The Tape
Fleur wakes up underwater.
She moves quickly, tripping over the edge of whatever she was in while coughing up water. Eventually, she can breathe easier and her senses start coming back. The room is pitch black, and she feels a different wave of panic take over once it occurs to her how helpless she is. What the fuck is going on?
“Help! Someone help me!” There's nothing but silence. “Is someone there? Oh, shit I’m dead.”
“You’re not dead.” So I'm not alone. Slightly relieved at this new bit of information, she turns slowly towards the direction she heard the voice coming from.
“Who’s there? Turn on the lights!”
“Wish I could. Hang on.” There's a sudden movement from somewhere in front of her, and she waits. Suddenly, the smell of the room hits her. God, what is that smell? The lights start flickering on and she can hear the heavy hum of electricity above her, closing her eyes for a few seconds before opening them to a brightly lit room.
The sight that greets her twists her stomach until she’s bracing herself against the wall and vomiting. She spits, wiping her mouth against her flannel sleeve before looking up and across the room at the, thankfully, alive stranger. She takes in the woman’s bushy brunette hair and dark brown eyes, the pursed lips and confused expression at the body lying between them. The woman doesn't seem as disgusted as Fleur was, looking up from the body and right at Fleur, who immediately looks back to the body and screams.
It's obvious the man is dead. There's a pool of blood from the wound on his head that's staining the floor, and she thinks there's a gun in his left hand. He's holding something in his right hand too, which is the side of the room she's on, but she doesn't really focus on it. She's never seen a dead body before.
“Shit, help!”
“No one can hear you. Are you hurt?”
“What the fuck is this?!” She moves around and feels a tug on her leg. A thick chain is wrapped around her ankle, connected to a rusting pipe near the corner of the room. How did I not notice that before? It's heavy and, now that she's noticed it, very uncomfortable as well.
“Calm down!” The woman also has a chain around her ankle but looks unbothered by it. A huff escapes her lips before she repeats her earlier question. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s your name?” How the hell is this woman so calm right now?
“My name is very fucking confused! What’s your name? What’s going on here?”
“I’m Hermione Granger. I’m a doctor. I woke up here just like you.” At least now she has a name to put with the face. Hermione points at the body. “Recognize that man?
“No.”
“Do you have any idea how you got here?” What is this, twenty questions? Fleur can feel her temper slowly getting the better of her.
“No.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Nothing! I went to bed in my shit-hole apartment and woke up in an actual shit-hole.” She rubs her hands over her face. “What about you?”
“There’s not much to tell really. I was on my way home from work and I don’t really remember much else.” A thought suddenly hits Fleur and she drags her tank top above her bra and starts feeling her midriff. “What are you doing?” Hermione asks slowly.
“Checking for scars. Can you see any?”
“What?”
“This is what they do. They kidnap you, drug you, and the next thing you know you’re in a bathtub and your kidneys are on eBay.” There is a flash of disbelief crosses on Hermione’s face.
“No one took your kidneys.” It was a flat statement.
“Oh yeah? How can you tell from over there?”
“Because you’d either be in extreme agony or dead. Remember? I’m a doctor?” Another flat statement. “So are you gonna tell me your name?”
She pulls her tank top down, tensing up from the still wet cloth as it sticks to her skin again. “Fleur.”
“Well Fleur, what we need to do…” The brunette looks around the room, looking up at the ceiling and squinting. “…is figure out why we’re here. Whoever brought us here could’ve killed us by now, but they didn’t. They must want something from us.” She pauses, leaning down and tugging the chain with her hand. “Question is what.”
Fleur starts looking around too, her eyes landing on a clock that’s closer to Hermione than it is to her. “The clock is brand new.”
“What about it?”
“It’s brand new. Everything else in this room is old and gross.” She gestures over to the toilets on her right, frowning at the expression on Hermione’s face. “Someone obviously wanted us to know the time.”
“Wait, I think I might be able to rea- what is that?” It was whispered loud enough that Fleur could just barely hear it. She watches as Hermione pulled out a small, black rectangle from her pocket. “It’s a tape, it says ‘Play me.’” She searched her own pockets and found an identical tape in her flannel pocket. It only confuses her more; why leave them a tape without…
The dead man is holding a tape recorder. It’s way too far away for Hermione to possibly reach, but maybe…
She lays on her stomach and crawls forward as far as she could, to the point where it felt as though the chain could rip off her foot. “It’s too far.”
“Use your shirt.” She pulls off her flannel and gets back onto her stomach. It gets close, but still, the tape is too far.
“It’s no use.”
“There must be something else you can use!”
“There’s nothing!” Maybe she’s destined to be wrong. As soon as the words left her mouth, she noticed the bath plug glistening on the floor. Her eyes widen and she grabs it, returning to her prone position in a split-second. She flings the plug, missing the recorder yet again.
“Come on, you can do this, try again.” She glares at Hermione for a moment before trying twice more, finally knocking the recorder out of the dead man’s hand. She turns it over in her hand a few times before sliding in her tape, looking up at Hermione as she presses play.
“Hello, Fleur.” The distorted voice sends shivers down her spine, and she's regretting every decision she's ever made in life that could have possibly lead to this moment. “You’re probably wondering where you are. I’ll tell you where you might be. You might be in the room you die in.”