Chapter Text
Nostrils flared, you wake to the smell of diesel, paint shavings, and straw.
It aggravates the dull yet persistent throbbing in your temples, which darkened the corners of your eyes in time with your pulse. You lie face down, with snow-flecked dirt clung to your hands and knees. You lay until the pain subsides. Then, with great reluctance, you pick yourself off the ground and crane your neck to get your bearings.
You seem to be in a field—a yard rife with scrap and waste metals: steel beams, greasy cogs, cranks, and gears. Corrugated iron sheets heaped with half-buried automotive parts pockmarked and corroded over time. After a good pat-down, you approach what looked to be a garage. You saw no apparent way inside from where you stood after a cursory once-over, yet peeking over your shoulder reveals no feasible way out either—you were enclosed on all sides by barbed wire fencing. You hug yourself as a chill overtakes you, and sneeze, both from the cold and the horrific air quality. Seeing no other option, you call out for help. Then, after a heavy pause, you call yet again.
Industrial smokestacks rose high and above, belching noxious fumes. Someone had to be feeding the coal to burn, so just as you gain the courage to call once more, a signal blared, startling you out of your wits, and the garage door slowly bid you entry.
Coughing and sputtering with every other faltering step, you find that while climate-controlled, the factory interior stank of stale oil and lubricant. The plaster on the walls was worn, exposing crumbling brickwork; unwound spools of cord and cable littered the cracked tile floor you walk on, tripping you up as you venture deeper unawares. A minute longer, and you began to have second thoughts, you spun on your heel only to be met with an eerie sight. You gape as screws rattled and loosened themselves from their grooves, levitating alongside nuts, bolts, and other sheets of scrap, poised threateningly about you.
"Well," said a rich, fruity voice, demanding your immediate attention. "What do we have here?"
A dark, burly man sauntered into view, pinching a Cuban cigar between leather-clad thumb and forefinger, seeming only half-interested as he peered sidelong at you, his gaze veiled by tea shade sunglasses. "Oh!" He said, lifting his stubbled chin to get a better look at you, alight with sudden intrigue. "You're definitely not from around here, are you?" The stranger gives you a cocksure grin and bit the butt of his cigar to take a puff while appraising you.
Your memory was fuzzy—made worse as adrenaline courses hotly through your veins. You wouldn't be able to answer the stranger's question even if you wanted to. Further, you could tell beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man was dangerous. The floating pieces of metal were not a simple parlor trick, even if you had the balls to declare as such, perhaps thinking—hoping—fleetingly that this was a mere dream. The pain in your thigh did well enough to dash that hope for good and subsequently brought you to your knees, gasping for breath and sweating bullets. You chance a glance at the rod embedded in the meat of your leg. It went in deep, and you didn't dare touch it. Instead, you gawk owlishly at your captor as he closes the distance between you with an obnoxious swagger.
"My, my," the stranger began, adjusting the hat atop his head. "You really have no idea how lucky you are."
Lucky? You briefly wonder what sort of fucked up land you trespassed on that bleeding from a pole in your leg could ever be considered lucky! And he threw his head back in a good belly laugh before addressing you again, reveling in the expression you gave him. "Oh, don't be like that!" He said. "Look, I happen to be in a charitable mood—let's see if we can't come to an agreement, you and me?" Dimly you register his words, unable to take your eyes away from him in the lively manner he spoke with his hands and whole body. "You following me so far, stranger?" He raises his voice, a smirk on his lips, but the danger was still real, and you flinch as he pats your cheek with a firm hand to get you to focus. "Don't pass out on me, now. We only just met. Let's get to know each other, why don't we? You take coffee?" He laughs cruelly and walks right past you, and the metals fluttering above dropped unceremoniously to the floor.
Songbirds tweet and twitter in the light of the afternoon sun, taunting you in your current predicament of making conversation with a plain madman over a cup of Joe. On top of a headache that came and went, you grit through the twinging spasm of an injured leg.
Karl Heisenberg—your captor—administered first aid and did a shoddy job of it, patting the freshly applied gauze once done, eliciting a shriek from his hapless patient. Heisenberg reclined in a chair plucked from a miscellany of OSHA violations across from you. As a small favor, he brought over a tattered but somewhat comfortable-looking armchair, and you sat with a mug that he hastily wiped clean to serve you.
"(Name)... that right?" Heisenberg said after another drag on his cigar, and you nod. "Listen, this is a dangerous operation I'm running. Important," suddenly serious, he extinguished his cigar on the workbench beside him, searing a well-used surface. "You've got no business wandering around like some lost pup, and it's a wonder how you're even alive at all. I'd ask how you got here in the first place, but you look like haven't got a damn clue—there isn't a single thought behind those wide eyes, is there?" Heisenberg allowed himself another cruel chuckle at your expense, but he laughed harder at the situation itself.
You've got a right to be offended. But, on the other hand, it probably wasn't a good idea to mouth off at someone of Heisenberg's apparent caliber. Whether or not you did, Heisenberg stood abruptly, tossing whatever wasn't bolted down in a fit that came seemingly out of nowhere, shocking you to the core.
"Fucking useless is what you are!" Heisenberg shouted, frustrated, and you were afraid you were going to die then. But death didn't come for you, not yet at least. So instead, Heisenberg sighed, gave you a quick glance, sighed again, and said, "Don't worry. I'll get something for my trouble, just you wait. In the meantime, finish your drink—get some food in that belly of yours," he directs your attention to a mini-fridge in the corner. "Wait, wait, hold on," Heisenberg rushed to say and approached the fridge, swinging it open and checking its contents. He mumbled after inspecting the expiry dates on the packaging. "Well, it won't kill you. Eat up."
It wasn't a request.