4-5
Everything seemed distant. The pain, the fear, the anger. Even Wagner’s notes sounded dreamlike. I felt a face linger inches from mine, the hood touching my face. I could only discern gray, lifeless eyes staring at me. Any more effort was not possible right now. I felt him do something to my Kevlar vest and then the figure left. I was powerless to even try anything, so I concentrated on relaxing myself, inducing a coma in me.
After about ten minutes, I tried to flex my fingers and toes and found them responsive. Then I moved my arms and legs, and finally, painfully lifted myself up and sat. In a minute, I was up and moving again, albeit even slower than before. I felt myself all over and saw that most of the bomb fragments had been stopped by my vest and very few had penetrated. It was the shock wave that had knocked me out. I wondered that if this was a bomb he had used so plaintively, what I would have in store if I exceeded the timeline. It was then I noticed the note that the figure had stuck upon my vest.
‘You grow weaker with every attempt to get closer to me. I have trumped you at every stage of our game. You know, I’m having second thoughts about going up against you. I should have chosen someone more worthy of my time. Are you going to give me a fight or what?’
Hot blood diffused through my body, numbing the pain, the dizziness and the weakness. I was not confused or unsure any more. My mind had one clear goal now: this Metaphor character was going to die at my hands.
Holding my knife in my hands, I stalked my way up to the next floor. It was devoid of people; however it bore the unmistakable signs of Metaphor’s madness. There were drawings on the wall of various ways to kill people. There were mirrors of various shapes and sizes, just like in a fun house. Mad ravings had been scratched upon the floor. The room was like a tribute to the utter instability of his brain. I searched the room for any weapon to use or any clue towards his location, but to no avail. I got to the fifth floor. On the fifth landing, I stopped short of putting my foot down, retreating a few steps instead as my eyes had fallen upon the fine wire stretched across the stairs. I clambered down to the lower floor and brought with me a piece of wood lying there. Using that, I tripped the wire, which sent a huge tree-axe rushing from the side like a pendulum. It swung its deadly arc and embedded itself in the wall. Had I been standing there I would surely have been decapitated. Taking a deep breath, I moved forward, going to the room on the right. Once again, there was writing on the wall to greet me.
‘If you are reading this, it means you have narrowly escaped death just now and have finally understood what this game is all about. Now we shall have some fun. Welcome to my plane of thought, Captain.’
A grim smile played upon my lips as I read it. It had been a while since I had been really and truly challenged, and now I was actually beginning to enjoy this. That was when another sound from three floors below me reached my ears. Slowly, I peered over the banister, when a bullet whistled past the bridge of my nose, its wind rustling my hair.
The hooded figure three floors below had a maniacal laughter, which died out in whimpers.
‘Are you enjoying yourself Captain?’ Another crazy laugh, ‘Because I’m having the TIME OF MY LIFE!!’ he bellowed, hooting like a hyena now. He was dancing about, evading any sort of aim I could lock on him. I resisted the urge, and decided to continue with my knife; now was not the time. However I took careful aim and threw the old knife that he’d left for me. It flew through the air with a whistle and thudded itself into the wall behind him, with his right arm pinned with it. He yelled.
‘AHHH! Nice shot Captain! You may have some fight in you after all.’ Saying so, he ran towards his right hand side room. Blood boiling with rage and adrenalin, I followed him down and in half a minute was at the door. Mindlessly, I entered the room, noticing the heavily reinforced steel door only after it shut behind me. There was no sign of Metaphor. I groaned; more words awaited me on the wall.
‘If you’re here, you’ve probably injured me in some way and have been led here. Now it’s time to prove whether your brain matched your brawn. The room you are in will fill with Sarin gas in the next ten minutes, killing you very quickly. To get out you must solve some progressively difficult riddles that I have set for you. The quicker you do it the better, the gas will make you nauseous and thinking will soon get difficult. Your first clue is really simple: Open the refrigerator’
Right at that moment, a low hum filled the room and I saw a pale yellow gas stream slowly into the room, coming in from the ventilators above.
I read the last line again. It was more like an instruction. I looked around the room, the walls were once again filled with his ravings and floorboards were ripped open, shredded chairs and empty closets lay about, and in the corner of the room was a small refrigerator. I ran to it, but hesitated to open. By now I had rightly developed I thorough distrust in whatever Metaphor said. There was a note on the door of the fridge.
