Untrue

Chapter 4

It had been a week since Artemis had sent the letter to Severus Snape and still she had received no reply. She did not know whether that was the owl's fault -surely owls could not possibly be that reliable- or whether Severus Snape had chosen to ignore her in the hopes that she would just disappear from the face of the earth. She decided to wait until morning and if she had received no reply by then, she would send him another letter.

Looking outside her bedroom window she observed that even though the sun had set quite some time ago, the sky was not particularly dark. It could not possibly be later than nine o' clock in the evening yet she felt incredibly drained and slightly drowsy. That's just my luck, getting sick during the summer when I have spent the whole school year praying to come down with the flu. But though she was exhausted and her eyes felt as though they were on fire, she could not, for the life of her, find peace. Constrained as she was under a heavy blanket and sweating profusely -she was certain it was a perverted form of torture imposed on her by her mum as punishment for eating too much ice-cream and staying in the rain for hours two days ago- she found even the simple task of rolling over wearisome. Eventually, after a strenuous battle with the blanket, she managed to curl up in a fetal position using one tip of the blanket to softly rub her nose, a habit she found incomparably soothing. A quarter of an hour later, she was sound asleep, fever and stomachache long forgotten.

The moment she closed her eyes, she was forced to open them again. At first she was baffled and unable to make out what had caused her to wake up but then she felt a hand grab her forcefully by her arm and pressure her to stand up. Before she knew it, another hand was placed on her mouth to prevent her from screaming. Artemis looked around frantically, trying to get a glimpse of the person's face and in doing so realized that, in truth, several hours must have passed since she had fallen asleep because the sky was now dark blue and dotted with stars. All she could see of the man's face was a horrifying shadow. Apparently her attacker was wearing a hood or a ski mask or something similar that obscured his facial features.

Then the mysterious man whispered something and Artemis felt her body go as stiff as a board. No matter how hard she tried to break free, an invisible barrier held her strongly in place and though her muscles seemed to be working just fine, it was as though she had been put into a transparent mould. What had this man done? What had he given her? Some kind of drug or poison?

Before Artemis had time to fully register the seriousness of her position, the hooded man whispered something once again -Artemis was unable to hear what exactly- and then he released her mouth. Artemis was doubtful for a moment but soon she snapped out of her shock and opened her mouth to shout. And shout she did, or at least she attempted to because no sound came from her mouth. Artemis panicked. What's going on?

But try hard though she did, she failed to find an adequately reasonable interpretation for all the bizarre things that were happening. For the third time that evening the assailant whispered something that sounded oddly like Latin and Artemis was surrounded by complete and total darkness. She tried to fight it but she was aware that the battle was lost. After that she remembered nothing.

xxxxxxx

When Artemis woke up she wished she hadn't. Her body was aching all over. Could these possibly be the aftereffects of whatever it was that the man gave me or are they an effect of my illness? Artemis' heart skipped a bit. Maybe my kidnapper was the offspring of my imagination? A delusion caused by my high fever? She did not doubt it in the slightest. She tried to sit up but she found that impossible as well as excruciatingly painful. In fact, just keeping her eyes open was taxing and agonizing.

The room she was in was dark, dingy and smelling strongly of mildew, what with no windows or just a little hole to allow oxygen to come in. No delusions, then. Was this how she was going to die? Locked up in a room to suffocate to death?

No, she concluded after inspecting the hellhole in which she was currently residing. She could just barely make out the wall opposite her which meant that some light was somehow, miraculously, making its way into the room. That meant that some oxygen was also making its way into the room for which she would be eternally grateful.

Artemis closed her eyes and the headache that had been developing receded somewhat though not entirely. It was as though it was lurking at the back of her mind waiting for that opportune moment when she would make the mistake of opening her eyes again. Artemis was smarter than that. She would not make the same mistake twice. Being blind was definitely better than suffering what she was sure could be qualified as the world's worse migraine. And it's not like I can see anything if I have my eyes open anyway, what with the room being engulfed in darkness and all. Soon after closing her eyes, she fell asleep once again. The fever and being kidnapped were really getting to her and made her feel constantly fatigued and short of breath.

She dreamt about the scary guy chasing her into her school again, only this time he was wearing a ski mask and was unceasingly whispering in strange languages. In an alternative reality where Artemis had not experienced last night's events she may have found this amusing. In this reality, Artemis found the dream highly disturbing. She did not like the fact that she had to deal with a lunatic that had probably broken out of an asylum for the mentally unstable. Though that could be a good thing, in the end. The police were most likely looking for the escaped inmate right now, after being informed of his disappearance by the institution and maybe she would be lucky and they would find him before it was too late.

Oh God, I am going to die! she thought. Police in Greece were notorious for their ineffectiveness.

The hooded man chose that time to enter the room. In the short half-second it took the man to close the door behind him, Artemis was able to observe the room in which she was about to die, due to the light that came in from the corridor outside. Unfortunately, the man's face was hidden. Or maybe it was fortunate. That way Artemis would not be plagued by nightmares of his ugly face chasing her. It was one thing to have a hooded figure chasing you, it was another one entirely to have the familiar face of your tormentor haunting your dreams.

The room appeared to be bare. The bed on which Artemis had previously though she was lying on was not a bed after all. It was the same cold, stone that graced the room and, from what she had been able to see, the corridor outside it. It looked like a prison cell to her. Only the bars were missing.

