"WHO ARE YOU? WHERE AM I?" I ask her, expecting to get at least some answers this time.

"I am Mehreen..."

"HI! I am Sawyer. Do you know why we are here?" I ask her again, this time in a normal voice as we could listen to each other.

"I really have no damn idea about why I am here."

"How long have you been here? Are you locked up as well?"

"Yes, I am. In metallic chains. It has been a few hours I believe. I was maybe out for most of the time. And you?" She asks.

"Same, in chains as well. I have no idea about when I was brought here. I don't even remember what were the events that I remember that would lead me to these circumstances. I simply woke up and found myself locked up here. I..." I sigh and stop talking, starting to feel my head feel heavier and my eyes starting to blur.

There is dead silence for about a minute. There is so much that I am yet to process and hypothesise. I have so many questions in my mind and I positively believe that maybe talking to someone in the exact same situation as me would give me some clues. Maybe her and I could connect a few more dots together as a team.

"THIS IS SOOO MESSED UP! I HAVE NEVER DONE ANYTHING TO HURT ANYONE." I shout out, frustratingly rattling at these chains. "WHY would someone, anyone do this to me?"

I try to struggle with the chains again, for the nth time now. I pull my hands with full force, with a vain hope that maybe, just maybe I could free myself in some way or another. They were iron chains, after all.

What am I thinking? Or am I, even?

My subconscious brain and animal instincts have taken control all over me. The adrenaline in my veins feels pumped up and I could kick a bull's ass if I were free.

But I am not free. And I am probably not going to be for a long time.

"Is it for money?" I spat. "I'll give them all my fucking money. Or maybe revenge for something I did? I don't recall PISSING off any BLOODY psychopaths anytime in my life. This is FUCKED UP!"

She keeps quiet, probably getting more frustrated by me constantly going on about and complaining, in a situation that we were both equally in. In fact, who knows, she could be worse off than me.

"Do you have absolutely any idea about where we are locked up?" I ask again, trying to calm myself down and look for any connections.

"Yes," she responds finally, sighs and starts again, "this is my house."

"WHAT?!" I shout, loud and shocked. "You mean to say that you are kidnapped and latched up in your OWN EFFIN' HOUSE?"

"Yes, pretty much," she sounded tired and, in a mood, to give up.

"And yet you have NO idea about who it could be?"

She responds to my questions in her monotonic voice "I might have a few people in mind who would kill me if they could."

"Sooo? Would you care to share who it could be?"

"It could be someone from my own family or even my friends or anyone. "

"YOUR OWN FAMILY?"

""It would account for a few bad choices, I might say."

"WHY DO YOU SOUND SO RELAXED IN SUCH A SITUATION? Do you NOT care about your own life?" Her boredom now starting to annoy the hell out of me.

"Maybe. Not anymore, I guess."

I start again, disregarding her death fantasies for a moment to concentrate on things in hand first, "Who do you think it is? Do you think that they have an agenda for the both of us? Do you feel we are part of this chain somehow?"

"I have not a single clue."

"He could also be a serial killer who traps people in basements and kills them for pleasure. Those bloody sadistic savages. I recently read a tonne shit about them on the internet after I watched The Silence of the Lambs." I respond, thinking about almost a million ways in which they could kill me.

"Or a group of cannibals, who eat humans, very much like us," she pitches in.

"This is not helping," I respond, now chuckling.

"Should I care or should I not. I am confused now," she responds, sounding like she was smiling.

I chuckle again, "please care. But don't freak me out."

"We have to consider the worst-case scenarios if we want to survive this. We have no idea about what they have in store for us. We have to be at least mentally ready for everything."

"You sound wise," I pause for a second and start again, "in fact, no. You sound pretty old,"

"How old do you think I am, hmm? Kiddo," she says, now in a more light-hearted tone than her former monotone.

"Umm... I don't know. Perhaps, around my mother's age. Around sixty, I guess."

"HEY, HEY, HEY. I AM FORTY-ONE," she squeals at a sharper frequency than her average tone of voice.

"That is old." I chuckle. "Just fooling around. Your voice sounds like you must look really young and beautiful."

"It's okay, kiddo. You are forgiven," she says, chuckling under her breathe again. "I have no idea about what's going to happen. I am scared. Really scared." Her voice unexpectedly plummets to the ground, like someone loaded about 100 pounds on her back.

"I was terrified too, a while back. You overheard me, screaming and shouting and making attempts to get out of these chains. Chatting with you has soothed me down a bit. Being scared of our approaching death is definitely not getting us out. Let's just talk."

"The thing is, that I am not afraid to die. There were a few words left unexpressed, and a few things left unfinished that are tugging me behind. Post all that is taken care of, I cannot think of anything else that would make me want to continue."

"What is it that you would like to say and to whom?" I ask her, after pausing for a few seconds.

"By the way, kid. How old are you?" she questions instantly, completely sidestepping my questions.

"Sawyer, just so you know. My name is Sawyer. And I'm 24."

"WHAT?! I expected you to be a teenager or something." She reacts, leaving me wondering if that was intended to be an insult or a compliment.

"I..."

My response gets interrupted by a sudden clank on the metal door.

We both fall dead quiet.

Probably, the kidnapper (the most probable guess) turns the key in the padlock of the door and creaks the old metal door wide open.

I feel my heart rate commence to rise up again. I hold my breath in. This time, I cannot pretend to be asleep. It is been a few hours now and he is not that stupid.

The immensely covered figure strolls in with his thick boots again and turns to glance at me in the beginning.

"So, I feel that you guys have already met," declares the psychopath, in his Darth Vader voice.

I respond with silence, still looking at him.

"I was hoping to be introduced with a touch of something like 'Who are you? What do you want? Where am I? Why am I here? Blah blah blah'." he says while animating his hands and body to act out like how any abducted victim would.

Obviously has a high level of presence of mind and a substantial amount of sense of humour. In spite of him trying to be funny, he sounds freakishly annoying to someone who he has tied up in a creepy basement that belongs to Me... the person he locked me with

Okay, I have to ask her name once again.

"You want to know why you are here?" he asks, with his head turned towards me.

"Yes." I respond.

Oh no, I am enjoying my visit here in this smelly dungeon or basement. Stockholm Syndrome, as they say.

"Why don't you ask your little friend here?" he turns and walks over to the other side of maybe a U-shaped basement, loudly and sluggishly slapping his boots on the ground.

"What are you doing?" I hear her grumble from the other side of the basement.

I hear the sound of iron rattling against each other. It is probably the chains. What is he up to now?

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" I can listen to her struggle with the chains while he does something at the rear of the wall that I cannot see.

Her whimpering and the rattling of iron chains increases in volume as I hear the kidnapper's footsteps approach towards me as the both of them slowly become visible from my eye line.