‘No really, trust me. Just open it.’
Sidestepping, I slowly opened the door, expecting something spectacular. After a few seconds of nothing happening, I looked into the fridge. It was devoid of all its racks and had nothing inside it. There was just an inscription on the back wall that said, ‘Find ME’
I coughed as the first effects of the gas seeped in. I looked around the room, trying to understand how I could find him. I looked at the walls and noticed that amidst all his insane writing, he had written his name intermittently in many places. My sweeping gaze caught something out of the ordinary on one of the walls, and I did a double take. In one of his names, the first two letters of his name were in the capital case, reading MEtaphor. There it was! I ran up to it and looked around for any clues. A tap on the wall revealed a hollow construction, so I planted a powerful punch on the wall. It ruptured, revealing a box. I took it out and opened it, to find another note.
‘From there we came and to that we shall return, Find the key and proceed to the next turn.’
I gagged and coughed at the gas started taking greater effect; I knew very soon that my clarity of thought would be disrupted. I read the first line again. It was a very popular phrase used in reference to the earth and mud. But where could there be mud in the second floor of a building? My thoughts were getting sluggish. I looked around lazily, and my eyes fell on a patch of brown within the dismembered floorboards. I slowly walked up to it, and dropping down on my knees, started searching for a key. Soon my hands fell upon one and I took it out.
First I tried the door, but it would not yield. Next I tried one of the doors of one of the closets in the room; no success their either. Then I tried it on the top one of the chest of drawers and it was a snug fit. I turned it and pulled it. There was a message etched in the wood.
‘Look deep Captain, look deep within. And find the power to face yourself, to put your faith to the test.’
By now I was not in any state to make sense of what that meant. I vomited as the gas was weakening me with every passing moment, the nausea making me feel faint. In a few seconds, I could barely stand, and I collapsed, bringing the top drawer down with me. I fell clumsily on the ground, and the drawer crashed beside me. That was when I saw the remote like device taped to its backside. So that was what deep meant; deep inside. I detached it and pressed the black button. A fake panel on the wall to me left slid aside instantly, revealing translucent mirror-like material. That was then a tiny speaker on the remote device spoke up. Apparently the device had a tape player too.
‘There’s your way out. There is a row of five such thin mirrors that separate you from fresh air. But you don’t know what is on the other side. You can either face certain death or gamble with your life. I want you to fight for your survival Captain; I want you to be determined to trust me. The choice is yours.’
I staggered to my feet. The gas was now making it difficult to breathe and I figured I had another minute before I passed out and then died. So, left with no choice really, I decided to chance the mirrors. I knew I had to build up momentum, or I wouldn’t get past all of them. Taking a run-up I took a deep breath, searching for some oxygen amidst all that poison. I then sprinted towards the mirrors, ignoring my body’s cries for rest. I second before I pounced into the mirrors, covering my face, I wondered if I had made a mistake believing him.
CRASH!! CRUNCH!!
I dashed through the five mirrors, the shattered pieces getting pulverized under my booming footsteps. I counted five crashes and then I put my hand down. My entire body was cut and bruised in many places, but it was nothing serious. Taking a breath of the fresh air, I collapsed to the ground, and for the second time that day, was unconscious.
5-6
I woke up five minutes later, with a massive headache and a severely dwindling will to continue. My body protested against any more action, and my strength was a shadow of its usual self. If I had to face Metaphor in this state, it would surely be a one sided battle. That was when I looked around the room and for the first time was pleasantly surprised. It was full of open windows through which fresh air streamed in rejuvenated me. In one corner of the room there was a tray containing some food and water. As expected, there was a note with it.
‘You have shown your faith in me my breaking through those mirrors and I commend you for that. Sustain yourself with this food; I want our battle to be fair. I promise you that by the end of the day, we will have faced each other, and any doubts about each other’s abilities will be cleared. I think you can now take me for my word.’
