The captives awoke in a suffocating haze, their wrists bound to warped wooden chairs with fraying rope that gnawed at their skin. The house stood alone, a crumbling sentinel in a wasteland of overgrown fields and skeletal trees, its exterior a grotesque tapestry of decay. Weathered clapboard siding peeled like flayed skin, streaked with black mold that wept down from a sagging roof. Broken windows gaped like hollow eyes, their jagged edges glinting faintly under a moonless sky. A porch, half-collapsed, jutted out like a broken jaw, its splintered planks swallowed by tangles of dead vines. Inside, the air was rancid—thick with the reek of rot, damp earth, and the faint metallic tang of rust. The walls, once painted a sickly yellow, were now a patchwork of flaking plaster and water stains, bulging where the wood beneath had swollen and split. Cobwebs draped from the ceiling like tattered curtains, swaying in the draft that seeped through cracked floorboards littered with dust and mouse droppings.
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Four of them—Sarah, Emily, Lila and Nile sat in a tight circle in the main room, their pleas ricocheting off the brittle walls. The cartel men, faceless behind crude masks, towered over them, their silence a prelude to violence. A single bulb dangled from a frayed wire overhead, its weak glow casting long, jagged shadows that danced across the room. As they dragged Sarah and Emily forward, one of the men began flicking the light switch—on, off, on, off—turning the bulb into a stuttering strobe. The erratic flashes blurred the room into a nightmarish kaleidoscope, making it impossible to focus. Sarah squinted, her vision swimming as the walls seemed to pulse and twist. Emily flinched with each flicker, the brief glimpses of her tormentors’ silhouettes more terrifying than steady light could ever be.
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Sarah, wiry and wild-haired, sobbed as a brute seized her jaw. “Who’s behind it? Talk!” he snarled, his voice cutting through the disorienting strobe. “I can’t—I don’t know anything, please!” she cried, her words slurring as the light pulsed. He grinned, producing pliers and clamping them around her finger. With a slow twist, the bone snapped—a wet, grinding crunch—her scream swallowed by the flickering darkness. Blood trickled as he bent it back further, the skin tearing open, her hand a mangled claw. “Names! Give me names!” he bellowed, flicking the switch again. The room vanished into a strobe-lit void, her eyes useless against the assault. “I don’t know!” she wailed, disoriented and blind.
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Emily, small and ashen, faced a different tormentor. He wielded a rusted knife, its edge glinting in the erratic light. “You’ll talk, or I’ll skin you alive,” he hissed, pressing the blade to her arm. The flickering made his movements jerky, almost inhuman, as he carved shallow lines into her flesh. Blood welled and dripped, pooling on the grimy floor as she shrieked, “Stop! I’ll say anything!” He leaned in, his breath a hot whisper. “Who’s the one we want? Lie, and I’ll cut deeper.” Her voice cracked, “I think it’s Nile—maybe Nile!” The light stuttered, obscuring the room’s edges—no chance to map an escape, no hope of clarity.
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The torture intensified. Sarah’s interrogator splashed kerosene over her ruined hand, striking a match that flared in the flickering gloom. “Ten seconds, or you burn,” he growled. “Okay, okay! It’s Nile! He’s the one!” she screamed, her voice raw. Emily, nodding frantically, echoed, “Yes, Nile! He knows it all!” The cartel smirked. “Good girls,” one taunted, the light steadying just long enough to reveal their cold satisfaction. But mercy wasn’t coming.
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Two shots split the air. Sarah’s head jerked as a bullet drilled through her forehead, the exit wound spraying blood and bone across the stained wall. Her body crashed back, chair toppling. Emily followed—a crack, a crimson burst, her form slumping lifelessly. The flickering resumed, painting the blood splatter in strobe-lit chaos. Lila and Nile, gagged, let out muffled cries, the gore glistening in the unsteady light. “You gave us Nile,” a voice sneered. “You’re helping us now.”
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Lila was dragged to a back room, the bulb flickering behind her. Nile’s mind raced. The walls around him were frail—rotted planks bowing outward, plaster crumbling to dust. If he could break free, he’d smash through. Music blasted suddenly, a garish mariachi tune clashing with Lila’s screams—pliers ripping her nails, a poker scorching her flesh until it bubbled. She returned a wreck: face pulped, arms slashed, blood seeping from torn gums.
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A phone buzzed. “Neil Bazaar’s caught,” one read. “Move out.” They turned to Nile. “Name?” a thug demanded, gun jabbing his chest. “Nile Basar,” he rasped. “Spell it.” “N-I-L-E B-A-S-A-R.” Realization dawned—they’d nabbed the wrong man. “They’ve seen us,” one muttered. “No loose ends.”
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As fate would have it ,a car crashed through the wall, wood exploding. It knocked down the thugs and with just enough force broke the arm of the seat where Nile was tied up.“You fool! Why didn’t you use the Handbrake!” one yelled from the ground where he lay, one was already dead as he had been run over the other was unconscious. Nile freed himself, hoisted Lila onto his shoulder , and ran. Outside, the forest loomed—gnarled trees clawing at the sky, undergrowth thick and wild. Hiding behind an oak, he frantically dialed the police with shaky hands the cartel’s shouts closing in as flashlight beams pierced the dark.
