Trapped (A Ticci Toby Story)

Chapter 1- Bloody Angel

The rain fell hard against the pavement.
I wondered what had made the rain fall so hard tonight. We've been in a drought for months. The plants around us were growing stiff and hard from the neglect.
But why did it have to rain now? When we were far from home and exposed...
It couldn't have waited until we were home?
I bunched my rain splattered goggles in my hands, completely unable to see from them anymore and leaned back against the building.
I decided i hated the rain.
Selfish...
I looked over to hoodie who was sitting next to me. His hair was soaked dropping droplets of water down his face.
We were taking shelter outside of a 24/7 gas station while Masky was inside grabing a first aid kit for me and some food.
I wasn't allowed inside. There was too much blood caught in the cloth of my jacket. The heavy shower of rain wasn't even enough to clean it off.
I closed my eyes, feeling miserable at the weight of my soaked clothes.
"You know he didn't mean it, right?" hoodie's quiet voice pulled me from my thoughts.
"What?" I looked at him. His eyes were still focused on the growing pools of rain water that collected on the side of the road.
"Tim... He really does care about you. He just has a lot on his shoulders... All the time."
Oh... Right...him.
I wiped my face with a drenched sleeve.
I didn't understand Masky. One minute we are fine and getting alone, then the next he just blows up on me over the smallest mistake. I knew he was my leader and he was responsible for what happens to me, but he was responsible for hoodie too and he never blew up on him.
"funny." I said bluntly "he has a crappy way of showing it."
I held my knees to my chest and watched a single car drive by, illuminating select raindrops with the red of its tale lights. After the car passed I found myself looking directly at a hag woman who was just... staring at me.
I straighten curiously.
"One day you'll learn that everyone shows affection differently. The world isn't as black and white as you think it is. There is always a reason for the way someone acts." hoodie's eyes were closed, probably because he was tired of the droplets from his hair dripping into them. "Think of it like this; Tim doesn't talk to you like he does to jeff, right?"
I smiled despite myself.
"Right."
Masky hated jeff.
I deflected his statement "but he doesn't talk to me like he does to you."
"I've been friends with him for a very long time, Toby. I understand him in a different level." hoodie was saying. I eyed the woman again... She was still just standing there... staring at me... in the rain. I shift uncomfortably under her gaze. Hoodie continued,"we didn't get along in the beginning."
"You mean you fought?" I tore my eyes away from the lady for just a second.
"all the time." he smiled softly. "Im not going to lie, sometimes we still get under each others skin, but that's just how it is. It doesn't mean I wouldn't take a bullet for him."
I tried to take his words to heart, but I was too unsettled to take ease.
I bit my lip and found that woman again. She was still watching me of course, but now she was smiling at me. The dangerous kind of smile jeff gets when he's telling me stories about his childhood.
My instincts told me there was something wrong here.
This stranger is dangerous.
Danger,
Run,
Help,
Cruel,
Fear.
"hey, hoodie." My voice was weary. the moment I said that, the woman looked down at the sidewalk "why is that woman staring at me?"
Hoodie must have heard the fear in my voice because his eyes opened instantly and fell on the older woman.
She was wobbling away now. Slowly, brokenly, as if each step was a challenge for her.
"Are you afraid of an old woman, Toby?" hoodie teased.
I was.
I was very afraid of her.
I frowned at this. Something must have been wrong... Right? My instincts were something that I've developed over the time I spent with masky and hoodie. They've taught me to trust my instincts when I had nothing else. Could they be wrong? Was this something I should be trusting my life with?
Hoodie leaned up in concern
"are you alright?" he asked.
I looked at him and was about to tell him I was fine when I suddenly opened my eyes to a blinding white light.
The figure who was once hoodie leaned over me, their head covered the light source casing a halo like glow in my fuzzy eyes.
Was I dead?... Masky was going to kill me.
"Can you move?" the angel continued. Her voice was panicked and pitched like she was on the verge of tears.
I blinked at her a few times
"....huh?"
Why wouldn't I be able to?
She leaned back allowing the full force of light to shine into my eyes.
I took a breath, unprepared for this.
I can still breathe...
"I thought you- I thought they were going to leave you here to-"
I pulled my head up, tired of staring up at the light.
So I'm not dead?
"please, don't force yourself to move, you'll only make it worse" the angel pleaded.
I ignored her and set up.
Heavy,
Dizzy,
Stiff.
Was this what a hangover felt like?
The room we were in was bare, a concrete cube with only a single bed against the wall.
If i wasn't dead, then where was masky and hoodie?
Why weren't they with me?
I looked at the girl who I assumed was my angel.
Her clothes were ripped and torn. I assumed that her T-shirt was once white, but through all the dried mud and blood it was hard to tell. Her shirt hung off of her and did nothing to show her figure... If she had one. Her body was frail and starved. Her black pants were fabric that stopped just below her cavs. They must have been skin tight before...but now, they weren't. Her brown hair was tied back into something that resembled a bun, like she was trying to keep it from getting as matted as it already was.
I made a face of displeasure at her.
What happened to her?
"where am I?" I asked eyeing her dirt covered feet.
She pulled back in embarrassment and opened her mouth to respond, but closed it again when her tears finally fell from her eyes.
I watched her impatiently.
Something that sally used to call me came to mind.
Why was she so upset?
"I'm so sorry." she whispered. She hunched over with her hand over her mouth and the other clutching her stomach. "I'm so sorry this happened to you too."
