Recreational cancer (part 1)

Walking down the steep uneven steps, smells of old newspaper and iron rush on a collision course for my brain. Chains hang from the long steel pipes over head and the air is still and dead. Standing here, alone, this place is starting to appear more and more like a torture chamber than a basement.
Isn’t this where the letter said to meet her?
The only sounds are creek and moans from the pipes and the rattle of chains swinging in the air. Pulling the note out of my pocked I re-read it, you know, just to make sure. Double check.
“Sorry I’m late. Go down to the basement and make yourself at home.
Be down shortly,
Carrie.”
Seeing a chair I decide to take her advise and plop down. It’s one of those “modern art” chairs in the shape of a hand. Like the hand of some dead guy reaching out of the grave. Huh, who knew that when you die your hands turn pink and fuzzy.
This is the fifth day I’ve gone without sleep and my eyes look like I just got the shit kicked out of me and feel even worse. I’ve gotten a few ten minute naps here and there but I seem to always wake up feeling worse than I did before I got the rest.
Sitting there, in the zombie hand, my eyes are growing heavier by the second and I must have fallen asleep because I’m on the ground. My back aches from the strange position I was in when I woke and my left arm is numb. I look at my watch and I was asleep for at least half an hour. She’s not coming.
Rising slowly I decide it’s time to leave, suddenly something could and hard hit’s the back of my head and once again I am asleep.
When you’ve been hanging from a chain by your arms for and hour they kind of start to sting. Not to mention the crack in my skull that is steadily spilling blood onto the solid grey floor.
Waking to this kind of pain is something I recommend you not try. With my visions still blurry I can make out the silhouette of a man in front of me and notice my legs have been bound together. My knees lay on the floor and my head is to heavy for my neck to keep up.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, this is my “don’t try this at home,” pre-show warning.
And just so you know, your life doesn’t flash before your eyes when you die. You just don’t have that kind of time. Say you get hit by a train or a piano falls on you, well then your life has no time to flash. But when the circulation in your hands cut off you start to think. You think of what you could’ve change. How many lives you could’ve saved. How many times you could’ve gotten laid.
The outline in front of me takes shape and it’s a familiar face but I draw a blank on the name. His eyes are deep and blue, the kind that sort of scare you when you stare into them to long. Slightly curly, blonde hair, which appears un cut for at least a year, hangs in his face. He is sporting a grin that is surrounded by a scraggly beard. Wearing a pair of tight faded blue-jeans, you know the kind made to seem old, retro, and a plain black tee-shirt, taut against his chest. You can tell he works out or does something physical for a job. Sweat drips from his small, pointed nose and the smell of some cheap whiskey is on his breath or trapped in his beard, I cant tell. He clenches something black in his right hand.
My head leaning on my shoulder, I have to look up to see his face and stare into his eyes, hoping to find some answer to what is going on. But all I get is the same grin he’s had since he came into focus.