《World Wonderer》 Ch. 1: Butterscotch Slice "I! Love! You! Baaaaaby and ifitsquitealright, I something Baby, to fill my lonely nights, I hm-hm-hmmhm-hmmm....." Mari half sang, half hummed as she whisked the sugar and eggs together. It was a beautiful Sunday morning; she had woken up late, it was cool and sunny outside, and now she was whipping up some butterscotch slice for breakfast. She would probably get hungry halfway through and end up eating cereal while the slice was still in the oven, but what the heck. It was Sunday. Sunday meant doing whatever she wanted, when she wanted. To Mari, Sunday was her one day where she didn''t have to think about work or reports or deadlines or that blasted bug that she still couldn''t find in her discrete-event simulation code. Not to be mistaken; Mari loved her job at the R&D department. It was great fun - lots of maths, lots of programming....lots of banging your head against the wall. But some days she just wanted to bake and sing and dance around the kitchen in her pyjamas without a care in the world - like she was doing now. Except this time the world started to dance around her. Her vision swam; the colours leaked into each other like a horror picture story - her frame of reference started to twist and she wasn''t sure which way was up. At some point her feet were no longer touching the ground and Mari felt her entire body being excruciatingly stretched apart like a brioche dough being pulled between a million hands. Every molecule in her screamed. Her vision was full of particulate supernovas and a weird, alien pressure was sucking her entire being. The last thing Mari thought before she blacked out from the pain was how she was glad she didn''t have epilepsy because this was the craziest light show she had ever seen... ... and then everything disappeared. ***** Her head was still woozy when Mari came to. "Uuurghh..." she groaned. A face appeared, warbling strange sounds she didn''t understand. Mari tried to ask what happened, but all that came out was: "Whahka-hapftahkhk...hflkk?" Her mouth was waaay too dry. The world was still spinning in a terribly nauseating way, and Mari decided she just didn''t want to deal with all this right now. So she closed her eyes and played dead. It was a legit strategy! Backed up by thousands of years of ethology.... The person next to her eventually shut up and went away. Mari focused on breathing in and out, calming down her body until it felt real and solid again. Her muscles relaxed; she started to feel sleepy. The person came back. Mari heard them crouch down next to her and fiddle with something, when suddenly a pungent chemical smell punched her nostrils like 10-ton truck. She sat up with a gasp, eyes watering. The person put the nasty smelling stuff away and watched as Mari recovered from her intense wake-up procedure. As she sat there gadping for breath, Mari noticed a few facts: Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. 1. The person was a he, 2. She didn''t know him, 3. He didn''t look like a doctor, 4. And this definitely wasn''t the hospital. "Where and when am I?" She asked the guy. He responded in a language she couldn''t understand, looking equally confused. Okay, thought Mari, whatever is going on, we''re not in normal-land anymore. She needed to be careful in this strange, bizarre situation. First thing she did was scan her surroundings. She was sitting on the floor of what looked like a small bedroom - complete with unmade bed, messy desk, bedecked bookshelf, a large window and a plain wooden door. Mari noted that she was sitting in the middle of a circle carved into the floor, with strange patterns that practically screamed magic ritual. Uh-oh. She quickly looked at herself. No ropes. Good. No stab wounds, no blood. Very good. Clothes still on. Excellent. The next thing she focused on was the other human in the room. He was young, maybe slightly younger than her, with lanky arms and foreign, robe-like clothes. His long, messy grey-brown hair framed a thin face that was a weird mix of Central Asian and Mediterranean, with pasty white skin and dark bags under his eyes- "Your eyes are purple." He blinked at her, not understanding what she said. Mari looked at him, at the weird robes he was wearing, at the creepy magic-circle-thingy, and decided it was high time she got out of there. She stood up. Her body still felt very heavy, but she started to move towards the door. The young man stood up too, apparently protesting in his language. Mari ignored him. She powered through to the edge of the magic circle, about to step over the line carved into the floor- Bonk. "Ow!" Something hit her forehead and shoulder. Mari rubbed the hurting spot with one hand while looking to see what hit her. Seeing nothing, she approached the circle boundary again; slower this time. Her hand