The metallic tang of blood lingered in his mouth. Aman grimaced, swallowing down the bitter taste as he wandered through the strange, windowless structure. It didn't feel like a proper building more like a bunker. The walls were thick, the air stale, and every step echoed like a whisper in a crypt.
He kept walking in circles, passing room after room. Some were empty. Some held others. Prisoners like him, maybe. But he didn't care. Not now. Right now, he just wanted water. Something behind that door there probably people or something but for now Aman don't want to know"
"Ahhh, fuck... I'm thirsty. I've already been through this place... There's no exit, no stairwell..." Aman muttered to himself, stretching his neck and glancing upward.
And then he saw it.
A hatch.
He blinked. How had he missed that?
It was in the ceiling, metallic and bolted shut. No ladder. No handles. Just a cold slab of metal high above his reach.
He cursed under his breath, shaking his head. "Stupid," he said aloud. "How did they even get down here? That police guy... how did he come in and out?"
It made no sense. The place was small, self-contained, with no visible exit. Had he missed a mechanism? Was it just a hidden shaft? Maybe the hatch led to another level. Or maybe hopefully the surface.
He returned to the room where he had been held. The police officer's corpse still lay there, eyes glazed and mouth half open, frozen in death. Aman checked the body again, digging through his uniform. No keys. Nothing but the pistol he had already taken.
"Should've kept him alive," he muttered, smashing his head gently against the concrete wall in frustration. "Could've used him as leverage... called someone... Instead I'm so smart bite his neck like maniac.
He sighed and turned toward the doors of the other cells. They had no viewing holes, no windows. If he wanted to know what was inside, he'd have to open them.
Not because he felt compassion. No, Aman wasn't feeling charitable. Something about those rooms unsettled him. Plus if he open it there person, well guess what Aman need to help them or something which he didn't feel want it now but to leave a person feel so bad so he just pretend behind that door just empty room.
"Well, Carter," he muttered, gritting his teeth, "I'll kill that British bastard if I ever find him."
He wandered back to the hatch, stared at it again, then tried jumping. His fingertips barely grazed it.
Again. Still too high.
He gave up, sighing. Back to the body. The tray of food still lay nearby.
"No water, huh?" he said, poking at the meal with his fingers. "Figures."
He recalled earlier how they used to force water down his throat after the food. Like it was an afterthought. Crude. Uncaring. He tapped his foot, thinking.
"Yeah, they usually came with water after... I just need to wait."
He waited.
Two hours passed.
No one came.
"What the hell...?" Aman stood up, grabbed the food tray, and hurled it at the hatch. The clang echoed sharply. "OI! OPEN IT, DAMN IT!"
Silence.
He turned back to the body. There were three trays in total. "Three trays of food... This place has ten rooms. That means... maybe three prisoners?" he said aloud.
He moved to the nearest door and opened it. Empty.
The next occupied. A corpse, bound in chains, long since dead.
They didn't even bother to remove the bodies.
"Fucking hell... they threw me in a room with a rotting corpse, there a available room without a corpse and they put me inside room with dead body" he muttered in disgust.
He opened more doors. Empty. Dead. Nothing.
Until the eighth room.
There she was.
A girl.
She sat slumped in the corner, small and fragile, and when she saw Aman, her eyes widened in sheer terror. She froze, petrified.
"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you," Aman said softly, stepping inside.
But the girl recoiled, the chains clinking violently as she resisted. Her entire body trembled as if remembering something she couldn't forget.
Aman sighed and backed away, stepping out of the room.
He didn't do it out of empathy. He didn't feel sorry for her. He just didn't want the noise.
He opened the ninth door. Another corpse, chained and lifeless.
That made two living prisoners. The rest? Long gone.
Back at the girl's cell, she was still screaming. Loud. Panicked. Like a trapped animal.
"Stop! Get out! Don't touch me!" she yelled.
Aman sighed again, and this time, he pulled out the pistol.
Silence.
The girl went quiet.
"Good. What's your name?" Aman asked.
She looked confused. Her lips parted slightly but no sound came out.
"I said, what's your name?!" Aman snapped.
The girl flinched and looked down, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Ah, screw it. Hey, you want to get out of here?" he asked.
She didn't respond.
Instead, she began to shake again, violently thrashing, her chains rattling loudly. "Stop! Stop! Stop!" she cried.
"Noisy brat," Aman muttered, stepping out once more.
His eyes drifted back to the hatch.
Jumping again wouldn't work.
He turned toward one of the other cells, the one with the dead man still chained up. Without a word, he dragged the stiffening corpse across the hall and laid it at the girl's feet.
Her face went pale. Terror drenched her features. She opened her mouth to scream.
Aman raised a finger to his lips. A simple gesture.
Be quiet.
Or be next.
She understood. The terror that kept her from speaking now silenced her further.
He didn't like it. It felt wrong. Dirty. But it worked.
He unlocked her chains and dragged her toward the hatch.
"You're going to open that," he said.
The girl nodded quickly.
From her perspective, Aman wasn't a rescuer. He wasn't a hero.
He was a monster. A threat. A weapon wearing a human face.
And maybe he was.
Aman stared at her as she climbed on his back, stretching toward the hatch.
"Huh," he whispered to himself, "Maybe I went a bit too far."
But there was no going back now.