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His mind was fuzzy, and his head pounded. That was the first thing Liam could process: the awful pain in the back of his head.
The next thing: something hard pressing onto his left side. He was on the floor.
He lay still, not too keen on moving, waiting for the headache to die down. But a few minutes passed and it seemed persistent, like it wouldn't go away. Liam scrunched his face in a grimace, and that action made him register that there were unfamiliar things on his face.
A stretched piece of cloth pressed uncomfortably onto his eyes. When he tried opening them, he could only slightly flutter his eyelids, and even then he couldn't get a glimpse of light - the blindfold completely obscured his vision. Something else, sticky and stiff, covered his mouth: tape.
Liam tried moving his hands next, but although he could wiggle his fingers, he couldn't pull his hands apart. Rope wrapped around his wrists, forcing them together in front of him.
Goodness, where was he? Why was he bound and gagged?
His senses traveled down to his legs, and to his surprise, he found them not tied. Whoever had kidnapped him either didn't fully think it through, didn't believe Liam would escape, or was simply generous enough to allow him some freedom in movement. He bent his knees a little, feeling that his left leg - and left arm - had gone numb from being stuck underneath his body. Liam carefully rolled onto his back to allow his limbs more bloodflow, cringing as his muscles began to tingle. His head still hurt, even more now that he lay on his back.
While he waited for the pins and needles to stop, he tried listening, possibly detecting the person responsible for his bondage. He still couldn't quite piece together how he had gotten here in the first place.
The room he was kept in seemed silent... apart from a quiet buzzing... of lamps, he presumed. That was strange. If there was nobody here, why were the lights left on?
More importantly, what had happened? He remembered putting Stone's code in the radio, ending up in some dark space, and then nothing. That usually meant he would've been dead by now, dead and gone back to the waiting room, to try again, to voyage with Bryce to the farthest ends of the multiverse. Not this time though, apparently.
Speaking of, where was Bryce?
Liam felt a pit open in his stomach. The more he thought about this situation, the worse it seemed. Was Bryce somewhere in this room as well, tied up like he was? Was he unconscious like Liam had been a few minutes ago? Where were the kidnappers? What was going on?
He knew that he could get up and try to escape - his legs were unbound - but he was still blindfolded and he would have no idea where to go. Maybe if he could remove the strip of fabric covering his eyes...
In that moment, Liam heard a noise. Footsteps. Approaching rapidly.
His blood ran cold, and his instinct urged him to get back into the previous position, to appear as if he hadn't awoken. He lay on his side, stiff, anticipating, trying to look inconspicuously.
Someone entered the room and slammed the door; the sound made Liam tremble. However, the person was... panting?
"Hmph... huh... Liam?"
Bryce? he thought. That was his friend's voice! So he wasn't trapped like him, at least...
"Okko kanka viahr!" someone else shouted, muffled - probably from behind the door.
It was incomprehensible what the kidnappers were demanding, but it didn't matter much - Bryce could have even tried to open the door for all it was worth, but he simply didn't get the chance, because in another second there was a loud gunshot and the sound of something bursting.
Liam slowly began to reach his bound hands to the fabric on his eyes.
"N' efte vitrof! Hongo!" the unfamiliar voice yelled. He heard a click of the reloading gun, and then a silence had fallen, the kind of silence that usually accompanies tension - like being held at gunpoint. Liam froze, but it didn't seem like the command was directed at him, so he resumed reaching up.
He finally managed to get a grip on the blindfold and gently pushed it upwards. When it was off his eyelids, he blinked, his sight blurry but already adjusting to the dim light in the room.
A few feet from his position on the floor, he could see the lower part of some silhouettes: a pair of legs - those belonged to Bryce - and... something else, harder to spot... it was some sort of a snake-like, transparent tail, which probably belonged to the alien creature.
What worried him more was that he could make out another rope trailing behind the guy, held by his tail and likely reaching to his hand... As if he was carrying it to use on Bryce.
Held at gunpoint, the soda bottle seemed to comply with the alien's demand - because he was now kneeling on the floor.
Bryce, you idiot, no! Liam thought. We need to die, not get caught and sold to the black market!
