In Media Res
“Turbo-”
Mack didn’t dare breathe, forcing his way into the barred room, rusting metal door nearly snapping at the hinges.
He had barely taken a step inside before he gagged violently, forcing his stomach back into place as it attempted to exit via his throat, even his insides begging him to turn and leave this- this…place.
Later, when he writes his report, he will be objective, clinical, professional. Now? He can do nothing but look, and see, and feel.
Concrete ceiling, pinging with harsh fluorescents, casting the prison in sterile, uninterrupted light, their glare stabbing behind his eyes.
Cinderblock walls, stained with what once might have been viscera, crumbling but refusing to fall, each brick marked by the horror of countless former residents, desperation written and rewritten across every surface.
Concrete floor, damp and crusted in a layer of filth, congealing fluids reeking of decay pooled in every crevice.
A drain, festering with lowly buzzing flies, swarming to their inevitable death.
And, amongst the horror, a lone figure, curled against the wall, blindfolded and gagged, bound hand and foot, naked aside from a ragged pair of what may have once been pants, the original color of the garment indiscernible beneath weeks of grime and torment.
Mack scanned the room (if you could call it a room), glancing behind him before dropping his weapon, dropping to his knees, mindful of the blood trails that cut through the crusted mire, indicating the smaller man had dragged himself across this crime scene more than once, his fear embedded in every millimeter of the room, seeping and choking and dark. Even now, the captive trembling and whining into the gag, pushing himself back into the wall, eager to escape the unknown visitor, nearly out of his mind with terror.
“Turbo-, Fitz-, Leo, baby, I’m so sorry.”