From China, With Love

PROLOGUE

Dark. It was the only thing Cassandra could see. The pungent smell of the damp room, filled with what Cassandra thought as rat feces made her nose scrunch up in disgust, she tried to wiggle but her fists clench as she felt a rope that binds her wrist, tied up tightly behind the old wooden chair that creaks every time she moves, the only sound that she could hear amongst the dead silence of the surrounding.

She tried her best to break free from those shackles that bind her, she twists and turns in every direction possible, but, alas, to no avail. She lets out a sigh of frustration.

“Who the fuck kidnapped me?” she mumbles under her breath, Cassandra tries to find a way to, at least, get the blindfold off, to get back at least one of her senses, to calm her growing panic, but one thing to note about Cassandra, is that she does not like to raise the white flag.

She shakes her head vigorously. Right, left, up, and down, in an attempt to loosen the knot on the blindfold, she raises and drops her eyebrows, while still wondering what happened to her.

“Who in their right mind would tie a rope this tight? Are they insane?” she thought to herself, still swinging her head in the effort to get her eyesight back. She wiggles, shakes, and struggles. She tries again and again, and finally, after her numerous failed attempts, her effort bore fruit. The knot loosens.

“Yes!“Cassandra whisper-shouts, as she would not have the knowledge of who lies behind the wall, in her one final attempt, she shakes her head again, this time, with more force, and then suddenly she could see, and she does not like it. Not one bit.

Her eyes widen at the sight of the miserable room, she trembles in fear. It appears that Cassandra’s speculation was right, she was held captive in a basement of some sort, with minimum ventilation, only one tiny hole on the ceiling. She definitely could not escape from it, not that she could move.

Her being held captive is not the reason why she trembles, but it was the room that she is in. The room filled with blood. The blood that envelopes almost all the crooks of the metal wall of the basement.

Cassandra looks to her right, and her breath got caught in her throat. She saw an old, weathered bed, with the springs and the wood supporting it has collapsed, making the concave in the middle, it is full of dust, and with the pattern in the basement, even the bed cannot evade the blood bath.

Cassandra tries to hold her voice in, as she realizes that the blood splatter on the bed draws a silhouette of a young woman, who was probably held captive by the people out there, just like her. She pushes her lips together into a thin line, forcing the voice in.

Her eyes began to water, her body shivers from the temperature of the room that just seems to drop as the minute goes, her hands and feet start to get cold, Cassandra squeezes her hands to calm her down, her nails bore into her flesh to distract her from the endless possibilities of outcomes that crosses her mind.

“Will I die here?” She says into the nothingness. She does not want her life to end like this, in a basement in the middle of nowhere. She never would have thought that her beautiful night would end up like this. Her night that was filled with the glimmers of crystal chandeliers, would be replaced by a dim, flickering yellow-stained bulb.

She shakes her head and closes her eyes, waking her up from her own imagination. She now tries to get out from the ropes that bind her hands and her feet, she will not let her fate end like this. Her life had just started.

Cassandra cracks the joints on her fingers, a bad habit she can’t seem to stop herself from doing, and stretches her hands, to prepare her to wiggle out of those ropes with maximum effort, which she did. Cassandra shakes and twists her hands, the friction of the rope and her hands arouse a burning sensation, and the fiber from the rope, together with the constant contact of her movement, grazes and scratches her hands.

She flinched in pain, but still minding her voice with her lips that are still pressed into one thin, white line. At some point during her attempt, she felt blood trickle down her fingertips, as the splinters from an old wooden chair pricked her finger, oh, how much she wished that prick would make her fall asleep and wake up in the hands of a handsome prince, her handsome prince, but the reality is not quite fond of fantasies.

Then an idea pops up in her head, she searched for another chunk of wood that might come out from the old chair, and as luck would have it, she found it. Cassandra rubs the middle of the rope on the pointy chunk of wood.

She was too occupied with her attempt to release herself that she did not realize the heavy footsteps that struts closer and closer to the room she is in. Cassandra stopped all of her movement for just a second, to listen.

“Oh, shit!” Cassandra curses, and she rubs faster, but it was too late as the door opened, revealing the perpetrator, who enters the room at a nauseatingly slow pace.

“Ah, I see you’re awake, princess.” Cassandra looked up to see who kidnapped her. if at first, she was afraid, now she was enraged.

“You!” her nose flared, anger evident in her voice “Let me go, you sick fuck!”

“Tch,” the kidnapper shakes their head “No can do, princess” they circle around the middle of the room, where she was placed, Cassandra followed every movement that the kidnapper made, they got to the backside and the loosened rope caught their eye.

“Tried to escape, princess?” the kidnapper grinned.

Cassandra did not voice her answer, she stayed still, what is the use of talking to an asylum-worthy person like the kidnapper?

“The silent treatment, huh?” the kidnapper sighed and opened their jacket, reaching for something in their pocket, the sound of metal interacting with their metal chain on their pants, made her eyes go round.

“Sorry, princess,” the kidnapper conveniently place the end of their gun on Cassandra’s forehead, in the middle of her eyes, “you will not be able to escape today” the kidnapper puts their finger on the trigger, playing with the tiny button, one wrong move, and the bullet would lodge itself in Cassandra’s brain, realizing that, she felt that this is the end of her life, the life that had just begun.

“Because you are going to die”

Cassandra closes her eyes, her thoughts went elsewhere, she thought of one person, the person that she wanted to see, even if it's for the last time, the person that she had hope, and still hopes, would come and save her. She visualized his face inside her head, as she smiles a sad smile, and say in her heart.

Eduard. Save me.