped means it’s useless.

My finger is throbbing. I bandaged it with parts of the mattress’s sheet. It was harder to rip free than I expected. I don’t want to get punished once my kidnapper sees that I tore apart his stuff, but there’s at least a chance that he simply won’t care, and I needed to staunch the bleeding.

Eventually, I lie down. I don’t want to sleep. Last time I passed out, he bandaged my leg. What if he does something malicious once I’m out for the count? Besides, my finger is throbbing like hell.

I check my phone. The message I wrote went through, probably while I was outside, but the reception is gone again. He must have done something to the van to block my mobile network. At least my cry for help is out there now.

It’s impossible to tell if we’ve travelled for hours or minutes by the time we finally stop again. I stare at the door towards the driver’s side with dread. The man appears again. I still don’t know what to call him or what he actually wants from me. For now, he’s tossing me another sandwich and a bottle of water. If it’s still the same day, at least he’s somewhat paying attention to a feeding schedule.

“You need to relieve yourself again?” He asks nonchalantly. “We’ll practice.” What a weird thing to say. I set down the food on my mattress and struggle to my feet. My muscles are protesting from disuse and the bandaged foot is giving off a dull throb. Still, I beat him to the sliding doors, attempting to push them open myself. They don’t budge, so it’s not tied to whether the van is moving. A moment later, he opens them for me. Maybe he’s using the fob to trick me into thinking there’s more to it.

It’s dark out. The stars are sparsely visible between thick layers of clouds. How far have we gotten since last night? We’re at another rest stop that’s more nature than civilization. He’s probably expecting me to pee on a tree again. When I try to step off the van, I’m stopped by the rope around my neck. He’s taken a hold of it, quickly working it wide enough for me to slip out. “Go,” he says.

I hadn’t dared take the rope off myself. The previous night, he’d reacted especially violently whenever I’d even touched it, so I had ignored it until I forgot it was there. It had been slack enough not to cause any issues. Still, not having it around my neck any longer is a relief. Maybe it’s a sign of trust. I let out a relieved chuckle. We’re getting somewhere.

I do my business and return. He gives me his usual “good”. I’ve never considered whether I’m cowardly or not, but obediently limping back into my kidnapper’s van makes me think I might be. Returning from potential freedom to the dark, enclosed cell, again drags up memories of my existentialism class. Am I choosing to be a coward or was I designed that way? Or was it something like ‘my awareness of being a coward means that I can take it into consideration when making choices, which again would make them wholly mine’? Something like that. If I had paid more attention in class, I could probably use my philosophy skills for . . . something. Yeah, right.

You think about the weirdest things when stressed, don’t you?

With my kidnapper satisfied, I lift my left arm. “Um, I don’t know what the grand plan is, but this might get infected.” Please, please say anything but “good” about this.

He grabs my wrist and I violently try to snap it back, mind flooded by images of what happened the last time he got close to my hand. He frowns at my reaction. “Don’t resist. Never resist.”

I take a nervous breath, forcing my arm to go limp in his grasp. “Sorry. My body just . . .” I trail off, watching him unwrap the crusty rags. The damaged nerves flare up again as he pulls off the final layer, ripping open barely clotted wounds. I scream, jerking on my arm again. His grip turns bruising, but he doesn’t comment.

“You’ll be better off without this,” he notes, pulling me towards the driver’s side by my arm. My feet lock even before his words fully register. Without? He means to chop off my finger, doesn’t he? I dig my heels in, trying to pull myself free.

“Wait. I need a doctor or a hospital. You can’t just chop off a finger. They need to set the bone, and then it needs to go in a cast or something.” Staring at the white bone flowering from the surrounding mess of flesh and skin. A part of me screams that it won’t fit back together the same way it used to. It’s too twisted. But the rational part knows that a human can’t do this with their hands, so it must be fixable.

“I gave you an order.” He turns to admonish me like a child or a dog. He searches my face for a moment, then: “You only have these ten fingers. You’re scared of losing one,” he states flatly. “That’s good. I will take two if you don’t behave. I don’t think you’ll need them.”

