1

The man awoke with a jerk. He felt dazed for several seconds, then adrenaline began to pump.

Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

He had noticed immediately that a potato sack had been dyed black and placed over his head, shrouding his face from the world. His hands and feet were bound behind him with new, strong rope that cut into his wrists and ankles.

He tried to remember what happened before his exit from unconsciousness, but nothing came. Nothing but a name echoed in his head.

Scott.

He began to panic at the sudden emptiness of his mind, wondering where he was and what was going on.

“Hello? Are you awake?” A soft voice called.

“Yes. Where are we?” Scott answered back.

“I don’t know, I woke up five minutes ago. Who are you?”

Scott hesitated. For some reason Scott didn’t seem right, like it didn’t fit into his personality.

“I-I’m not sure.”

“What?”

“I think I’m Scott. Who are you?”

A pause.

“Lauren.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds. Something metal slid to Scott’s right.

“What was that? Who’s there?” Scott inquired, his body beginning to shake violently.

“Shut up.” A ruff voice ordered.

Light burst into Scott’s face as his bag was pulled off, revealing a masked man holding a camcorder.

Scott looked over as Lauren’s bag was pulled off.

She looked magnificent. Her brown hair was cut halfway down her back, her jaw was strong and her eyes were round and brown. She wore a black sweater and skinny jeans.

Scott looked at his own clothes, black khakis and a white button-up shirt that glowed from the light of the neon fixture above him.

He was in a dark, concrete room with one metal door that slid open and closed.

The masked man got to one knee and withdrew a knife, slicing through the ropes easily.

When Scott’s bindings were cut he pounced for the man. The man calmly pulled out a gun and shot him in the leg.

“Don’t move.” the man ordered. Scott complied with a curse.

The man walked to Lauren and freed her of her restrictions, her reaction less violent. She was probably more afraid then angry.

Strangely Scott felt absolutely furious at the man wielding the pistol, a feeling he couldn’t describe.

Anger, yet intrigue. He narrowed his eyes to slits, deep in thought and, frankly, the pain made him feel like he would explode.

The man grabbed Lauren by her wrist and tossed her to the wall farthest from the door.

Scott jerked forward and the man complied by holding his gun up to Scott’s face. He scooted back to the wall and stared at Lauren’s tear stained cheeks.

“Hello, America.” the man said, pointing his camcorder at Lauren. “It’s time for another installment of my web cast, ’How Should I Kill Them? We’ve got Lauren up for grabs here, click for your answer.”

For what looked like a man in his mid thirties, the creep talked like a teen.

The man withdrew a cell phone from his pocket and clicked a few buttons, smiling and scrolling down.

“Forty-nine votes for decapitation, twenty three votes for poison, sixty votes for bullet to the head, and one thousand votes for burned to death. The vote has been cast.” He walked over to Lauren and handed her the camcorder. “Could you hold that for just a second? Keep trained on your pretty little face.” Lauren did what was told of her.

Scott could feel the anger swelling up in his chest, breaking his heart slightly. He had strange feelings for this woman, why he had no clue.

Curiosity and confusion. He left it there.

The man pulled out yet another item from his bulging pockets, a red matchbox labeled Quick Flick Matches.

Then he got up and exited the room. Silence soon settled into the stuffy space.

“We got to get out of here.” Lauren whispered to herself, beginning to cry.

The man came back in with a large, orange canister with Option 4 marked on the side with black marker.

Black. The word black felt comfortable to him. It felt…familiar.

The man snatched the camcorder from Lauren’s grasp with a silenced thank you,, set it on the floor so it pointed to Lauren, and began to pour gasoline on her shaking body.

Scott knew he should stop the man from burning the beautiful woman he had feelings for, but no plan came to him. He sat on the wall opposite to the victim that would soon die, letting tears slip from his eyes.

“Stop blubbering, baby. You’re gonna die to.” the man scoffed.

A plan slammed at Scott’s head like the man’s bullet to his leg.

He slowly shifted to the door, trying desperately not to be noticed. Once five feet from the door he got to his feet and, ignoring the pain in his left leg, sprinted as best he could down out the door and into a concrete hall.

The man was caught off guard, expecting Scott to go after the girl, not save his own hide. He thundered after him, firing at the pitch-black darkness that surrounded him.

Scott stopped at a corner and looked behind him. The darkness shrouded his figure but the noise made up for the lack of sight.

Yet, he felt he knew what was down the hall to his left. Another corner, then a door. Past the door, a kitchen with another neon light. The kitchen was evil.

Scott bounded down the hall, turned the corner after smacking into the concrete wall, then stopped at the door.

His mind screamed for him to enter and get away from the man trying to kill him, but his heard murmured a slight warning.

A memory flashed into his head. A kitchen knife, with blood dripping off it, and a child’s wide-eyed face staring at the man wielding it. He couldn’t make out the man’s face, like it had been blurred. He twisted the door open and entered.