• Prologue




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    His fingers gripped the cold, wooden floor under him. The young man was on his left side, slowly awakening from a forced slumber. He struggled to push himself off the floor. His eyes adjusting to the lack of light in the dull colored room, dimly lit and flickering florescent lights on the ceiling, similar to those found in old schools and buildings.

    “Ugh!” he groaned as his arms buckled beneath him; his full strength hadn’t returned.

    His forehead hit the ground but his hands refused to move. He was left with a bruise on his forehead and a new piece of information. “What’s going on?” he asked with a grunt, managing to use his anger and confusion to push himself to his feet, adjusting to the new weight on his back.

    Reaching behind his back with his right hand, the man felt some sort of large, heavy metal object. It was attached to his back somehow. Bringing his left hand back he attempted to pull it off. It was pointless. The object was locked into his back and a sharp pain shot through his body with every tug.
    His left hand moved around the object, looking for some sort of way to remove it, but instead he came across a wire, leading from the top and towards the wall. At the same time his eyes found a tape recorder on the floor; common sense told him not to yank the wire off the contraption.

    “Oh, God no…” he muttered, looking back at the wall for a moment. The wire had some slack, allowing the worrisome man to move forward a few more feet to grab the tape recorder.

    Kneeling down he held the gray object in his hands; it looked old and worn, but it had a cassette inside and several buttons. ‘Play Me’ written on a piece of tape that was visibly positioned over the cassette. “No, please, no…” he said to himself, his right hand held the recorder as his left hand grabbed his dark brown hair, shaking his head in disbelief; his past few weeks of reading the newspaper had given him insight to what exactly was happening.

    He was supposed to click the ‘Play’ button, but his right hand trembled and he brought his left arm down to his side, looking around the room. He hoped to find a way out, but all he could see before him was a long, rectangular shaped glass box. The man couldn’t take the tension anymore; his thumb clicked the right facing arrow.

    “Hello Steven. You have spent the last few years of your life abusing the precious endowment that your parents gave to you. Your body,” the deep and powerful voice announced as Steven glanced down at his sleeve; it was slightly moved up and his forearm riddled with horizontal scars of different sizes, “Now you believe you’ve only been damaging yourself, but those which you once cared for have been hurt worse then you have ever been, and have moved on. I am giving you the chance to feel that pain your loved ones have felt, and if you succeed, you will also have the chance to move on, move on from yourself. There is a box in front of you; needles and spikes spiral down it, and at the end, there is a key that will remove the mechanical saw from your back. Take the key, and you will take--back--your--life. But be careful; once the wire is pulled off of the mechanical saw the timer will go off and the blade will submerge into your flesh after the sixty seconds are up. What will it be, Steven? Cut your wrist, or cut your spine? Live or die. Make your choice. Let the game begin.”

    The recording of Jigsaw ended, and Steven was left wide-eyed and in a state of panic. “I didn’t do anything! I didn’t do anything!” he cried, pulling his right arm into the air whipping it towards the ground. The tape recorder hit the ground and was broken into several pieces, the aged cassette in near perfect condition.

    He moved away from the glass box, not wanting the wire to snap on the saw, but it wasn’t long before Steven realized his strength had still not fully returned to him. He could feel it: hunger and dehydration. How long would he last before it killed him? When would he be saved? But it struck him, who would’ve known he was missing?

    It was now or never. He might not have the strength to complete the task in an hour. He had to do it.

    “God damn it!” he shouted, running forward. Steven felt the saw tug a bit as the wire pulled back, a thin, short, iron bar with it, the ticking of the timer becoming obvious.

    With no time to waste, Steven continued running until he came to the needle-filled glass box. His eyes examined it with horror, and he realized its size. His whole arm would have to be stuck in there to retrieve the key. He had heard about Jigsaw’s traps… but to be face-to-face with one with fifty-five seconds left to live put a whole new perspective on it.

    “No, no! Please! Don’t do this!” Steven shouted, looking around the room again.

    He moved to the end of the box; he could see the key and he began to pound his fists on the top of the box. He soon concluded that the glass was bullet proof and there was no way he could break through it in one minute.

    “No…” he whined. He could feel the tears coming. “Please," he pleaded to whoever was listening, "Please, don’t do this! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” The ticking taunted him, reminding him of what little time he had left.