reached out. And there, in the area above the carved line, where air should have been, there was smooth, invisible resistance. "No way..." Mari breathed disbelievingly. Her hand moved faster now, exploring the superimposed barrier, trying to find its limits. Up, down, left, right, all the way around the magic circle, taller than she could reach; the invisible force field trapped her inside the carved line. Mari stared at the air, then at the line. "No...flipping...way..." The young man was quiet now, looking slightly guilty. She looked at the him intensely, searching for the words. "You....you have a real life force field!? That''s so cool!" Ch. 2: Special Buttercup It wasn''t every day that you were trapped by a forcefield in someone''s bedroom. Mari still hadn''t gotten over the forcefield part. Every now and then she would poke her finger at the invisible barrier, the edges of her mouth breaking out into an uncontrollable grin. The young man wasn''t here to see it, having left the room after saying a few incomprehensible words. Mari was alone in the quiet room, lounging the floor in her pyjamas. But inside, her mind was racing. The force field, and her situation in general, had implications. The presence of force field made it clear that her kidnappers were very well-resourced. The question was, why would people powerful enough to own a noiseless, subtly installed forcefield keep their captive trapped on the floor of an elaborately detailed bedroom? For what purpose? Just for shits and giggles? Surely not. Therehad to be a reason why all of this was happening. The moment you threw away causality was the moment you started going insane. Of course, she could be insane, or hallucinating, or having a really, really wild and vivid dream, but she couldn¡¯t continue on the basis of such assumptions. No, she needed to be logical. So. Back to the issue on hand: It hadn''t been enough to physically confine her in the traditional dingy basement. Her kidnappers went to all this effort because...they wanted something more. The first thing her mind went to was sex trafficking. "Shit." It''s actually quite likely, her cold, logical side said. We should explore our options should the possibility occur. Mari fought to keep her fear and panic down. Or we could...think about it a little later. Her self-defense mechanisms kicked in. Worse-case hypotheticals will just breed more anxiety. Let''s calm down first. Mari''s protective mechanisms won out. She tabled the...daunting prospects...and forged on to other possibilities. Ahem. Assuming that our current environment is part of a behavioral experiment.... Mari could think of 3 possibilities: A) She was the test subject because she was a special buttercup. B) The kid was the test subject because he was the special buttercup. C) Neither the kid or she herself were special, or buttercups; they just happened to be one of the many people being experimented on. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Mari sat up with a sigh, then shuffled to lean back against the force field, deep in thought. Option A) seemed unlikely. It might just be her low self-esteem talking, but Mari didn''t think she was anything special. She was plain old Mari Su, 24 years old, half Asian half Australian, Christian, single, recently acquired a job as a mathematical programmer at a run-of-the-mill, honest-to-God logistics company. She wasn''t a genius by any means, nor did she have any particular talents....well, she was pretty damn good at knitting socks, but somehow she didn''t think that was relevant here. She also didn''t know any condifidential or important information. Which ruled out her current predicament from being any sort of real-life spy movie scenario. Moving on. Option B) was a strong contender. The kid definitely seemed worthy of being a test subject. Purple eyes, wierd clothes, and speaking in a strange language was usually indicatory that something... abnormal was going on. Now wait a moment - our indignant reader protests - surely the main character wouldn''t be so dumb as to think that anyone who dresses and speaks differently to her is abnormal! ....Our reader need not worry. Being a mix of two cultures herself, our main character was very much aware of cultural differences. But that was the problem. Mari knew what Central Asians spoke like. (Why she knew is a story for another day). She also was familiar with the Mediterranean languages - a natural benefit from growing up in a multicultural country. And what the kid spoke sounded nothing like either. Now factor in the obviously unnatural purple eyes plus clothes that looked more like cosplay than cultural garb. Add the strange insistence to speak a different language, and the label ''cosplay wierdo'' didn''t sound that unreasonable, did it? Of course, she could be wrong. Mari started