Tiff inhaled a mouthful of sweltering air. Rubbing the aching bump on her head, where she remembered the baton striking, she slowly came to her senses. Pursing her lips, she accidentally tasted the foul spice of the agent she had been sprayed with. It made her spit and cough.
She quickly rubbed the liquid out from her face with her sleeve. She gathered her wits the best she could, taking one long look at her environment. It took her only a few seconds to connect the unfamiliar taste, the fainting, and the red, glowing world around her.
The landscape was covered in an uneven membrane, layered and translucent. There were embedded dark magenta, oval, man-sized bumps that faded into its crimson depths. The humid, hot air around her stank of onions and sweat. A distant thumping, like that of a heart, made her head throb. Somewhere up, she saw a distorted sky that resembled gypsum.
She stood up slowly, revolted by the smell. Under her feet, she became aware of the faint twitching of the ground underneath her feet; too faint to see, but she could feel it. The ground was alive.
The shifting quickened, and she staggered off: though before she had thought it was just her irritated eyes, she learned soon that the fleshy landscape was indeed beating and shifting, even if mostly staying in place.
"How!?"
Tiff walked away from the rising ground. After yelling, she felt the truly pervasive strength of the throbbing. She gasped quietly for air, walking around in a daze.
Crevices and gulfs stood around her, branching her road in many directions where the path across the cellular material still remained open. She wandered the fleshy expanse around her in quiet confusion.
Nobody had come to greet her. Nobody had given her any explanation as to why she was in this place. The car she was on got stopped, they were asked to come out, then this.
"Is anyone here!? Please!"
The solitude and the dankness were wearing on her nerves. She pressed her step, looking for some sort of answer, dashing in fits and calling out again.
She protested and sprang off over and again, wandering the mazelike desert to no avail. She walked and walked for too long, she walked until her legs felt like jelly, her shirt was wet, her throat was dry and parched from the sweltering, foul air.
Her nerves didn't fare any better. Before she crumbled down to the ground, she wondered if she would ever see her loved ones again.
After, she wondered if she would see anything but this flesh ever again.
Krishna dropped his cellphone and keys in the plastic tray, while a dead-eyed man looked at him from behind the glass pane. He had gone through this process a hundred times, but he still needed several roundtrips to remove all of his metal and electronics. It was not just the cell and keys, it was also the pen, the thumbdrive, small change, cufflinks.
The metal detector still responded. Resigned, he removed his belt, and placed it on the tray.
"Is that enough?"
The man nodded, taking the tray. Krishna's companion, sitting across the detector, nodded her head in encouragement. Krishna walked down the hallway, and opened the second door to the left, entering a waiting room.
The camera on the corner immediately pivoted towards him as he closed the door, with a soft, peculiar grinding noise. He looked back at it, quietly, and gripping his notes, he sat down on one of the chairs along the wall.
The door across the room was half-open. He ignored the faint sounds of squeaking, on his partner's advice, trying to focus on the notes. Before he could, he overheard a moan.
He stared at the camera, hoping it had been his imagination, but it wasn't. Krishna began sweating, overhearing heavy breathing coming from the other room. The warden had to know he was here to meet him, and still, there he was, getting busy.
The young attorney struggled to count that a coincidence.
Tiff cried in terror, flung upwards towards the white vault by the sudden lurching of the world around her. It took her such a short instant to land, she wondered if she had ever been elsewhere at all.
From close, the white was a mesh of braided strands, with split ends leading to globes of wiggling, hairy fabric. The whole world was moving here too; in the distance, she saw craters of hardened smooth white, which did not move at all. Sensual breaths filled the world, to her confusion.
She tried to struggle, free herself from the gypsum-colored fabric structure, but it was far stiffer than it looked, and so was she: half her joints would not even budge, and the other half were paralyzed with weariness. She could barely breathe; the heat had choked out all the energy she had left. She caught moans that seemed to vibrate with the world, filling the time between the breaths.
Entangled in the fabric, she was surprised when the light that came through suddenly flashed out. An instant later, the fabric slammed her against the flesh. A rubbing sound enveloped her.
She was slammed twice more against the flesh underneath, rolled violently across a whole millimeter. When the fabric parted again, she found herself dangling powerlessly upside down. Beneath her, she took one long look at the creased, red landscape, while her ears were assaulted by lewd hums.
She was not sure, but she was quite certain she was looking at an engorged nipple.
Was that people down there she could see?
A blonde woman walked out of the warden's office, buttoning up her blouse as she walked by Krishna. She seemed not to be wearing a bra; discreetly, he eyed her cap instead.
"Is something wrong?" she asked. He was caught unprepared.
"I came to secure the release of my client." Krishna said. She fixed her hair.
