Work Text:
He woke up laying across the backseat of a car that he didn't remember getting into, certain he had fallen asleep in his own bed the night before.
There was a piece of fabric covering his eyes, some kind of mask or blindfold that blocked any light and stopped him from seeing into the car, yet no tight ropes or ties holding his hands or feet still, as if the cover over his eyes was more for his benefit than anything else, and if this was a kidnapping it was a shitty one. Some part of his brain screamed “DANGER! IT’S DARK AND WE DON’T KNOW WHERE WE ARE!”, but somehow the overwhelming thought was safety. And that scared the shit out of him.
Toward the front of the car there was a radio playing, some call-in talk show about favourite music and bands, and whose hosts sounded way too upbeat and happy for it to be genuine. Hushed words were being shared by whoever was in the front seat driving, just too quiet to make out the speakers or any of their words.
At some point, he must have fallen asleep again because the next time he woke up the car was stopped and quiet, the blindfold was gone, and a blanket was covering him. His blanket. The one he left behind at the manor when he left all those years ago, before Ethiopia, before he woke up in his own grave, before the pit, before all of it. That alone should have set him on edge.
“What the fuck…” he whispered to himself, sitting up and peering out the window into the night outside. He was in the woods somewhere, the car surrounded by the shadowed outlines of trees, a vaguely familiar cabin barely down a path visible by a single lamp on a support beam near its door.
He tried the door, finding it unlocked and he stepped out of the car and started on his way down to the cabin.