    Running back towards the front of the box, Steven put his left hand on the top of the box, his right hand slowly moving towards the entrance. “Come on… come on…” he said to himself, pumping his shoulders and stomping his foot. His right hand entered the box and the first needle tip slid along his finger, he winced in pain and gave a cry of agony.

    Not a cry of present pain, but a cry of knowing what future pain was to come.

    “******** damn it!” he shouted as he braced his legs on the floor and moved his hand into the box at a slightly quicker pace.

    The jagged objects showed no mercy as his arm continued down the box, the needles scraped along his flesh, peeling bits off and reddening the inside of the trap. There was no escape from the cleverly placed needles. When a longer needle appeared Steven would attempt to move his arm to the side, but then he would be in just as much pain pushing the other needles deep into his skin. “Aaagh!” he cried out, blood squirting against the glass sides as veins popped and muscles sliced.

    Suddenly, the tip of a longer needle sliced agonizingly through Steven's hand between his index finger and his middle finger, blood bursting from the fresh wound. The volume of Steven's cries increased.

    Inching closer to the key, Steven’s skin continued to peal; thin pieces were strung against the spikes and needles of the prison that held his arm hostage. The tips were now able to scratch briefly on the bone, but to Steven, he felt as if his skin had already been removed.

    He bent his knees, his shoulder bone against the glass box’s entrance. Steven’s screams and the throbbing pain that had taken over his arm drowned the timer’s ticking. “Come the ******** on! Aaaah!” his fingertips scrambled to get the key, but all he felt were spikes.

    Where was the key? Abruptly it came to him; the key-- the object that would serve as his salvation--was also covered with spikes. “Aaaah! Damn it!” he cried out, tears rolling down his face. His right hand clutched the key, spikes poking out from the back of his hand. He began to step back when he realized that he spent too much time getting to the key.

    Blood ran down the spikes and to the bottom of the box. Small puddles of blood were forming as Steven’s arm remained relatively still, but his eyes squeezed shut and his body trembled.

    Hopefully, it would be like ripping off a band-aid.

    Steven took a step back and pushed against the box with his left hand, his other arm ripped through the needles and quickly made it out the other end, “Graaaah!” He shrieked in terror, letting his grip go of the key. Rather than falling, they key remained in place because the needles that surrounded it had pierced through his skin.

    The immense pain prevented him from even opening his eyes to look at his mangeled arm. The whole arm was covered with dark blood; patches of skin were missing, and fingernails were cut and ripped while strips of skin were hanging off, blood still heavily dripping to the ground. The white of the bone could be seen on the forearm, and the previous wound in between Steven’s fingers had increased, his index finger tilted heavily to one side, a quick rip would be able to destroy the bone.

    “Hell! s**t!” he swore, using his left hand to pull off the key. Tears streamed down his face as he felt around with the key for the lock hole on the device on his back. However, the needles coming off of the key prevented it from entering the hole; Steven would first have to remove the needles to unlock the device. This realization caused him to panic. “Aaaah! No! No! Son of a b***h!”

    Reeeeeeeeeee!

    The sounds of ticking were replaced with an ear piercing sound of the blades spinning, only to be matched by Steven’s screams of pain and horror.

    His left hand shot back to his mouth as he attempted to rip the needles off the key with his mouth. His bloody right hand grabbed the other end of the key; the massive amount of pain prevented him from fully grasping it, even considering the life-or-death situation.

    Steven broke off a needle with his teeth, but he had run out of time. The saw blades finally entered his back; they ripped through his clothing and caused blood to spew from his back. Steven took his last breath and gave one more piercing scream.

    Within another a few seconds the blades of the saw had horizontally, diagonally, and vertically cut their way into Steven’s back and spine, cutting through major arteries as blood splurged out from Steven’s mouth, the back of his shirt quickly drenched with the liquid.

    The young man fell face first to the ground, the saw continued spinning as his body shook slightly because of it. He was dead, lying in his own pool of blood as more continued to erupt from his back.

    His head faced towards the wall, his lifeless eyes met with someone else's. A blue eye was watching through a hole in the wall; it blinked slowly once before giving a last look at Steven before moving away, a single beam of dusty light emerged from the hole.

    The eye disappeared. A voice echoed over Steven's corpse.

    “I think it's time to begin our game.”


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    To be continued...