He wriggled his hands. He needed to stand up and do something, otherwise something terrible might happen to them both. Inhaling, Liam spread his legs, digging them into the ground and trying to push himself up. He managed to turn on his stomach with his legs bent underneath him, which position allowed him the limited help of his hands - so he pushed himself up with them and stood up from his knees.
The transparent lizard creature seemed to be wrapping a rope around Bryce's wrists. Liam did not think twice.
He sprinted and rammed into the alien, knocking him over as a result. He heard a thud and a cling when two different things fell down on the floor, but he couldn't process what either of them were. Dizziness from the headache returned to him with full force and Liam gracelessly flopped prone, onto the lizard's body.
"Mghh..." he grunted, squeezing his eyelids, hearing his ears ring.
Someone grabbed him by his back straps, pulling him up and away from the creature, then sitting him down against a wall. Liam squinted his eyes and saw Bryce in front of him.
His friend reached to his face and with one sharp tug, pulled the tape off his mouth.
"Ah-! sssssss..." Liam hissed, clenching his jaws. He took a moment to exhale slowly. "You're welcome, Bryce... I just saved you from being sold for organs."
"M-hm," was all the soda bottle graced him with. He was already focused on the knots restraining Liam's wrists, trying to figure out how to untie them.
The backpack moved his gaze to his surroundings. They were in some sort of a dungeon, with large, bare lightbulbs hung by the walls, providing dim light. Behind Bryce, he spotted the body of the alien, now unconscious; his slam had made the guy hit his head on the floor, it seemed. Near him, there lay the abandoned gun - comically large and unbelievably detailed, so much that it looked like it had been made in some higher dimension, with the passion and precision of a gunsmith god.
"Bryce," Liam said, "just take the gun."
The soda bottle stopped pulling at the knots, looking at him with confusion. "You... want me to..."
"Shoot me and then shoot yourself," he confirmed. "That'll be easier. We need to die to get back, remember?"
Bryce looked over to the gun with a hesitant expression on his face. He stayed like this for a concerningly long moment, before slowly turning again.
"I don't exactly... want to commit suicide, Liam, I don't think I could." His gaze was down, and his hands on Liam's binds were trembling slightly.
"Alright," he said quietly, understanding. "Then just help me with these restraints. I'll keep watch and tell you if I hear anyone coming."
"Okay." Bryce let out a breath, then continued working on the knots.
They sat in silence for a while. Liam leaned his head back to the wall and listened to the sounds from the corridor. Nothing was approaching them yet.
He felt calmer, and his headache seemed to subside a little bit. Still, he couldn't wait until they were back in the waiting room, where all their injuries and pains would be fixed. He kind of missed the plush armchairs, they were the softest cushioning he'd experienced in months. He wondered if he could take a nap in them.
Bryce jerked his hands suddenly, which made Liam twitch.
"I don't know- I don't know!" Bryce heaved, falling back. "It feels like I'm only making it tighter the more I try."
Liam looked down on the binds. He tried moving his hands, and found it harder to do so. Well, great.
His friend looked more stressed by the minute, breathing heavily.
"Hey, hey, it's okay. Not a big deal. We can just-" Liam stopped when he heard a swoosh on the floor outside, and then a voice.
"Narko? Narko?!" Another creature, identical to the first one, rushed into the room, leaning over the body of their companion. In a moment, it would surely turn around and notice the two objects hiding by the wall.
"Pull me up, pull me up!" Liam whispered insistently.
Bryce sprung up, grabbed him by the hands and quickly pulled him to his feet.
The lizard snapped its head at them, a low, raspy growl erupting from its throat. Caught, the duo stood there awkwardly, before Liam flashed a flustered grin at the alien and Bryce broke into a run, pulling his friend after him and escaping into the corridor.
Outside the room was just as dark as inside, perhaps even darker. Liam nearly stumbled, but he managed to balance narrowly and save himself from falling. He cast a brief glance behind him, and to his relief, he saw the gun - not the rope - in the lizard's hands.
"Bryce, let them shoot us!"
The soda bottle stopped and turned around, panting slightly. Liam could see the anxiety in his eyes; he suddenly felt a pang of guilt. Bryce still wasn't used to dying, not in the determination-fuelled way Liam was, and this whole ordeal was probably causing him a lot of stress.
Maybe I should be more careful with inputting the code next time, he thought.
Then he heard a gunshot, and the dark dungeon universe blurred away from him.