Bram

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You shift position and feel rough stone behind you. You notice an unpleasant metallic smell, and a cold thing, like a collar, resting heavily around your neck. You open your eyes and see a tall man looming over you, hands hidden in a heavy coat, a smug look on his harsh, pointed face.
“So the boy’s woken up. What’s your name, boy?” he drawls.
Your first reaction is one of annoyance. “What’s yours, bastard?” you retort, rudely. “And I’m not a boy,” you insist.
The man smiles. “Oh, I’m sorry, miss.”
Years of teasing for your effeminate looks have instilled a quick temper in you. “I’m a man, dammit,” you snarl, leaping at him. A metal bar chokes you, pulls you down; the man’s arms move lightning-fast and your cheeks begin to burn with pain.
The man’s hands are out of his pockets and he toys with a riding crop; you figure that is the source of the pain.
“Name?” His voice hardens.
“Bram,” you grudgingly admit. You spit at his feet and are immediately smacked across the face with the crop.
“Never show disrespect to me,” the man commands. “Very well. I shall call you Bram and you shall call me your Master.”
Master? Who does this man think he is? “Never.” Glowering, you try to stand once again. As you noted earlier, there seems to be a metal collar around your neck, on a chain so short you can’t stand higher than a fighting crouch.
The crop flies back and forth three times. You feel blood trickle down your cheek, and see a tiny blade embedded in the leather of the crop. Sitting seems the best course of action.
The man turns and leaves the room, actually a cell, shutting the door behind himself. He talks to someone on the other side, but you can’t make out any words.
For the first time you have a chance to assess your situation, and wonder where you are or why. There are metal bands around your neck, wrists and ankles, in turn chained to rings in the wall. Your shirt and shoes are gone. The chains allow you to stretch out each limb to its full length, but no matter how you try the collar chokes you if you try to stand.
Under you is a thin mattress, and nearby is an empty bucket, presumably to serve as your toilet. There is also a large shallow trough attached to the wall, filled from a spigot. Only one hand can reach that wall, so to drink you have to put your head in the trough. The situation seems pretty dismal.
A door opens, interrupting your thoughts, and a tough-looking man enters dressed in well-fitted, worn-out armour. You assume he’s a guard. He carries a tray of food: scraps of cooked meat, a hunk of bread, a bowl of raw vegetables. Suddenly ravenous, you wolf down the food. When you’re done, the guard whisks away the tray and leaves.
After quenching your thirst from the trough, you lie on the mattress and think. Yesterday, everything seemed normal. You went to class, then work, hung out with friends, and came home. Nothing out of the ordinary. Dismissing the question of how you got here as unanswerable at the moment, you think about the brief experience you’ve just had.
Obviously the man who wants you to call him ‘Master’ is the one who imprisoned you. His intentions are more difficult to reason out. The crop with the razor blade… that scares you, more than anything. It’s an instrument of torture, obviously: there’s nothing else it could be. What kind of man…? You touch the barely-scabbed-over cut on your cheek and shudder. Also, why kidnap you? Why not capture, say, a hot woman? Certainly you know enough of those who could stand taking down a peg. Then again, thinking about it, you’re not sure you’d wish the kind of man he seems to be on anyone.
You resolve to resist as long as possible, to see what kinds of mind games your captor is going to play. Then you start to feel very tired, and think that closing your eyes couldn’t possibly hurt.
Damn, you think. What if he drugged that food? I am such an idiot…

~~~~~
You open your eyes to the sight of the strange man from before, this time accompanied by the guard who brought your food.
“D’you have a name?” you ask, speech slurred from sleep.
The crop comes out of nowhere to slap your bare shoulder. The unexpected pain makes you curl up against the wall.
“D’you have a name, sir?” you correct yourself, and flinch. The crop stays by the man’s face, now showing a smile.
“Very good, Bram. It learns. My name is not something you are privileged to know yet.”
Who does this guy think he is? you ask yourself, enraged. You try to stand, and are smacked four times, blood trickling down both cheeks this time. Right. He’s the one with the weapon, you remember, immediately withdrawing.
“Now, Bram, today you shall have a tour of your jail. Does that sound good to you?” the man asks in a patronising tone.
You scowl, silently praying you won’t be hurt.
“Very good.” The man waves a hand and the guard steps forward, holding a very complicated set of chains. Soon you have been unchained from your walls and rebound in this new contrivance.
“Come along.” The man beckons, and the guard leads you towards the door.
The new chains are very difficult to walk in, designed in such a way that you must walk crouched over or on your hands and toes, like a dog. The humiliation makes you angrier than anything else this man has done or said. Worse, if you try to stand, the man cuts your back with the evil little crop.
The tour begins with the hallway outside your cell, lined with entirely identical doors.
“Most of these cells don’t have prisoners in them,” the man comments. “They usually don’t survive very long. I commend your quick learning.”
Your legs are beginning to hurt a little, and you’re led into an open, grassy area. The sun is nearly blinding after a day spent in the dank cell.
“If you’re very good,” the man says, “you will be permitted to go into this area. It is the courtyard.”
The guard laughs. You kick him, and immediately wince, anticipating the sting of the crop. The man, puzzlingly, smiles, withholding punishment. Perhaps it’s only himself he wants respected? A vague idea begins to form in the back of your mind of what this man might want; but it slips away, driven out by the growing pain in your legs, not used to being bent for so long.
After the courtyard comes a series of rooms you are not allowed into.
“The kitchen, the guardroom, the room where you are taken if you need special treatment,” the man says, pointing to each in turn. He stops in front of a steel door and holds up a piece of cloth. “Guard, blindfold the boy.”
“What?” you yelp, shocked. A blindfold? “Sir,” you hastily add.
“Better if you just do it,” the guard mutters nastily, hot breath coating your ear. He deftly slips the cloth over your eyes and ties it in a tight knot. When you raise your arms to feel the blindfold, the sting of the crop scolds you; your arms quickly return to their proper place.
“Under no common circumstances may you enter this door without a blindfold,” says the man, placing a cold hand on your back. You wonder what counts as “common circumstances”. “Now, I will guide you.” He taps you in the small of the back with the crop, and you shuffle forward.
The blind journey seems to take hours. You are guided by taps of the crop, and the man’s hand stays in the centre of your back the entire time. If you do not immediately obey, the taps turn to smacks, and smacks turn to cuts. Just as you begin to think that your legs will never work again, the man gently unties the blindfold, revealing your cell.
As the guard puts you back in your chains, the man asks, “And what should you say when someone’s given you a tour?”
“Thank you?” you venture, earning a smack from the crop.
“What should you say when that someone’s me?” the man corrects, eyes narrowing.
“Thank you, sir?”
“Better.” The man beckons to the guard, and they both leave. You lie down and fall into an exhausted sleep.

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