My legs weaken at his words, knees hitting the floor hard. He gives my arm another tug. If he keeps going like this, he’ll dislocate my shoulder. Which order does he mean, anyway? He never ordered me to let him chop off—don’t resist. Never resist. It makes sense. He’s been ordering me to let him manhandle me multiple times now.

“Okay, hold on. I can’t control my body right now,” I try to mollify him, because I don’t want to lose two fingers. While I try to sort out my legs, I have a few precious seconds to figure out how to stop him from mutilating me any further at all. I try to calm my breathing, feeling my heart beat furiously in my temples. I swallow down bile before pushing my good foot underneath me to get up. I can’t think of anything to say.

“Please, I’ve been doing what you want me to. Sure, I mess up, but I’ll be more careful. Just don’t chop off my finger.” As soon as I’m up, he drags me through the door and to the front. A large ice box sits on the passenger seat. Outside the window, a rundown gas station lights up the night. He produces a large knife from the glove box. Would he get in trouble for carrying it around like that if he got pulled over? My thoughts go everywhere but to the problem at hand.

“Hand on the box,” he orders. Not complying is not allowed. I’m terrified. I don’t want to lose my finger. I don’t want to lose more than one finger. I could try to punch him and make a break for it, but who knows how far he’d escalate the situation once he caught me again. And at this point, I’m certain to the core that he would. He doesn’t look much physically tougher than I am, but he is.

I’m a coward. I place my hand on the ice box. Maybe, if he sees that I’m doing as I’m told now, he’ll rethink his plan?

The blade settles on the base of my pinky.

I have to physically fight my body to stop it from pulling away.

“Please. Please, I’m begging—”

The knife barely adds to the horrible pain in my finger. The frazzled nerves are still firing even after it lies disconnected on top of the light blue lid of the ice box. I stare at the twisted limb with a dry mouth. For once, I’m not vomiting at the violence. I’m numb. My brain is frozen. Why won’t the finger stop hurting if it’s no longer attached? Blood gushes from the wound, so I pull my hand towards me. Wouldn’t want the food to get contaminated. I’m crying. Who wouldn’t?

Looking at the twisted mess of my finger still gives me headaches. It’s like the bone tried to bloom onto the outside, encapsulating the rest inside. It’s completely nonsensical.

I barely register the man pulling a first aid kit out from under the passenger seat. He smiles lazily. “Very good. Now look, I’m prepared. I’ll make sure you’re in good condition to do what I need you to do.”

I don’t dignify this with an answer, wordlessly letting him pull my hand into his lap. His fingers on my clammy skin send goosebumps up my arms. I don’t want him touching me, yet I let him wrap up my hand, concentrating hard on not pulling away. He clearly doesn’t want me dead just yet, that much is clear, but he also hasn’t actually told me what it is he wants from me either. I just stare at the hand. I’ll never get that finger back. Somehow, that fact is making all of this feel much more real.

“I can’t do this.” Did I say that out loud?

“You’re doing alright. I could’ve done without the detour from your . . . rebellion, but I expected some . . . trial and error.” He’s casually putting the leftover bandages back in the first aid kit before storing it back under the passenger seat. “I’m very pleased.”

Great. “If you’re going to kill me . . . could you consider doing it right now? If you’re so pleased?” I almost don’t finish my request. I don’t want to die. But I also can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to wonder when he’s going to take another piece of me or find a worse way to torture me. I don’t want to die, but if I have to die, I’d rather it be quick and painless.

He chuckles. The sound crushes my soul. “I’m not killing you. I need you.” He points at my bandaged hand. “I’m keeping you alive. No matter what.” While spoken casually, to my ears, this sounds like a threat. “Now go back and rest. Your body needs strength to heal.”

He’s right. It’s dark outside.

I could fight him.

I could attack him over and over until he has no choice but to kill me. Would I be successful?