"Your client?" she asked, trying to fix her blouse. Now that Krishna looked, however briefly, he realized her bust was clearly on the very, very large side. Trying to avoid any impropriety that the warden may nail him on to delay the process, he looked straight into her eyes- even as he confirmed she wore white pasties.
"Is the warden in?"
"Who is your client?" she asked, pinching the side of her breast.
"I am waiting for the warden." he insisted, keeping a stiff upper lip while she adjusted her clothes. The warden, with all his reputation, was obviously looking at him through the camera.
Someone out there called for the warden: much as she wanted his attention, it was far too late for Tiff to scream herself hoarse. She begged the people she had just met to help her; they were reluctant to put that much work.
They were seven, mostly men. They had come to her when she had finally come loose from the white fabric; all of them seemed quite ragged. They were red in that light.
"I'm thirsty..."
Nobody answered. She repeated it.
"There is nothing to drink now." one said, with a thick accent. "Maybe later."
"When, please?"
"I don't know."
"I'm tired, thirsty..."
"We all are. What's your name?"
"I'm Tiff."
"That is a beautiful name. I am Alfredo. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Tiff." he replied.
"When can I leave?"
"When they come for you."
"When do they come?"
"I do not know."
Tiff gulped. Her tongue was swollen and dry.
"How long have you been here?"
Alfredo picked a length of string from his pocket.
"I think I have been here for fifty-seven days." he replied.
"Why are you in here?"
"I needed a license and I did not have one." Alfredo explained. "When they arrested me, the warden decided I should be here instead. He is a very sick man. Mateo, my brother" he pointed at another man "came for me. But the warden got him too."
"Why is he in here?"
"They told us nothing, they just threw us in here." Alfredo seemed to struggle looking for the words, as he turned to talk to a skinny man. "Mateo, are you okay?"
Mateo nodded off.
"We don't know when anyone else is coming for us." Alfredo said. "Mateo needs help, he can't go on like this."
Krishna stood before the warden. He shook his hands.
"So what do I owe the honor?" the Warden smiled, stretching each word.
"I am here for the immediate release of Tiffany LaRoche." Krishna said, handing the warden a small slice of his papers. The older man didn't even look at them.
"Doesn't ring a bell."
"She was brought to this facility, and must be released immediately."
"Big words. I don't like being told what to do." he grinned. "There is no Tiffany LaRoche here."
The Warden's slimy smile never left him as he stood up, and nonchalantly zipped up his pants.
"I am here f..."
"Fancy attorney. You think you're a big man, don't you? That you can just do whatever you want? The world doesn't work that way. You were checking out my assistant earlier, I know it. I have it on camera."
Krishna shuddered.
"See? I knew it..."
"I've heard enough, warden." Krishna cut him off. "I know Ms. LaRoche is here."
"Don't call me a liar!" he shouted. "I should arrest you! You sick perv. Checking out the help."
Krishna narrowed his eyes.
"This is your first and only warning, Mr. Davenport. We have footage, and we know that doesn't worry you, but we have a lock in her GPS coordinates."
"You have nothing!" the Warden laughed.
"Do you have internet in here?" Krishna grinned. "I can give you a link if you like. Either you have her behind bars, or you will be soon."
Tiff sat, curled up, in the chair. The room's only light was before her. From the only door, the warden walked in with a bottle of water and some papers.
"Want a drink?" he asked. She reached forward over the table, and he pushed her back.
"Not so fast. You've had an awful time in here, right?" he smiled. "It's nothing personal." he smiled. "It's just too bad we did it to you, we really thought you were someone else. I'm sorry, I really, really am. But now, you have to do something for me. If you keep it a secret, we can leave this behind, and I let you and your friends go. You also get some water right now!" he smiled, shaking the bottle.
"They haven't seen you since they got here. Their parents are very worried. You want to be a good friend, right? Or we can do this the hard way, and I can drag this on for as long as it takes. Might even have to put you back in there." he said, with mock concern. "It just doesn't suit you, you know? You're just so, so pretty, young lady. So pretty..." he reached to rub her face; she recoiled.
"What's the matter? Why aren't you saying yes?" the Warden drank another gulp. "You have nothing to lose. If you don't say yes, I have to put you back there. No water." he shook it again.
"The people there..."
"Monsters. The worst of the worst. Don't believe a word they say, a young pretty thing like you, they would obviously lie, lie, and lie. You should leave it be. We are doing justice." he continued, deliberately. "Please, just do this and you can see your friends again. Right away." he pushed a pen towards her.
Tiff thought of Alfredo. She thought of Mateo. She thought of her friends, her parents... and gulping, she reached for the sheet.