A Captive Audience of One

One weepy eye slowly opened, dark brown iris contracting to its smallest possible diameter, the sudden influx of light causing Ryan Larkin to blink and wince. He'd of opened his other eye but couldn't. It was swollen shut. Morbid shades of black and blue adorned the puffy flesh.

His one useful eye slowly began to adjust to the resplendent light in front of him. A single light bulb, hung lazily from a long thin white flex in the centre of the room, had flies buzzing around it, pinging against it.

Looking around, he thought that the shadowed corners of the huge room could provide great cover for someone, or something, to watch him unseen. That someone, or something, could have stepped out of the shadows at any moment and … That got him moving. He soon realised he wasn't going anywhere soon, though. Strong, thick rope bound his hands and legs to the seat he was sat in.

If I can just wriggle one hand free, he thought. Twisting his right hand back and forth, however, got him nothing more than the mother all Chinese burns, the pain causing him to grimace. Blood soon started trickling from a deep cut. After a few minutes of struggling, despondency soon gave way to despair, and he gave up. Whoever had tied him up certainly knew how to tie a damn good knot.

'Shit!' he said in low voice, then started rocking from side to side to see if he could pull himself free somehow. After nearly tipping himself over, he thought better of that approach. Lying sideways on the floor with his arm trapped underneath him wasn't going to improve the situation. Cracking his head open - and probably knocking himself out, too - was not going to help his cause, either.