But he’s right. I’m tired. My text got delivered. Maybe, my recent trip outside even let me receive an answer. Plus, this guy isn’t looking too well either. There are dark bags under his eyes. Has he been driving this entire time? I know where he keeps his knife. If I can claw my way out of the back of the van somehow . . .

I nod and leave, almost wishing him a good night out of habit. I don’t want to die. I just also don’t want to suffer. I might think more clearly tomorrow.

At first, I don’t fully register what he means. I slowly uncurl, offering my injured hand. He doesn’t react, pointing at the open sliding door instead. “Now.” There’s anger brewing behind those eyes again. Why is he pointing outside? What does he want me to show? That I can leave the van and come back? I carefully inch forward. When he doesn’t get any more upset, I hop from the van, pass the guardrail to the edge of the forest, and hesitate.

My legs won’t move. My finger is still screaming at me. Every fiber of my being is fighting what I know I have to do. If I return to the van, he’ll lock the doors again, and I’ll be at his mercy. If he wants to destroy the rest of my fingers, I won’t have a way to fight him. He clearly knows some strange torture techniques. It’s the only explanation.

I can’t try to run again. I can’t bear the consequences. But my body won’t comply with me when I try to force it back towards the van either. If I wait much longer, he might take it as another attempt at disobedience. I go limp, crumbling to the ground. Maybe this way, he won’t take my inability to move as another escape attempt. He hasn’t left the van yet at least.

There is no choice. I cannot escape in the state I’m in. My only option is to return to the van. I’m overcome by a fit of giggles. That existentialism class I flunked last semester would have had quite a lot to say on the matter.

I do have a choice. I always have a choice. I could make him chase me again and accept the inevitable punishment. It’s just that I really don’t want to. There was this whole big deal about how we’re condemned to be free that class, but right now, I’m really not feeling it. Maybe that’s why I failed.

I finally regain control of my legs, forcing myself back to my feet. Shakily, I climb the guardrail one more time. My finger flares up when I absentmindedly use it to push off. I don’t look at it. Looking at it makes me sick.

Back in the van, the stranger is waiting. “Well done,” he says, and I’m overcome by a wave of relief instead of the indignation I should feel at this treatment. I’m exhausted. It feels like my mind is about to break into a million pieces from the stress. I need a break, and this guy being satisfied is the closest I’ll get to that.

How do I improve this situation? I need more information if I want to avoid getting another finger mutilated. I need to find out what he wants from me.

Let’s start with the basics. “I’m Lukas.” I hold out my right hand. The guy doesn’t react. “Just . . . so you know what to call me. I might not realize you mean me if you just call me ‘you’ or something,” I elaborate awkwardly. I once read in some novel how kidnapping victims might try to make their captors realize that they’re human, just like them, to help their situation, but looking at this guy, that might’ve been made up. “What’s your name?” I trudge on regardless.

So far, the conversation has gone on without any obvious signs of annoyance by the other, and he hasn’t done any physical harm since I started doing as he said. I’d go as far as to say that I’m doing well. “You don’t need to call me,” he answers, using my own reasoning against me.

I take a deep breath and take a gamble. This might set him off again, but it also might give me information. “It’ll make me more comfortable.” He did give me a mattress to sleep on, so there must be some very basic level of comfort he’s willing to keep up. Maybe this will give me more of an idea as to how much. I should have read more crime novels. I have no idea what I’m doing.

“And you’re more likely to do what I want when you’re more comfortable.” My kidnapper states this like it’s a fact. I don’t correct him that I probably wouldn’t be entertaining him if I had the comfort of my total and complete freedom, and I probably wouldn’t have returned to this van if he hadn’t made me uncomfortable by doing whatever he did to my finger. My eyes almost sneak another look, so I force them to stare at the stranger. I don’t want to puke again.