to debate the likelihood of a niche middle-eastern language with different linguistic roots, or the poor kid getting kidnapped halfway through a non-English-speaking con- When suddenly the door opened. Mari looked up from her mental rabbithole with a start. It was just the kid. She let out a small sigh of relief at the familiar figure. Somehow, Mari didn''t feel threatened by him. He was lanky, sleep-deprived and looked like a cosplaying wierdo, but his eyes were calm and intelligent - they held no trace of lustful passion, or cruelty. The way his eyes moved, his body language showed no sign of person who was inclined to...force someone. Mari had met calculating, manipulative people before, and she didn''t place this kid as one. He was harmless. Or a really good actor. The kid coughed awkwardly. Yes, somehow Mari had dubbed this person, her only source of information and potential ally in her helpless predicament....''the kid''. He wasn''t even that much younger than her. Breaking off from that train of thought, Mari noticed for the first time that the kid was carrying a tray, topped with a filled plated, utensils and a cup. Her stomach growled obligingly, reminding her that it never did get that promised butterscotch slice... As the kid lowered the food towards her, Mari noticed a discrepancy in the food''s colour scheme. The potato-things were a deep blue hue, what looked like meat was bright orange and the unidentifiable vegetables(?) were a shock of pink and luminescent green. To top it off, the murky liquid in the cup was giving off a sick red glow. Mari winced. "Okay. Evil mastermind or not, that''s just messed up." Ch. 3: Schwephrtenhk The kid casually placed the tray down on the floor, sliding it through the force field. Mari stared, then quickly hid her thoughts about this new development. Instead, she shuffled over in front of the tray full of colourful, alien food. Her captors were definitely a little... kookoo. The kid said something and made hand gestures, urging her to eat. Is this a test? Mari wondered. Do they want to see whether I''d eat it? She pointed at the food that looked like a rainbow''s horror child and innocently asked, "What is this? I''ve never seen food like this before." As usual, the kid''s answer didn''t really help. They needed to figure out a way to communicate somehow. But for now, Mari had a decision to make. To eat or not to eat? Both options were equally bad. Eat it, and she might be ingesting highly radioactive or genetically mutated substances. Not eat it, and her captors might be more forceful and shove it down her throat anyway. But what if it''s a test? Mari paused. What if the correct answer is to eat it, to show my obedience....or maybe not? Maybe the correct answer is to show caution and not eat it.... Mari groaned. She hated having to choose between two equally good options. Or two equally bad options. No matter what she chose, she''d always feel like the other option would''ve been better after all. The young man watched as Mari put her head in her hands, her mind endlessly extrapolating potential consequences and possibilities. He started levitating the tray away, worried that it had upset her. "I''ve got it!" Mari clapped her hands together. Alarmed, the young man lost control of the tray and it dropped - thankfully only a short distance - to the floor again. Mari somehow didn''t notice. "I''ll eat it! Yes, I will!" She muttered to herself, grinning. Not understanding what was going on, but relieved that Mari was in good spirits, the young man watched as she picked up the utensils, bowed her head briefly, and then began to eat. She ate carefully. Tasting every bite, observing the texture, flavour and spices. She ate it all, draining even the red liquid in the cup, which tasted like fruit juice. Weird fruit juice. The young man watched her. And he didn''t know it, but she was watching him, too. Finally, the meal over, Mari looked up and smiled at him. He smiled back. "Your fly is open." Mari said. The kid just kept smiling, totally ignorant. He didn''t even glance down and do a microcheck. "Just kidding." Mari retracted her lie, feeling a little guilty. There had been complete incomprehension in the kid''s eyes. No twitch, no jerk, nothing. So. He wasn''t faking, at least. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. "Uzbekcha gapirasizmi?" She asked him. He looked confused and didn''t answer. "Parli italiano?" She tried again. No reply. "Nihongo o hanasumaska?" He said something in his language but it was clear he didn''t understand. Mari kept going. "Puut pasa thai repauka?" Still no. Mari started just throwing out random phrases she knew. "Nihauma?" "Selamat siang?" "Salamualekuum..." "O¨´ sontles toilettes?" He recognized nothing. Mari wasn''t sure he even knew they were different languages. She sat back and sighed. "Okay kid....we''re gonna do this the old-fashioned way." Mari started by pointing at herself. "Mari. Maa-ree." She pronounced her name. Then she pointed at the kid, expectantly. He blinked, and then his eyes glowed with comprehension at what she was doing. "Schwephrtenhk." He said excitedly, gesturing at himself. "Sche-wephrrr-tennhk." Mari had just a little trouble at pronouncing his name. In the end they settled with "Shwef" for short. Next they exchanged words for simple objects. The cup was ''hran''. The fork was ''heish''. The knife was ''shial''. Together, the fork and knife were ''shial er heish'', or ''helipash''. But the cup and knife together were ''shial uk hran''. And the cup and the fork together were ''heish uk hran''. So Mari assumed that in general: ''and'' = ''uk'' and the knife and fork pair just had some funky thing going on. Shwef was learning things too. After the first couple words he had grabbed a strange glass device and would take notes of English words by tapping at it. Mari couldn''t really see how it worked since it was tilted away from her, but she assumed it was a weirdified ipad. Yes, wierdified. Like everything else so far. Mari and her fellow learner exchanged more words by pointing at things in the room. It was fun! But Mari was getting very tired and sleepy. After her 3rd yawn, Shwef put a stop to their learning session, for which Mari was grateful. She was so tired! She sleepily watched as Shwef put his glass-ipad-thingy away, and by the time he turned back to look at her, she was fast asleep on the floor, exhausted from a long and troubling day. And Schwephrtenhk, her summoner and captor, the source of all her troubles, levitated the dirty tray off the floor and left the room. . . . That is, until he came back, changed into his pajamas and went to bed himself. Ch. 4: I Need To Pee Mari woke up the next morning with pain in her stomach and the intense urge to pee. "Uurrrgh." She was sleeping on her side against the hard wooden floor, and her neck was sore. Wait...floor? Mari''s face scrunched up in confusion as her brain tried to realign itself with reality. Oh. Right. Kidnapped. Mari didn''t want to get up and deal with reality quite yet, but.....her bladder was strongly insisting that it needed to pee. It needed to pee now. "Fine, fine...hgurk..." She started to roll over- -and whacked her elbow against the force field behind her. "Oww..." Everything seemed to hurt today. Ignoring the pain, Mari got up and looked for a solution to her...bladder problem. There was nothing but bare floor in her little circle. Shwef was gone, and she noticed that the dirty food tray had disappeared with him. Too bad, she could''ve peed into the cup. Or heck, even the tray. Pretty much anything that wasn''t floor. Mari ran her hands along the perimeter of her confines, checking every section of the force-field like a fine-toothed comb. The food tray was testament that the force field could let things in and out. And right now, Mari really wanted out. But there were no weaknesses in her circular cell. Whatever mechanism had allowed the tray to leave the circle, it wasn''t letting Mari leave now. She banged her fist at the invisible barrier in frustration. Frustration soon turned to desperation. "Please! Please let me out, I really need to pee...." And bargaining. "You really don''t want pee on your floor, trust me. It''ll probably stain the wood and smell bad. Like, reeeeallly bad. " Mari felt a little silly trying to argue at her invisible captors through their (presumably) hidden cameras, but at this point she cared little. Nature was calling. She began to squirm uncontrollably. Enter Shwef. He had come just in time to see Mari do the Dance - a phenomenon most commonly seen in front of occupied toilets. It was needless to say that her embarrassment was only outclassed by her desperate desire to pee. Unfortunately, Shwef had never seen the Dance before, so he didn''t understand its significance. He just stood there, holding a tray laden with a bowl of porridge and a cup of water. He was a little disconcerted by her behaviour, and asked her what on earth was going on - in Shwefish, of course. Mari answered in English. "I need to pee!" He blinked at her, not understanding. Mari groaned. How could she convey ''toilet'' when she barely knew any words in his language? She wracked her brain. And began to play a most desperate game of charades. She pointed at herself. "Mari." She pointed at him. "Shwef." He nodded. Okay. He knew she was starting a word-exchange session. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. She began to mime sitting on a chair. A toilet, to be precise. She outline the toilet seat with her hands. She pulled down her pants (not actually pull down her pants, just the hand motions). She sat down - as far as her tired legs would allow her to squat - and made awkward spraying-hands motions to symbolise the pee coming out. Shwef laughed at the last bit, but he got it. "Phlarkerhran," he said, still sort of laughing. Mari made frantic hand motions, trying to tell him that whatever "Phlarkerhran" meant, she needed it, she needed to pee. He quickly realised the situation and took action. The tray he was holding was placed aside and he began to look for something under his bed. Shortly, he pulled out a object that looked like a squarish stool, made of murky glass. He pushed it into the circle and swiftly made his exit. Mari didn''t spare a moment. Her frenzied inspection of the object revealed a handleless lid that lifted off the top. She removed the lid at top speed. The object had a rectangular opening into a hollow interior, with two flat bits on the side - evidently for sitting. Mari dropped the strange chamberpot on the floor, pulled down her pajama pants (for real this time), sat down, and gave her bladder free reign. Ahhh. Sweet, sweet release. ¡ó¡ó¡ó¡ó Shwef knocked and came back in to find Mari peering curiously into the chamberpot. The interior was hollow, and Mari could see symbols etched all around the inside, similar to the ones she had seen around the force-field circle.But the most fascinating thing about the chamberpot was her pee - her pee had transformed! The liquid at the bottom of the chamberpot was no longer the golden, smelly liquid that she knew. Instead, it was crystal clear! And rolling in the liquid, half-submerged, was a deep-yellow marble. "It''s like magic!" Mari breathed, bewitched. She looked up to see Shwef unloading his arms of an assortment of objects he had brought. Mari called him over. "Shwef, come have a look at this! What is this?" He ambled over and peered into the chamberpot. "Ker," Shwef said, seeing the liquid. He located the long-forgotten tray and picked up the cup, showing her the water inside. "Ker." Mari nodded. Evidently there was some urine-recycling action going on. Sorta like what they did on space stations. It was still disconcerting to reach into the chamberpot and pick up the wet marble, though. Mari sniffed her fingers. No smell. Shwef grinned as soon as he saw the marble. "Phlarker buhlertan," he said, and started excitedly rummaging around his desk. Eventually he found the right drawer and pulled out a glass jar. He showed her triumphantly. The jar was full of marbles, large and small- All varying shades of yellow. My goodness. Mari thought.He''s got an entire collection of pee-marbles. Ch. 5: Experiments Having been inducted into the wonderment of the magical chamberpot, Mari started to eat the breakfast Shwef had brought. Her stomach was feeling queasy, actually. She wasn''t sure whether it was the weird food or the stress; regardless, Mari needed all the energy she could get. So she shovelled down the porridge. At least the porridge was relatively normal - albeit a slight blue tinge. It wasn''t quite oatmeal; nor was it rice, or quinoa, or white corn, or any other porridgy stuff Mari had ever tried. Which was fine, except it wasn''t the only thing that bugged her. For example, the door didn''t have a knob. Or a handle. It didn''t have any visible hinges either, yet the door still swung open and close like any normal door. The drawers didn''t have any knobs either. Not even an indent. And sure, maybe they were push-to-open drawers, but Mari was sensing a pattern here. There were no light fixtures on the ceiling. Not a lamp in sight. Only the window. There had to be a light somewhere! Last night, the window had been dark outside, but Mari remembered that room inside had been uniformly lighted. The window was strange too. There were no glass panes. In fact, there was no glass at all; the window was just a large square opening in the wall. There were tiny etchings all around the edges - she suspected that the window was using a forcefield to keep the mosquitoes and flies and bugs out. Just like how the forcefield marked by the etchings on the floor was keeping her in. Mari poked her spoon at the forcefield. The spoon went through; her fingers didn''t. That wasn''t surprising. She drained the cup, held it with her fingers inside, and pushed it into the forcefield, bottom-first. The cup went through, but her fingers felt resistance inside the cup. The forcefield could somehow precisely differentiate what was Mari and what was not. Mari continued experimenting with the cup, spoon and tray in different configurations - but in all cases the force field would let the object through, and not her. She didn''t particularly care that her kidnappers could probably see her messing around with the forcefield. Shwef himself was walking in and out of the room, busily bring in a large assortment of items. Mari ignored him for now; she''d find out soon