SAW IV

A single red light bulb washed the room with a sickly glow. It was impossible to tell the color of the featureless walls. They were hard, textured. My head ached, apparently from leaning back against one of those walls. I groggily noted that I was nude. My ass ached too, from the cold floor. I could hardly feel it. I’m having trouble focusing. It feels as if I’m having double vision, but it’s hard to tell with the washed out quality of the light. I squeeze my eyelids together in an attempt to clear my head, to focus on something. My body feels sluggish, drugged. I force them open, again. Peer between my legs. There’s a note on the floor. It seems to be written in red ink, the difference in the paper and the writing barely noticeable. I concentrate. Put my hand over it for some shade. I can see it better, now.

You will die here. The only way to save yourself is to remove two of the following six items from your body.

Ears/Eardrums

Eyes

Tongue

Hands

Feet

Genitals –you have 30 seconds to choose, and five minutes to finish.

I lay my head back in shock, and notice for the first time that hanging on the wall above my head are an ice pick, a razor blade, and a hand axe.

I can feel the seconds ticking away. Somehow, I know this note is truth. What order, what order? I reach up, grabbing the ice pick. A tear rolls down my face. I jam it in, swirling it around and scrambling the area. A million nails are pounding in to my head, so I switch hands, repeat the action on the other side. I’m screaming, hysterical, and still working the pick around. Quickly, before I lose too much blood, and my nerve, I reach and grab the axe with a bloody hand. The blood looks black in this light. I try to get a good grip, but blood flows down my face, and it’s so hard to grasp it. I bring it down with a resounding bang. Sparks flash as it cleaves completely through. The pain is too much. Too much. I feel consciousness flowing like the blood from my body. My last thought is that I didn’t get the other one. I’m a dead man.

Awareness snuck back. I breathed the smell of clean. The smell of hospital. My eyes open almost involuntarily. There is a deadness around me – ah, no sound. And worse – I can still feel my left foot.

So thanks to Susan for that one. Q, yours is next.

Michael