The hooded figure stood at the wall opposite her. She could make out a vague outline of his body but could see no details. She dared not speak. The man remained silent also. The tension in the room was palpable, or so Artemis imagined. The man was obviously drawing amusement from her discomfort and fear. Or maybe that was Artemis' imagination as well since there was no way in the world he could know how she was feeling.

After a few agonizing moments, the man spoke, his voice deep and slightly hoarse.

"Get up!" English? Where am I?

Artemis tried to get up, she really did, but she was too weak. She did manage to sit up a bit but obviously the dark figure did not find that satisfactory enough.

"Now!" the man shouted.

I can't! Artemis wanted to scream but she did not out of fear for her life.

"Stupefy!" the man shouted and Artemis felt a force propel her backwards and she hit the stone wall, not too hard thankfully since she was lying less than two inches away from it. Is this magic? Some sort of telekinesis?

"I said get up!" the man shouted again furiously. It's not like I'm defying him or anything! Artemis thought. She was not accustomed to this type of treatment as she had never encountered abuse in her life but she was disobeying his order not because she did not want to, but rather because she could not do otherwise.

"Are you deaf? I said get up!" Terrified and exhausted as she was, Artemis could not restrain her tears, but she did keep quiet so as not betray that fact to the psychopath who was torturing her. The man, seeing that she was not standing up, grabbed her by her shirt and threw her on the floor. Her cheek collided with the floor full force and pain shot through her head. On top of that she could feel sweat dripping on her hand from her forehead. Her fever had worsened and judging from the burning she felt in her lungs, it was possible that the flu might very well turn to pneumonia.

"I hear you are a muggle," the man said.

Artemis had no idea what a muggle was but she was pretty sure that she wasn't.

"You are not worthy of existence. But worry not; I will do you the courtesy of putting you out of your misery."

Now Artemis was certain that the man was bonkers. Not that this changed the fact that she was going to die a horrible, painful death. It was like her dream had come true, only now she had absolutely no chance of running away.

"Crucio!"

All air was knocked out of her lungs as unbearable pain enveloped her entire body from head to toe. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced in her life before. It was as if hundreds of thorns had grown inside her body, stinging her constantly. Her screams echoed in the cell chilling the very core of her being. She gritted her teeth and stood absolutely still, hoping that the pain would fade away. After a few seconds the pain ceased. Artemis opened her mouth and took deep and sharp breaths, her lungs starved for air for such a long time. Her torturer let out a laugh, which also echoed in the room and made Artemis' heart freeze.

"Levicorpus!" the man said and Artemis found herself hovering in the air upside down. She started grabbing at the air in a fruitless attempt to bring herself to a better position. The man started laughing mirthlessly again. Seconds later he stopped abruptly and, in one fluid motion, came to stand in front of her so that his face was inches away from hers.

"Do you want to live?" he asked seriously. Artemis found that when he was serious, he was even more disturbing. I wish the police would hurry up, she thought, though she was not certain if they would be able to restrain him. Come to think of it, Artemis was not sure that the man was an escaped mental patient after all. Apart from the obvious fact that he was using all this dark magic to torture her, the man seemed to be rather sane, if a total sadist. Is this the man who kidnapped me or is it someone else? Artemis could not determine which was true. She thought that the man who had kidnapped her was shorter but she couldn't be positively sure and, truth be told, she could not muster the strength to bring herself to care about it.

"Answer me!" Artemis kicked herself mentally. Angering him was not the best way to go.

"Yes," she whispered. She was shaking all over but whether it was from fear of from the fever, she did not know. The man was laughing manically again.

"Then maybe I will spare you. But in order for me to do that it is required that you do what I order you to do. Is that clear?"

"Yes," Artemis whispered again quickly, not wanting to infuriate the man further.

"You will address me as 'sir', muggle." So much for not infuriating him.

"Yes, sir." This time her sentence was barely audible.

"What did you say?"

"Yes, sir," Artemis said, this time a little more loudly. This caused her already aggravated throat to become more aggravated and she started coughing violently, exacerbating it even more. From the corner of her eyes she could see the man wave something that resembled a stick and Artemis fell to the floor with a sickening thud. She moaned. The man chuckled.

"Now get up."

Bollocks! she thought but gathering all her remaining energy she managed to get up and remain standing, supporting her body on the wall. Her legs were trembling but it was not so bad; the cold wall soothed her burning back considerably.

The man was pacing back and forth now, seemingly thinking about his next command. Artemis wished he would hurry because she knew that her legs would not be able to support her much longer. Then the man stopped pacing and turned to face her. Without warning he raised the stick, pointed it at her and Artemis felt her chest rip open and a moment later blood started gushing from the wound, soaking her torn shirt and trousers. At first Artemis yelped in surprise but then, upon registering the extent of the injury, she let out a horrified scream of utter agony.

"Stupefy!" Artemis flew all the way to the wall and hit it hard. Her head erupted in pain and felt as if it had been split in two. She felt blood trickle down the back of her head all the way to her neck and, after that, the warm liquid tricked down her shoulder blades and came to a stop in the small of her back. The ache came and went in waves, her head was throbbing painfully. But then, suddenly, the pain began to ebb away and so did all coherent thought. Falling to the floor, she saw the man open the door and exit the cell quickly. Just as she lost all consciousness she thought she heard him lock the door behind him. And then, at last, she found peace.