enough. Okay then, Mari thought, continuing her series of tests, what if it used to be me? Mari pulled out a strand of her long, black hair and twisted it into a little hair-stick. She poked it at the forcefield. The hair-stick bent back, repelled by the invisible barrier. Hm. Is it configured to my DNA, or is there a little man controlling things behind a screen? The spoon got a generous serving of drool and made its second journey towards the forcefield. To Mari''s fascination, the saliva sloughed off and dripped onto the floor as the spoon went through. The spoon came back completely dry. That''s sorta cool. She rubbed some of her saliva into the corner of her sleeve. The sleeve, saliva and all, didn''t go through. Mari tried the other sleeve, no saliva this time. It didn''t go through either. Was it all the dead skin cells rubbed into the cloth? She did wear these pajamas pretty much all the time... This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. "Mari." Her thoughts were interrupted by Shwef saying her name. The young man was sitting on the floor by the barrier boundary, a wide assortment of paraphernalia neatly lined up in front of him. The line of objects seemed to be ordered mostly by size, though there were enough exceptions to make it puzzling. There were familiar objects - cutlery, tableware, stationery, books, a hanky - as well as a strange collection of marbles, crystals, and various objects made of glass and metal that looked like they belonged to some fantasy videogame. Yup, definitely a wierd wizard theme going on here. "Mari." Shwef called for her attention again. His face was full of childish anticipation. What was he up to? Shwef picked up the first item from the line, a tiny marble. "Buhlertan," he said, pointing at the marble. Mari nodded and repeated the word after him. It was the same word for the pee-marble, just without the pee bit. Placing the marble on the center of his palm, Shwef stared at it intensely. "Shwef what-" He held up a hand, stopping Mari midsentence. She shut up and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally he sat back and gave a sigh of relief. He showed her the marble triumphantly. "Manna el buhlertan." He gentured. Mari inspected the marble, confused. The tiny thing didn''t look any different. "Manna el buhlertan?" She said uncertainly. Shwef nodded excitedly, handing her the marble. Mari wasn''t sure what she was supposed to do with it. Seeing her confusion, he picked up another marble and repeated his actions - the marble at the centre of his palm, the long period of staring. "Manna isht naj plaenra, el buhlertan," Shwef said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. It wasn''t obvious at all. But Mari humoured him by copying his actions. After staring at the marble for a while, she looked up to see his reaction. He wasn''t happy. He took back the marble and gave her a pointy little crystal instead, genturing at her to do the same thing. Mari tried. She had no idea what he wanted, but it was clear this was some sort of experiment. They repeated the exercise with various objects, but each time Shwef''s face just looked more and more troubled. And Mari was becoming more and more afraid. The last item they tried was the hanky. She was still staring at the soft, white cloth when Shwef stood up and swore. Mari jerked. But Shwef wasn''t swearing at her. He was muttering to himself, incredibly upset. As soon as Shwef saw the fear in Mari''s eyes he stopped. Looking a little guilty, he sat back down and stared at the floor until his breathing calmed. "Mnaha." His voice was apologetic. Mari returned a little trembling smile, but said nothing. She was relieved when they abandoned the exercise after that. Instead, they started pointing at objects and exchanging words. Time seemed to pass slowly, but before long it was evening. Shwef brought her second meal, and a portion for himself too. They ate the blue-and-orange equivalent of shepherd''s pie in silence. After dinner, Mari handed Shwef her dirty tray and watched him walk out the door with it. He still looked dejected. His actions, and subsequent reactions, had made things clear. He was experimenting on her.If not directly, then by proxy. And she was failing. Ch. 6: Fear If there is one thing in common between all kidnap victims, it is the desire to escape. But more than that, it is thefear. So far, Mari had been subconsciously denying the reality of her situation. The bizarre nature of her cell hadn''t really helped convince her otherwise. It was just too weird. Regardless, Mari hadn''t felt the weight of her peril until now. Now, she was afraid. There were stories - horrifying ones - of young women abducted and locked up in a basement for years, abused and raped over and over and over. Until the victims were totally broken, physically and