While I’m struggling to properly read most of his emotions, my kidnapper is now clearly considering my request. Is he . . . trying to come up with a fake name? Hopefully, that will still serve to make our interactions a bit more civilized and human. “They refer to me as Outsider Seventy-Eight, I suppose.” He nods, satisfied. My stomach drops. He’s insane. I shouldn’t be surprised, but there was at least a part of me that was hoping I’d be able to talk him into behaving more rationally.

There still is. Even if he’s crazy. He can talk. We both speak the same language, so I might be able to convince him to let me go eventually. I might not be able to reason with him, but maybe we can work towards some kind of understanding.

“Designation Inversion,” he adds as if that means anything. My eyes end up on my finger before I can help myself. Inversion. I won’t think about the rat from the alley. I’m getting a headache.

“That’s . . . quite the mouthful.” I don’t want to set him off by criticizing his attempt to accommodate me, unless he’s doing this to make me squirm. Is he going to pretend to get offended if I reject his answer?

“We have to leave.” He switches the subject before I can make a choice, abruptly marching back through the door to the driver side of the van and closing it behind him. I stare at the space he just left for a moment before the van jerks to life. I end up catching my balance on my bad foot and yelp.

What is happening? I never really thought about what a kidnapping is supposed to be like, but surely this can’t be it? Once we’re back to an even speed, I head to the side door. It no longer opens. Maybe it automatically unlocks once the van stops.

2 Escape

I didn’t fall asleep in my bed. My leg is throbbing. My head is killing me. My mouth is dry, and the floor is softly vibrating. I crack open sticky eyes, expecting the stab of sunlight, but the room I’m in is dark.

It’s not a room. My heart jumps into overdrive as the memories of last night come crashing back. I’m kidnapped. I’m in a moving van. I push myself up and my bad foot protests. It’s wrapped in bandages. Huh.

I push towards the sliding doors. They’re locked. My head is still killing me. I’m dehydrated because I didn’t have any water at the pub. I was going to chug a bunch once I got home, but I never made it.

I need to get out.

My eyes are slowly adjusting to the lack of light. Looks like I’m inside an almost empty moving van. A mattress is lying on the floor. It’s what I was sleeping on. The sliding doors to the sides didn’t move, but I still stagger to the back to try the large doors there. I’ll jump out and onto a highway if I have to. No luck.

Since my leg is throbbing progressively more with each bump in the road, I settle down on the mattress again, checking my pockets for my phone. That idiot didn’t confiscate it. I stare at the screen in amazement. Fifty-five percent battery left. I pull up a chat with my roommate. What do I even say?

I got kidnapped on my way home last night. They didn’t take my phone, but I don’t have unlimited battery left. They’re driving somewhere with a white van. Didn’t get the model. I’ll leave my phone on, so the police can trace it? This is not a joke. Please get help.

The message reads ridiculously. Still, I hit send. It doesn’t get delivered. No reception. I jump back to my feet and walk around the van, holding my phone up to try to find a spot that will let me send the message.

I stumble, catching myself on my bad foot when the van slows down. Pain shoots up my leg and I fall. Crawling back to the mattress, I stash my phone back in my pocket. There’s no good hiding spot in here, but if they didn’t check earlier, maybe I’ll get lucky again. And if I don’t, maybe it’ll get reception when they take it outside.

A door leading to the front of the van opens. I never tried that one. A light in the ceiling turns on. I squint at my kidnapper. In the light, he doesn’t look threatening at all. Medium height, wiry with blond hair and freckles. Not at all what I expected. What does that say about me?

He throws something at me and I barely deflect it. “Hydrate.” It’s a bottle of water. He doesn’t have to tell me twice. My head is pounding with a hangover. “Good.” Despite his flat voice, I guess he’s satisfied as I down the water in one go. I hold the empty bottle back out to him, not wanting to antagonize him by littering in his van. He cocks his head, staring at it briefly before taking it back. “Good,” he repeats. “You’re doing good.”

