Chapter Text
Adam Stanheight had made peace with his own death. It was the only thing left to do.
Once he'd screamed his throat raw, and his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he had attempted to console himself. He had tried counting the hours until Lawrence returned with help, desperate to keep his own hope alive. He was going to get out of here, he had to. The SWAT team would kick down the door and he would be swarmed by reporters and publishing agents and hordes of beautiful groupies all desperate to know how he triumphed the odds and survived the infamous Jigsaw killer.
How long had it been now? Days? Weeks? Long enough at least for him to make peace with the fact that no one was coming. Lawrence was probably only a few feet down the hall, dead from his bleeding stump.
No day, no night, no clue how long he had been in this private little Hell, aside from the pain of his own wasting, and the growing stench of Zepp’s remains. His hands still ached from the impact of the toilet lid against his head.
He had never been a big one for acceptance – his favorite stage of grief was usually anger. But locked in the dark, chained to a pipe, starving and out of water, acceptance had raced towards him like a runaway train. No one was coming. No one would find him until this place fell down in a storm or was burned to the ground by arsonists or levelled in a terrible act of gentrification, and by then, the people who had done this to him would probably be too dead to face any consequences. So why worry? None of this was his problem any more.
At first he had shivered, then the hunger pains had him wracked with convulsions. But now, it was as if a thick blanket has descended across his entire being. The pain was finally gone. Soon, it would all be over. He would be free.
In the little windows of consciousness that still plagued him, he travelled through his memories, to places the chain around his ankle couldn’t keep him from. He was in his childhood living room, lying in a patch of sun-drenched carpet and watching dust motes dance through the air. He was sitting on his grandfather’s knee as he paged through his book of TIME’s greatest photographs (he was only allowed to look at it with grandpa, after he had washed his hands and promised not touch any of the pages). He was at Scott’s first gig, having a disposable camera shoved into his hands and being told to make it work.
He was sitting on the edge of his bathtub. His mother was dabbing iodine onto the stitched-up nail wound Scott had given him. His tears still hadn’t dried up. He was sniffling, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He looked at his Mom, and asked how his friend could do something like this.
She sighed, reaching up and stroking his cheek.
“Oh, my poor little Adam.”
She pressed her finger across his lips. This part he didn’t remember.
“Adam.”
“Adam.”
It was just a whisper. Just a little voice in the dark. But it was enough to draw him out of his dreams, his gentle descent into the void. His eyes opened to a blinding light. Reality rushed in on him – the cold, the fear, the anger, the dark – but he was too weak to even react. Why couldn’t it all just fucking end already?
“It’s okay. I’m gonna help you.”
So the voice had a body. It was a woman, leaning in on his left side. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel her, pressing in against him. She smelt like a chop shop, like oil and welding and fresh sweat. He used to hate those smells, but in the miasma of mold and sewage and decaying body parts, it was all he could do to not inhale her. Did other smells still exist outside of this pit? He’d almost forgotten.
She leaned over him, reaching for his feet. He felt warm skin against his bare arm, and he almost reared away in shock. The sensation of human contact had somehow been forgotten, too.
His visitor groped around until her hand landed on his ankle chain. She followed it like a guideline, towing herself further away. No, good smelling lady. He reached limply for her with his good arm. Come back.
She adjusted the light, and he felt his leg shift gently with the chain.
Clink. Clink.
Adam tried focusing on the silhouette of the tool in her hands. Bolt cutters. She was cutting his chains. They were actually letting him go. He would have thrown his arms around her and kissed her if he could still use his shoulders.
His eyes had begun adjusting to the light when she turned back to him. Two big, brown eyes. Watching him. Sweetly. Sadly. A few loose strands of short dark hair, hanging across her forehead. That was all he could see in the glow of the flashlight. It was all he could process before he was plunged back into darkness.
He mustered a groan in protest as the sack was thrown over his head. Brilliant. Just as he was making peace with a slow, quiet death, these freaks were going to give him a big, violent one. Now he was going to be hanged, or drowned, or tied to four horses and have them all run in opposite directions. He opened his mouth to unleash a string of curses upon her, but the best he could manage was a raspy groan. The cistern had run out of water a while ago.
She dragged him under the armpits towards the door. Only a few meters later, and he felt himself being dragged up and over a hard metal edge, before landing in some sort of tub. His arms and legs hung out on strange angles, and if he’d had the energy, he would have told this chick how little this did for his gunshot wound.
Suddenly, he was moving, his toes dragging along the ground. A wheelbarrow. Fantastic. What a dignified final vessel. He was probably about to be dumped into some giant meat grinder, for the crime of swiping $20 from his dad’s wallet in middle school.
His transit suddenly stopped, sans-dumping. The barrow was tipped forward, and he was pulled out of it by his ankles. She was huffing above him, and set him down for a moment. Probably contemplating what agonizing end would please her blood-drinking God-Emperor the most.
She hauled him up, and this time Adam was pushed over an edge with more give. When she set him down, he felt something soft and slick against his cheek. Something was boxing in the sides of his head, and his knees were lifted and tucked in against his face. It all came together when he heard the whir of a zip, and the world suddenly sounded as dark as it looked.
A suitcase. Great. At best he was about to be disposed of in the harbor, but even that seemed too kind. There was probably a bomb sewn into the lining somewhere, and he would have to tear out all his finger and toenails to stop it from going off. That seemed more Jigsaw’s speed.
With no small effort on her part, the woman lifted the suitcase, and Adam was upright, rolling through God knows where on his way to God knows what. At least the suitcase was a welcome change from the hard chill of the tiles.
He did his best in his new cocoon to sink back into the darkness. With any luck, he would die before he was pulled out of here again. These lunatics wouldn’t get the satisfaction of making him suffer any more. Not if he could help it.