Cry Uncle

I spun in a circle looking for an exit when I noticed other Big Men advancing through the crowd behind me.

Trapped!

My brain screamed at me, which is really less than ideal when you’re desperately trying to come up with a plan of escape on the spur of the moment.

Seconds ticked by. The crowd, oblivious to my impending doom, mulled around me in a myriad of colour and sound.

Then things went black.

Rough material covered my face and was sucked into my mouth as I opened it to scream. It tasted of dust and burlap.

“Quiet,” hissed an accented voice as boney fingers prodded me into a crouching position under something hard. “Stay down and they might not see you.”

Yet another ‘savior’. This one equipped with a blindfold of sorts. Goodie.

For the next several minutes my fear-soaked mind and I crouched in darkness listening to the cacophony of sounds around me. There was a lot of yelling, things breaking, and what I’m pretty sure was the sickening wet thump of fist meeting yielding flesh.

Then the world went quiet. I pulled off the burlap sack that had been covering my face, blinked the dust from my eyes, and found myself looking directly into Oracle’s smiling face. She held back the corner of a stained gingham tablecloth and gestured for me to climb out of my hiding place.

“Had enough, yet?” she said.