psychologically. Mari shuddered. She didn''t want to think about it. But her logical mind did, and it steadily ploughed on. Her circumstances were different to the stories. She wasn''t chained up in a pig sty (no really, true story) or confined inside a coffin under someone''s bed. In fact, her situation was relatively mild. She''d only been here two days, and the worst thing Shwef had done was swear. That didn''t mean it would stay that way. The future was uncertain, unpredictable. Shwef himself was hard to understand, let alone the invisible kidnappers controlling this situation, watching her every move. She didn''t understand them, couldn''t fathom their motives. That was what made it so scary. Mari snuggled further into her blanket on the floor, staring up at the dark ceiling. Shwef had brought it for her before going to bed himself. Mari was grateful, but... Maybe he was just manipulating her. Maybe they were just trying to induce Stockholm syndrome by showing her a bit of kindness. Maybe this was the carrot before the stick, a small consolation before the mysterious food they had been feeding her degraded her body into some horrifying abomination. Maybe, maybe, maybe. She knew one thing that wasn''t maybe. No rescue team was coming. This wasn''t some psychopathic dude kidnapping a random woman to lock her up in his bedroom; this was planned, methodical,organised. They wouldn''t have left a trace. Or they were simply too powerful to care. Either way, Mari was on her own. She needed to find her own way out - and it would be tricky. She needed to bide her time, gather information, find weakesses. She only had one shot. And if she failed- Mari curled into a ball, fighting the overwhelming fear that was creeping up from the pit of her stomach. She felt so afraid, so uncertain. So alone. She began to sing. Softly, in her mind, to comfort her trembling heart. She kept on singing until she fell asleep in her blanket, tucked against the invisible barrier that was her prison. "My God, my God, be near me, There''s no where else to go... And Lord if you can hear me, Please help your child to know..." ¡ó¡ó¡ó¡óUnauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Mari woke. A sharp stabbing pain seared through her abdomen. "Arhh!" Her body heaved up, hands clutching at her stomach. Nausea radiated like a wave, and her butt was tingling. Mari groaned. She knew exactly what the tingles meant. Hastily, she disenangled herself from the blanket and practically leapt for the chamberpot. This was a bad, bad case of diarrhea. The pants were coming off when Mari remembered something. Shwef! Her head whipped around to look at the bed. There he was, a mess of grey-brown hair poking out of the blankets. Fast asleep. "Shwef!" Mari called, trying to wake him up. No response. She tried again. "Shwef!" He didn''t react. Mari nearly threw the chamberpot at him in frustration. Her intestines convinced her otherwise. We don''t give a damn whether it''s into the chamberpot or into your pants. It''s coming out now. Mari made a quick-snap decision. The pants came down in a flash. She snagged the blanket and wrapped it around her waist as she sat down on the chamberpot. Not a moment too soon. It burst out like a volcano eruption. And it burned! Mari nearly cried from the pain. She''d never had it this bad before - heck, she hadn''t had a full-blown case of diarrhea in years. If there was anything Mari was proud of, it was her gut. She made a practice of eating the most dubious of foods, and the 5-second rule definitely applied. Expiry dates? Pshh, what was that? Her constant training kept her gut in tip-top shape. She never got travel diarrhea anymore. Her defense was impeccable. Even if all her friends got food poisoning from something they ate together, Mari would stand, unaffected. Well, she definitely felt the effects this time. There was no doubt it was the strange food. It wasn''t that surprising, really. The incredibly wrong colours made it pretty obvious something was afoot. She just hoped it was only her gut. Eventually the splattering ceased, and Mari got some reprieve. "Oh man...." She felt like a wrung-out rag. It was at this convenient moment that Shwef decided to wake up. The....ongoing ambient noises may have been a factor. Mari would''ve felt embarrassed, but she was too wrung-out to care. She just smiled weakly and asked if he had any toilet paper. In English. He didn''t understand, of course. So she asked for the hanky instead. They had exchanged words for it yesterday, thankfully. Shwef got up to get it and handed it to her, but he seemed a little puzzled why she would want it. Usually, she would''ve felt bad for befouling such a delicate, pretty handkerchief, but....Mari just didn''t care at this point. So she shrugged and shamelessly shooed Shwef out of the room. As she wiped her butt, Mari