All Tied Up

I wake slowly. At first I think I am still dreaming. The world drifts in and out of focus while a dull ache pulses through every muscle in my body. My head feels heavy. My mouth is dry. For several long seconds I simply sit there, trying to remember where I am. Then I try to move. The ropes stop me immediately.

My eyes snap open. Memory comes rushing back in fragments. I remember the endless desert stretching beneath a merciless sun and the strange settlement hidden among the ruins. I recall the twisted faces watching from doorways, moving through Olympus as though it were the most ordinary town in the world.

I remember fear, exhaustion, and the certainty that every road led deeper into their territory instead of out of it. After that, everything becomes hazy. The memories blur together into disconnected flashes and impressions. At some point the exhaustion must have finally caught up with me. At some point the darkness won.

The last thing I remember clearly is the feeling of being completely, utterly spent. I must have finally passed out. The realization settles into my stomach like a stone. I force myself to take a slow breath and look around. The room is surprisingly normal.

The house looks as though it was built sometime during the 1950s and then abandoned to the desert for the next seventy years. Dark wood paneling covers the walls. Heavy curtains hang over the windows. A television set older than I am sits in one corner atop a battered cabinet.

The furniture is mismatched and worn but functional. Somebody has swept the floors recently. Compared to most of the shantytown outside, the place practically looks luxurious. The house carries the strange feeling of a time capsule. Everywhere I look I see remnants of another era.

Framed photographs hang crookedly on the walls. A faded calendar from decades ago remains pinned beside a doorway. The wallpaper has yellowed with age. The lamps still work, casting warm pools of light that soften the worst of the decay. The effect is unsettling.

I test the ropes again, but have no luck. Whoever tied me knew what they were doing. My wrists are secured behind the chair. More rope circles my waist and chest. Every knot feels solid. For now, escape is not an option.

A grandfather clock somewhere deeper in the house ticks steadily. The sound seems impossibly loud in the otherwise silent room. I glance toward the nearest window. Sunlight filters through the curtains. I have no idea how long I was unconscious.

The uncertainty bothers me almost as much as the ropes. Outside, I can hear faint sounds drifting through the settlement. A vehicle engine turning over. Someone hammering metal. A dog barking in the distance.

Then I remember where I am. The thought wipes away any sense of safety. I shift in the chair and scan the room again, searching for anything useful; a loose board, a sharp edge, a forgotten tool. Instead my attention settles on a bookshelf near the far wall.

The shelves are filled with old hardcovers. Several look old enough to have belonged to the original owners of the house. The sight makes no sense. Neither does the rest of this place. Nothing about Olympus makes sense.

Monsters are easier to understand when they act like monsters. This house feels like it belongs to people who are trying very hard to remember how normal people live. Which means somebody lives here. And sooner or later, whoever brought me here is going to come through that door.