Bereft [UPDATED VERSION]

III - Words in Another Room

III - Words in Another Room

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"...be allowed to...."

"Sara!"

"...the garden, I had to...."

"Sara!"

"...but embers left, how could...."

Broken words of half-recalled memories blotted Sara's waking thoughts like ink splattered across a page. She grew aware of herself in parts and pieces, a slow, gradual process that left her exhausted and desperate to go back to sleep. Her legs felt numb, and her face stung. A dull throb pulsed in her head.

"Sara—!"

She rolled her aching skull against a solid surface and tried to swallow, her dry throat burning, the sting of her face reaching into her mouth and nose. She opened her eyes and it was dark, her vision blurred, fringed in ugly yellow blotches of light.

"Sara, for God's sake, answer me—!"

"Tara?" She croaked, coughing, the prickly feeling traveling down into her lungs. She coughed again, harder, and the sudden burst of new air cleared her head enough for Sara to think.

She lay on her back, hair in her eyes and caught in her mouth, her lips and cheeks stinging as if covered in road rash. Sara reached for her face—and her arm shook, her own fingers feeling strange against her skin as she moved her hair.

What—what happened? I can't—.

Metal scraped against stone. It snapped against the floor, and Sara felt the vibration in her back. She swallowed, breathing in through her nose, and she smelled sawdust, oil, and—.

Blood.

"Tara?" she said again, louder, struggling to sit up. Why can't I move my—?

Her hands came in contact with a cold, heavy weight above her knees, and it took more than a moment of confused staring before Sara realized there were chains wrapped around her legs.

"Oh, thank fuck," Tara gasped, her voice breaking on a dry, desperate sob. Sara could only see her in part, her side highlighted by the fuzzy, flickering glow of a fat, melting candle lit on the ground behind her. "Sara, can you hear me?"

"Yeah," Sara replied, her shaking fingers traveling over the links. The chains weren't the kind you might find at the hardware store or use to secure a bicycle. They were heavy—large. The type found in factory machinery, or maybe pulling up boat anchors. Either way, Sara could barely lift one coil let alone drag herself out of the constricted knots tightened around her.

"What—what happened—?" She remembered...an alley, red light smeared against bricks made greasy by smog, a van, a man in black—.

"Can you reach Rick?" she begged. "He's right there, but he won't answer—."

Sara twisted, straining, the chains making it difficult to sit up let alone turn. She could see the other candles now, arranged in a crooked circle, and Rick was where Tara had indicated, made visible only as a darker shape against the concrete, prone on the floor. Sara folded herself over the chains and her numb legs to reach him, her grasping fingers snagging hold of his jacket's sleeve.

"Rick," she said, her fingernails digging into his wrist. "Rick!" No answer came, and when she released his arm, it settled like a limp rag doll.

Bile burned the back of Sara's throat.

"What the fuck is this?" Tara demanded of no one in particular, her voice raspy with fear. "What the fuck? Do you—? Christ, all right. You don't know these people, right? Please say you have some secret gambling debts to repay."