Something is off about the way he speaks. Maybe he’s on drugs. “Th-that’s cool,” I agree for good measure. Should I ask if there’s a chance he’ll let me go while he seems to be high? “Listen—”

When his eyes show clear irritation, I pause, lifting my hands in defense. “Okay, sorry, you go ahead.” He might tell me what he wants from me. There has to be some way to negotiate. I just have to survive long enough for someone to find me. I’m not above begging to make it a few more hours, and he doesn’t seem like he is in a hurry to murder me. No reason to bandage my foot or give me water if that were the case.

“You will do things for me that I can’t do.” There we go. He makes a horrible attempt at an explanation.

“Okay? Like what?” Did he target me specifically or did he just want another pair of hands? What could I possibly offer him? I can’t even pass my stupid exams in university. He certainly didn’t grab me for my academic skill. Plus, as much as it confirms my parents’ nagging, it’s not like many people are hiring even highly skilled philosophers these days.

The irritation returns. “Whatever I say.” He’s being infuriatingly vague. “The details don’t concern you.”

“Sure,” I nod emphatically, resisting the urge to follow it up with something like ‘will you let me go in return’.

“You’re more compliant today. Good,” he says. While my heart is beating rapidly, I do relax just a little whenever he sounds satisfied. I try a smile to soften him up some more, but his face stays blank. He retreats to the front of the van, rummaging somewhere out of sight before returning with another bottle of water and a sandwich, tossing them at me. I catch the sandwich.

“Have these while we keep going.” With those words, he turns.

“Wait!” I need to somehow get my phone out of this van and into a spot that actually has reception.

It’s like the lights above dim from the sudden shift in mood when he faces me again. “I’m sorry,” I immediately try to defuse the situation. “It’s just that I need to go to the restroom and I figured you wouldn’t want me to do that in your van.”

“You went last night.” My cheeks heat up at his words, remembering the gush of warmth when I wet myself during yesterday’s fight. My clothes are still crusty with various bodily fluids.

“I had a lot of alcohol.” At first, my explanation doesn’t get a reaction. After slight deliberation, he nods, making his way to the sliding doors and pulling them open. I swear they were locked earlier. He didn’t handle a remote just now. How . . .?

“Relieve yourself, then come back.” He’s offering me the open door. We must be at a truck stop on a highway. The noise of cars speeding by is terrifyingly mundane. I spot a pine forest past a guardrail. The sun is high in the sky. I already missed my exam.

I carefully get to my feet, shuffling over to the open door before setting my feet down on the ground. Is this a trick? He doesn’t stop me when I take my first few steps away from the van. He probably doesn’t want me to disappear into the public restrooms I see in the distance behind the van, so I climb the guardrail and unzip my fly in front of the first tree.

Best case scenario, someone sees this and starts an argument. Alas, the place is deserted.

When I’m finished, I steal a quick glance back. My kidnapper is still in the van, patiently waiting for my return. He probably thinks I won’t be able to run, the way my foot is protesting with every step. I’ve already got a good ten meters on him.

This is my chance. I dash into the forest. All I have to do is lose him in the bushes, then wrap around to the highway and flag down another car for help. Even if my foot is screaming in pain, I’ve got a head start and I don’t have a choice. I have to get away. If I don’t, I don’t know how long I’ve got.

I don’t dare look back. The underbrush is too treacherous to take my eyes off the ground, but there are no sounds of footsteps behind me, and the only breath I hear is my own. Did he decide I’m not worth following? I almost trip over a raised root, flailing wildly to catch myself on a tree. Using this moment, I check behind me. Nothing. Still, I mustn’t stop moving.

I take my next step and freeze. How’d he get in front of me? Did I get turned around? I haven’t been running long enough for that to happen, have I? Tears sting my eyes. He’s close enough to touch. I should have noticed.

“Very bad,” he deadpans. My brain feels frozen, unable to decide where to go. When I finally take a step back to run, he’s already grabbed a fistful of my hair. I claw at his arm as he uses his free hand to slip that stupid rope over my head again. I won’t let him choke me, closing my eyes and smashing my head forward to headbutt him.