"What?" I blinked hard trying to clear the fuzziness out of my eyes. "What are you talking about. Nothing happened-"
"Do you remember what happened before you woke up?" she cut me off with a shaky voice.
"Yes." I paused for a moment remembering everything leading up to now. I reached to the back of my head feeling the dried blood tangled in my hair.
They hit me...
I must have a concussion... It would explain why my vision was so disoriented.
I stared down at my hand and watched it until finally turned from two hands into one.
"That guy... "I mumbled, "He hit me.... He covered my mouth with a..." panic finally settled into me at the realization. "He took me... He took me away from them--"
My throat seemed to close on me, cutting me off from whatever I was going to say.
No, no, no, no, no! This can't be happening! This wasn't possible! They can't-
"Masky!" I called. "Masky! I'm here!" he needed to know I was here-they had to be here. They were looking for me! I didn't care how loud I needed to scream, I didn't care if my voice gave out because of my calls, I didn't care that my voice rang too harshly in the stony room. "masky!"
"what are you doing?" the girl grabbed my arm. I pulled away from her.
"they're here- they know I'm missing by now. They're looking for me!" why weren't they here?
"...Did they see Tom take you?" she asked slowly.
No.
My breath caught in my throat. She took my silence as her answer and I wasn't sure if i caught a hint of disappointment in her eyes.
'No hope'
They said.
No!
"if they didn't see tom take you, they won't know where to look. They won't find-"
"shut up!" I snapped.
I wasn't just going to sit here and accept my fate. I had to see them again. My family was everything I had.
I start to stand, but a pull on the back of my foot and the sound of metal against the cement froze me in place.
I looked down to see a silver keyring sized loop stuck into the back of my foot just behind my ankle. Attached to it was a brown metal chain and a rusty cowbell to match.
"What is this?" my voice sounded far away "Get this off of me... " I pulled at the ring. It only caused three collective steady streams of blood to stream out of the incision holes on both sides of my foot. I yanked it harder. "GET THIS OFF OF ME!"
The girl pulled my hand away from the ring.
"Stop! Please stop!" she begged "it won't come off. Please, you need to calm down."
I was panicking. I couldn't breath, I couldn't think, i couldn't move.
I was hyperventilating.
How could I function without masky and hoodie? I've never been apart from them this long. It hurts. I don't know how to handle this. They never taught me-they didn't teach me anything like this! I don't know what to do!
"shhh." the girl soothed. Her tears were dried and her eyes were lit with a fiery determination. "you need to calm down."
I stared at her.
Her eyes were a greenish gray.
She continued. "you're not going to get any answers if you pass out."
Even though her voice shook, it was the only stable thing i could focus on. It was the only thing keeping me sane.
I nodded and closed my eyes. Breathing was still difficult, but the world was smaller with my eyes closed. I could almost pretend I wasn't trapped in this prison.
"what is your name?"
"To-by" I panted.
"Toby..." she repeated. "My name is Jane. Shh... "
She rubbed her hand across my back. I never knew how much I needed a nurturing touch.
I leaned into her touch and took a shaky breath.
She told me I was going to be okay, she told me that everything was going to fine.
Maybe it was how her gentle voice reminded me of Hoodie's or how she said it with such conviction that it reminded me of masky, that I believed her.
I could breathe now.
I opened my eyes and looked her over. Underneath the grime that covered her, I can see who she was.
Nurturing,
Gentle,
Calm.
A beautiful soul abused to the brink of death.
"Are you okay now?" she pulled her hand away.
The edges of my lips twitched with dismay.
"Yeah." I rubbed a hand over my face unable to look at her.
"Tom put a bell on your foot so you couldn't try and run away. He won't take it off..." she swallowed back her nurves "He won't take it off until you give up on trying to escape... Like the rest of us."
I felt my eyes darken.
That will NEVER happen.
I ask "There are more people trapped here?"
"yes, five of us in all now... There was more, but... They're gone now." her voice shook at the end of her sentence.
"He killed them?" I suddenly felt annoyed despite my circumstances.
Of course he was a murder too. Why else would he kidnap me?
"um." she casually wiped a tear from her face. "yeah, sometimes they-they take us to the barn and... Um. They uh-do things to us...sometimes we don't make it back."
I was about to ask who 'they' were, but maybe jane picked up on my sudden annoyance.
"Cheryl and Tom. Cheryl runs the things around here and her husband Tom does what she tells him too."
I remember the old lady I saw on the street a few days ago.
That must have been Cheryl. Her crooked brown teeth and thin white hair were burned into my memory.
I buried my face in my hands.
I knew something was wrong then. I should have tried harder to convince hoodie that something was wrong. Maybe he would have done something. Maybe they'd make me stay inside, maybe I'd hate them for keeping me indoors, but I wouldn't be here. I would be with sally, or lying on the couch with jeff and Ben. I wouldn't be gone.
I see now how hard they tried to keep me safe. I loved them for it. They protected me from zalgo and everything he released into our world, every master drug dealer, solder, and victim they were sent to deal with.
Out of... everything that could have taken me away from them it was a sadistic couple who kidnapped children to fill their needs with whatever sick thing I was going to face.
Maybe i was looking at this the wrong way.
They won't have a problem dealing with these people.
It was almost funny.
I smiled.
Tom's name is only one letter off from tim. Isn't it funny that my kidnapper almost has your name, masky?
"Toby?" jane reached out to touch me.
I lifted my head and smiled at her
"It's okay. I'm not going to die here."