wondered if her kidnappers were watching her through their cameras. If Shwef was watching her through a camera. The thought made her angry. They knew she would get diarrhea. They knew she didn''t have toilet paper. And they knew because they had set this whole thing up, trapping her in here with nothing but her pajamas, and she didn''t even have a bra on, and she''d been trying to not worry about it this entire time, trying to keep her shoulders bent forward so the shirt would hang loose, and they probably knew, the bastards, they were probably laughing at her every move behind their monitoring screens..... Mari was whipping herself into a silent frenzy when Shwelf returned with breakfast. She fumed as he brought the tray towards her full of neon yellow scrambled eggs with orange bacon bits and slightly blue toast. And so Mari did something reckless. Against her better judgement, she grabbed Shwef''s wrist as his hands came through the forcefield - and yanked him with unyielding fury into her invisible prison. Ch. 7: Scrambled Eggs They went down in a flurry of arms and legs and scrambled eggs. "Argkf!" Mari grunted as Shwef landed on top of her, his elbow hitting her stomach. He scrambled, attempting to get up. The blood was roaring in her ears as Mari desperately tried to keep him down; she grappled at his waist with her legs. He was surprisingly light. Arms flailed as he tried to twist his torso out of her grip but Mari locked her feet together behind Shwef''s back. She hadn''t spent years wrestling with her brothers for nothing! They rolled in amidst the spilled breakfast, Shwef trying to writhe free, Mari trying to pin him down. His loose robes were swishing everywhere. She tried to get leverage but her hands kept slipping on the slick, juice-covered floor. Shwef somehow twisted both their entangled bodies with surprising force- -crashing Mari into the barrier. The impact and pain knocked the air out of her lungs, but she held onto Swhef for dear life. He was her one shot, her ticket out. As he grabbed at her feet behind his back, she pushed against the barrier with all her might and flipped them over- -trapping Shwef underneath her. He yowled as his shoulder was crushed against the inopportune fork on the floor. Catching his arms, Mari used her body weight to pin Shwef''s wrists above his head. He convulsed, but couldn''t get free. She had him. They stared at each other, breathing hard. Shwef looked pathetic, with scrambled egg in his hair and fear in his eyes. "Mari, ein svinekha ter valto-" "Shut it, Shwef." Mari growled. "I don''t wanna hear it." Her mind was abuzz from the adrenaline. What to do now? She needed to escape. She needed to turn this mess into her advantage before the other people came. But how? They would be bursting in through the door any second now. She needed- Thwack. A hard force slammed into the back of her head. Mari swayed from the impact as the cup clattered to the floor. She twisted around, trying to see who had hit her. Her grip loosened; Shwef desperately wriggled out from under her. He was getting away! Mari refocused just in time to grab his ankles as he stood up. For a second he teetered, losing his balance. Then his body stopped - leaving his arms spinning. As if his waist, and his waist only, had hit an invisible wall. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Mari looked at the etching just by his feet. The forcefield. She looked at his waist, where her legs had been. Where her dead skin cells had been. And she smiled. Mari knew what to do. She tensed, ready to tackle Shwef- -and froze. A knife was floating in the air. It was levitating in front of her face, its pointy end centimeters from her eyeball. Mari stared. Her mind couldn''t comprehend. Shwef was looking at her, his eyes determined. "Mari, ein svinekha erfkhan flar, toilarghan pernante." He shook his feet out of her grasp as he said it. Mari let him go, staring at the levitating knife in shock. She shuffled backwards. The knife followed. Mari impassively watched as Shwef stripped off his shirt, dodged the squashed piece of toast and stepped outside the circle. He warily kept the knife levitated at her even as he stood outside the barrier. He needn''t have worried. The fighting spirit had drained out of Mari the moment the knife had appeared. It was all too much. The suddenness of her kidnapping. The forcefield. The wierd food. The painful diarrhea. The hidden cameras and the scary hypotheticals. Not knowing where she was or what her captors wanted. The fear and insecurity of a strange, unpredictable place. And now, a levitating knife. Mari stared dumbly at herself, head bowed. She had lost her only chance to get out of here. And on top of everything else, there was neon yellow egg smushed into her favourite pajamas. It was the last straw. She began to cry.