My attack doesn’t connect. Instead, I lose balance and fall to the forest floor. The rope around my neck tightens as he pulls at it from behind me. Something is very, very wrong here. Am I losing time? Did he drug that water earlier?

“You made me waste time,” he comments as he begins pulling the rope back towards the van. He can’t be doing this. Not in bright daylight. Someone will have arrived at that truck stop in the meantime. They’ll see this happening. I rush after the guy until the rope slackens before trying to rip it over my head. I’m not drunk this time. I’ve got a fighting chance.

He reacts in an instant. One of his hands is on one of mine as if to physically stop me from freeing myself, and then my left pinky finger explodes into agony.

I didn’t see what he did. My hands drop from the rope. I can’t parse what happened to the left one. My pinky. I vomit again. The bone is on the outside. It doesn’t make sense. It’s like bone bloomed forth from my flesh. It’s quickly covered in blood. Nerves are stinging. I’m howling from pain.

The rope closes around my windpipe and I stumble forward. I know this game. I have to follow or I’ll be choked. Or worse, he’ll do to the rest of my fingers what he did to that pinky.

I must be mistaken. What I saw didn’t make any sense. There’s nothing that can do to a finger what I saw. I don’t even know what I saw. I can’t think. The pain is unbearable. Somehow, we’re back at the guardrail. I fail to climb it fast enough. He keeps pulling and I lose my balance. My finger screams as I break my fall with both hands.

He drags me into the van. I’m cradling my left hand, curled into a tight ball with tears and snot running down my face. I need this to stop. “Please, I’m sorry.”

“Did this help you learn?” He asks with that weird, toneless voice.

I nod frantically. “Yes. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” I’d say anything to pacify him right now.

A hand lands on my back and I flinch violently, aggravating my finger. “Good,” he says, sending shivers down my spine. “Show me.”

#Hunting with Dogs

##Part 1: Condemned to be Free

###1 Bear Trap

At first the pain barely registers through the alcohol. Staggering home through the dark alleys after quiz night in the Irish pub has become second nature. Hannover is safe. I don’t expect anything to jump out at me from the shadows.

But something is biting into my ankle, and when I stumble into a crouch to touch the spot, my fingers meet warm wetness covering cold metal. The blood is almost black in the dark.

“What the fuck?” I ask the empty alley. Who lays bear traps inside a city? How do you disarm these things?

After feeling the wound, the pain is suddenly much more immediate. My fingers glide along the metal, looking for a release. There’s got to be a way to open these things, right? As long as you’ve got opposable thumbs? Is this not how it works? The alcohol is no longer drowning out my throbbing leg.

A rat stops halfway across the alley to stare at me. If it gets close to the wound, it could smear all types of germs in there. I move to shoo it away. It lets out a mangled squeak as its tiny lips pull back over a pair of large front teeth, further over the skull, soft brain glistening dark and wet in the sparse light. The pain is making me see things.

In my panic, I almost overhear the lazy footsteps closing in from behind.

No urgency. I’m already incapacitated.

I stop fiddling with the trap and scramble forward, trying to bring distance between myself and what must be a very creative mugger or an absolutely insane killer. The image of a blood-covered guy in a hockey mask wielding a rusty machete pops into my mind. I’ve never watched a horror movie in my life. My hand squishes something soft and furry. I hiss in pain when my injured foot refuses to cooperate. Something grabs the back of my shirt and I twist, swinging wildly only to hit the person’s thigh. They don’t even flinch, slipping a piece of rope around my neck and pulling it taut.

It’s hard to breathe. My hands fly up to the rope and try to pry it open. The stranger gives it a violent tug, and suddenly I’m suffocating. “Lower your hands,” the man’s voice barely registers through the throbbing of my leg and the panic flooding my brain from lack of oxygen. The alcohol’s haze has yielded to the general stress of the situation.

I’ll miss my make-up exam tomorrow. What a reason to add yet another semester to the score.

What am I thinking?