I wolfed down the contents of the tray and felt like something resembling alright. Gazing out of the windows I looked at the outside world, from which I was shut off for the present. My eyes fell upon the horizon and I saw tendrils of silver light snake their way across the vast, dark sky. Daybreak was fast approaching. That was when I realized with a jolt that very soon I was going to run out of time. I sat there, thinking of how I could get to Metaphor. He had been one step ahead of me every time, and I could never pinpoint his location at any point of time, he could be anywhere. That was when I realized that my assumption was not entirely right. Also, then I remembered something that I’d seen much earlier in the day and that was when I pieced together Metaphor’s entire plan. Instinctively, my hand slid towards my ankle, and I decided I would now end this. But it was going to be close. Awfully, awfully close…
The man in the hood was now confused; and angry because he wasn’t used to being confused. Metaphor was perplexed to see that Captain Hawkins had not made any sound, any movement for the last half hour. There were fifteen minutes till the bomb he had planted would be detonated. The captain didn’t seem like he wanted to get out. But James Matthews aka the Metaphor knew too well that it wasn’t going to be over so easily. He thought of what to do. He decided he’d stick around for ten more minutes, then head to his escape route and let the captain face the consequences of his decisions.
He went up to the sixth floor, looking out at every nook and cranny for Hawkins. There was no sign of him. Once there he went to his control center from where he could clearly see the mayor hanging out of the window in front of him. He smiled thinly at him.
‘Your hero is not coming. He has decided to throw in the towel. Frankly though, I’m a little disappointed in him. Too bad for you. I hope you waved your wife and kids goodbye when you left them mayor. Goodnight; or rather, good morning.’
He turned and left the room, turning a deaf ear to the mayor’s cries for mercy. He took a long look at every room as he proceeded downstairs. He had designed every room for a purpose, had filled it with traps just for this day. What a disappointment Captain Hawkins had turned out to be. James would have to start all over again elsewhere.
It would be hard to detach from all the work he had put into lovingly building this world of his. He felt the remote control nestled in his pocket. Hawkins was a dead man if he didn’t do anything in the next five minutes. Thus thinking, he reached his escape route and slid aside the trap door to get out.
BANG!!
The bullet from the small spare gun in my ankle holster rammed itself into Metaphor’s nose, shattering it. His face was now a gaping hole. Although he was standing, he was already dead. Slowly his body keeled over and fell at my feet. I got out of the small tunnel under the floor of the fireplace.
Earlier in the day I had seen the silver floor of the fireplace. But then I realized later that floors were not supposed to be silver in color; it was metallic. The only mistake Metaphor had made was to keep the place clean, giving me a clear view of the false metal flooring.
I rummaged through his clothes, found the remote control device and pocketed it. Looking past his body I saw the first slivers of light seep through the window above the door. I looked at my watch. Three minutes for boom time. I knew what to do now.
Dragging his body with me I got close to the sundial, careful to avoid the trip wires. I hauled him up by his armpits and before I threw him on the sundial, I pulled his hood back. I had to look at the face of the person who had confounded me so much. It was a young man, about ten years younger than me, in his twenties. He had a long, evil face, grey lifeless eyes and a hooked nose. He looked sinister yes, but just like any other man you might pass by on the street.
I threw his body onto the dial, tripping the wires.
BOOM!! BANG!!
There was a cacophony of explosions as all of the shotguns went off at once, three of them hitting him in the body, turning it into a foul mass. But it had served its purpose, because exactly at that moment, the sunlight streaming in from the window reached a straight line on the dial, signaling the time for the bomb to detonate. But now Metaphor’s body lay between the light and the photovoltaic cells on the dial. There wasn’t enough voltage to blast the bomb. So that was taken care of.
Next I went up six floors, and used the remote to retract the tether holding the mayor. He collapsed upon reaching the safety of the floor and sobbed for a few minutes. Together, we went down, still looking out for any residual traps that might have previously escaped my attention. Once we were at the main door, I opened it using the remote. The mayor rushed forward to get to freedom, but I held him back by his collar for a second. For exactly at that second, a sharp guillotine like blade swept across the door frame, concealed between a gap in the doorway.
‘He never intended for me to leave the place alive, mayor. I knew he’d do something like this. Now we’re truly free to go, I think.’
Pushing aside the blade, we made our way into the sweet morning air, inhaling our freedom in deep gulps. We walked until we found a payphone from where I called my precinct and gave them my location.
Twenty minutes later, after the commissioner had arrived with police and paramedics and I was given temporary treatment for my many injuries, he congratulated me and said I deserved another award. To that I laughed and said.
‘Sir, I beg you to keep this adventure of mine classified. Who knows, someone else might read about me in the papers and decide to go up against me again? I wouldn’t mind a little anonymity for a while now, sir.’
He laughed and agreed wholeheartedly.
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