I Awoke, Alone in a Strange Place...(AIASP)

I awoke, alone in a strange place. I was lethargic, and my senses were slow to return to consciousness. Smell. Metallic, and acrid, yet musky and dank all at once. A smell like none other I had ever sensed, and with other less nameable hues dangling, tangled in the motionless air. I felt a heaviness in that air, not normally associated with such dampness as that which presses against my skin. Cold, hard concrete under my back, as I lay at an angle about that of a dentist’s chair, perhaps forward a bit more. I feel metal chafing at my wrists and ankles. Just as the feeling is interpreted, I flex, and my eyes pop open, but are not quick to respond to my need of them. They hurt, and feel as though a gooey glue has been glazed over them. I squeeze the lids open and shut, trying to focus on a dim light that is not close to me.

I flex against my bindings some more, but not desperately. My mind is still too confused to be panicked. The motion is more to stretch muscles that ache from being motionless for too long, upon the unforgiving surface that drains the warmth from my body. There is a taste in my mouth, more acrid than the smell in the air. Bitter, like some chemical, but not metallic like blood, so still I do not panic. My head lolls about, as my eyes still work to focus. My ears hear the slow but repetitious plinking of liquid, echoing one drop at a time. The sound gives me the impression that I am within some room or small cavern that is solid and hollow.

Finally my eyes are able to focus on the pale light, a dirty rusty brown glow. Like that from an old lamp with a shade that has never been cleaned. But there is no lamp. The light comes through a small opening, perhaps thirty feet or so beyond my own two feet, off at the end of the hollow in which I lay. The opening appears to be centered in an otherwise solid door. In the faint light, I make out that the room is indeed featureless and solid, with walls of stone or concrete. The dripping sound is not from within the room itself, but echoes up from a drain pipe in the floor.

And suddenly, all of my senses come together to form the realization that I am not in a favorable state. I make a throaty, raspy shout, “Hey!!! What the f(ire tr)uck?!!!” as the metal restraints bite into my clammy flesh. I pause, as my voice echoes around the room and down a corridor out beyond the door, but continue, “Somebody better get in here right now! I ain’t f(lip t)uckin’ kiddin’!!!”

I cease my angry calling, interrupted by another cry, not my own, but that I judge to be of a young woman by the pitch. A series of notes in decrescendo order, of a scream, a wail, brief crying, and finally whimpering which fades into echo. An instinct of self-preservation keeps me silent for several moments. Then there is more noise. Some clanking and jingling somewhere down the outside corridor, then the squeal of an opening door, followed by a heavy closing. Steps being taken in hard-soled shoes on stairs which I presume could only lead up from here, but down from there.

I can make out no features of the shadow that passes the barred and rectangular hole in the door, as the clacking footsteps continue on down the corridor. They stop some distance down the corridor, then start back toward me, stopping three times to pause, before there is activity at my own door. Keys jingling and a few loud, heavy clanks, before the door finally swings open with a rusty screech. A figure stands in the doorway, motionless. I can only make out a backlit shape. A small figure really, with long hair. A woman? I suddenly have a flash of chauvinism with the presumption.

“You better get me out of this, right now…” I grumbled loudly, “I’m not f(ried cl)uckin’ playin’! Right now dammit!!!” as I strained against my restraints once again. I added a few more particularly derogatory comments meant to demean the female form in favor of my own male ego. An attempt at psychological posturing I suppose, given my subordinated physical position.

But just as quickly as my arrogance had swept in, it rolled back out again like the tide. I suddenly shivered and not from the chilled air. There was something else, the realization of which now lurked in my sub-conscious. The figure did not move, at all. I suppose I had expected some sort of reaction, even a negative one most likely. But there was nothing. The figure simply stood there, as if waiting to see how I would react further. As if I were a specimen. “Too damn still,” I thought to myself. I could not even sense any breathing by the figure. Now the subconscious came forth. The pronouncement of the sixth sense was, “That isn’t a person!” I swallowed hard.

A blast of light, and suddenly I was being choked. A hand was wrapped around my throat, as stiff and cold as the concrete all around me. A rigid thumb with sharp-nailed tip dug into my jaw line, forcing my head to turn away from the master of the hand. The light came from a single bare bulb centered above me. Now I could sense, all too well, that this creature did indeed have a breath. A breath of death, dank and pungent. “Ahhhh,” she muttered in a guttural and raspy tone, apparently taking note of some feature of mine she found amusing.

I flailed the best I could muster within the shackles. I felt the flesh on my face tear a bit under the thumb-nail, but the monster released her grip and jumped back a step cackling. But what monster could be bestowed with features so intriguing, and yet so inhuman at once? Seeing her now in full light, I found her pleasant to look at while terrorized that she indeed was not Human, and there were horrid features which made that plain as well. A bizarre inner sensation the likes of which I had never imagined existed. A confusion of revulsion and attraction.

“Who are you?!” I barked, while “what” might well have been substituted.

“Who I am to you is yet to be decided,” she smiled, playfully, and yet remained so sinister.

Our eyes locked, and my body went numb suddenly. But no, I was not actually numb. I could not move though. My mind was suddenly detached from commanding my own muscles, and yet my flesh still reported back to the brain. I was not hypnotized, being acutely aware of what was happening as this creature leaned in toward me once again. Acutely aware of that breath most foul as her tongue slithered across my flesh and along the open wound, playfully lapping at the droplets of blood. Then came the pain, as her fangs sliced into the bristly flesh about my neck. Waves of fear came over me with every beat of my heart that spurted into her mouth. But then slowed, as the room began to swirl and my eyesight became hazy. She indulged while, one by one, just as they had come to me, my senses faded.

[edit on 3/21/0808 by jackinthebox]

I hope to continue this story in the future, but figured that would be a good place to break off to meet the contest deadline. Enjoy.

Very good..and if nothing else your creativity of censor evasion..made me ROFL!

Bravo! Flagged and starred. I really liked the visualization you provided with your wordage.
Nice work.