The rope is coarse, digging into my flesh. “Lower your hands,” he repeats. His voice is calm and not at all as gruff as I expected a crazy kidnapper to sound. I’m not focusing on the right things. My eyes are burning with tears. I need this to stop. I don’t want to die. Warm wetness spreads along my legs. I let go of the rope, trying to somehow get out words to resolve this, but all I can do is release a choked gargle.

“Good. Come.” The rope barely relaxes enough to draw breaths. He’s still keeping pressure on it. I don’t want to be any closer to the guy, but the way this is going . . . I don’t want to die.

“Fuck, alright, I’m coming. Stop,” I wheeze out. I’m immediately rewarded by another sharp yank, falling to the alley floor and scraping my cheek in the process. I don’t want to die. He wants me to come along, so I scramble to all fours to keep up, unable to fully put weight on my damaged foot. The guy’s already retreating back towards the entrance of the alley, but as long as I’m stumbling along, I can somewhat breathe.

There’s a white van. My stomach lurches and I convulse, throwing up. The rope briefly slackens as I’m emptying an entire evening’s worth of drinks onto the alley floor. It tightens as soon as I’m done, dragging me through the mess. This isn’t how they do human trafficking, is it? This is something different. It must be. Regardless, I need to concentrate and figure out how to get out of this before I’m in that van. I won’t get out once the doors are locked.

The stranger pulls open the sliding doors. While he’s distracted, I again try to get the rope off my neck. My fingers are sticky with my own vomit and weak from exhaustion. The world is dimming, and black dots swim before my eyes when he yanks on me again, pulling me halfway into the van.

I brace my feet against the threshold, ignoring the pain, and grab a hold of the rope with both hands to stop it from choking me, leaning my entire body into my last desperate attempt to get away. My bad foot slips. My fingers don’t have the strength to keep up. Everything briefly goes dark, and I’m inside. The doors slam shut. There’s no light. I don’t even have the energy to keep myself from collapsing on the floor. The small space already smells of my various bodily fluids.

I mustn’t pass out, fighting to keep my eyes open. The rope finally slackens. He just dropped it. Footsteps head off somewhere to the side, followed by an ignition. If he takes me away from here, they won’t find me. If I pass out now, I might not wake up again. I curl into a tight ball.

My exam tomorrow’s on applied ethics. The thought is like a bad joke at this point. This man doesn’t care. He put a bear trap into an alley.

Try arguing ethics with a chair if you want.

I can’t keep my eyes open.

Don’t they tell people not to go to sleep when they’re injured?

I can’t.

I saw this prompt the same day it was posted, thought about it a good while, got writing, and ended up with a novella-length story that more or less fits. If you squint. It’s kind of extreme horror/splatterpunk, though, with some Eldritch horror mixed in, so please, please mind the content warnings. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you. I apologize in advance, but it needed to get out. If I missed a content warning, I’m so, so sorry. Please let me know and I’ll edit it in! Also, I checked the rules and didn’t see anything that looked like I can’t post this here, but if this is too dark for the community, I’m happy to delete it if someone gives me a heads-up!

Content warnings: violence, torture, gore, death, dehumanization, attempted suicide, kidnapping.

I might let this stew for a month or two and then do a proper round of editing, so that I can upload this somewhere for people to read an “official” version. If it’s allowed, I’ll link to it from here once I do :)

Feedback is always appreciated.

Have fun!

Edit: Okay, it feels a bit dumb to post everything into comment-length chunks as replies. I’ll try to upload it elsewhere later and then put a link to that. For now, part 1 is in the replies here, and I’ll figure out what to do about the rest after work.

Edit 2: Here’s the link to the full story (without extensive editing because just getting it done already took a month since I found the prompt, haha).

And freely available online due to the author making them CC!

The 54321 exercise (or a variation of it, anyway) has gotten me through so much stuff. I recommend it all the time.

The version I was taught had me think of 5 things I can see, 5 things I can hear, 5 things I can feel, then the same with 4, 3 etc., skipping smell (which I can’t do) and taste!