<span style="font-weight: bold">Shotoku Ariyama</span>-<span style="font-style: italic">Bedroom</span><br/><br/>Her chest was on fire. She could feel her heart pounding like a jackhammer against her ribcage, desperately trying to wake her with its tempestuous din; she could hear it like thunder in hear ears, thunder mixed with the river-like rushing of her blood. Her hands struggled against the rough stone, every muscle in her lithe body straining. She could not move, however, nor could she remove this obstacle from atop her body. She was not built for this kind of pressure, she knew. The pressures of her job were one thing but this…this was too much.<br/><br/>This was far too much.<br/><br/>She could feel more than see the darkness pressing in on her, threatening to crush her as surely as the stone that she now attempted to lift from her five-foot-six-inch-tall frame. She was not at all petite but neither was she obese; she wasn’t even chubby. But she was no body-builder, a fact she was being reminded of all too well. But as the darkness consumed her, she felt her obstacle leave her hands. Only the weight remained.<br/><br/>Her eyes were stabbed by razor-sharp beams of sunlight streaming in through closed wooden slats. They soon crept open as she realized that the weight upon her chest was no mere dream. Her bed felt…different. It was not as soft, resembling sackcloth much more than the silken sheets of a high-priced hotel room. She jerked as she forced herself into a sitting position. Her lungs cried out as her eyes desperately gazed around at an unfamiliar room. They lit upon a small, rough-wood end table near the bed; thereupon lay her corrective lenses and her inhaler.<br/><br/>She fumbled with the latter, bringing it up to her lips after a furious shake. The medicine didn’t want to come out at first, and her vision was getting blurrier than it usually was. She slid off the bed and onto her knees, her right hand rocking the table as she struggled for support. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, air rushed in. The sharp gasp as she inhaled oxygen was as startling to her as someone being dunked in frigid water. She desperately took in more medication and more air.<br/><br/>Why had she been lying upon her back? She<span style="font-style: italic">never</span>slept upon her back; she knew better than that. She knew what would happen, and it had indeed happened. She coughed and sputtered as the fire in her lungs was slowly doused. Her chest would hurt all morning now, she knew. She swore vehemently in Japanese in her mind, cursing her ill fortune as she recovered. The medication…it tasted like a mixture of old sushi and vinegar. It was foul but it did its job. When she finally began to catch her breath, she shakily stood. The ancient wood planks that formed the floor beneath her bare feet were frigid and creaked with their age.<br/><br/>She donned the corrective lenses lying upon the end table as the smoke poured from her ears. Her brain was almost as frantic as her body had been just moments ago. Her thoughts ran rampant as she examined her surroundings.<br/><br/>The bed, she now saw, was an antique carved from long-splintered wood reinforced with a wrought-iron under-frame. The mattress was old and the bedding older. It looked as though the bed had once belonged to a hospital or a clinic. Someone had clearly wanted her to freeze to death if she didn’t perish upon waking, for they had not thought to place her nude form beneath the neatly arranged blanket and sheet that covered the old bed. She always slept in the nude, for it felt more natural and comfortable that way, but she certainly would have covered herself up if the room was cold.<br/><br/>She turned, surveying the attic-like room in which she now found herself. The teal wallpaper was covered in green sunflowers that she was fairly certain had originally been yellow, and it was peeling in many places; one section of it had come off completely, a folded corner revealing the same boards of which the floor was comprised forming the far wall of the room. Shuffling over to the window, she opened the blinds to see a window looking out upon a pair of weather-worn brown shutters that had been boarded up from the outside. The light that had hit her eyes, she saw now, had come in from a broken corner on the left shutter; through it, she saw only a gray sky. She tried to open the window but there was no lock and no seam; this window had clearly not meant to be opened. It made her wonder why there were shutters at all.<br/><br/>An old chest in the far corner of the room held nothing. The three-drawer bureau next to it, however, had a set of clothing that she knew she hadn’t brought with her on her business trip:<a class="postlink" href="http://i.imgur.com/51gF3G1.png">her favorite leather pants and top</a>. Her usual sapphire earrings were in there as well, and a quick look around told her that her boots - the only footwear she owned other than three pairs of pumps, each of which matched a tight-fitting women’s business suit in color - were resting next to the bureau upon the floor. A door in the other corner led into the bathroom but she was more concerned with the laptop and mobile phone that rested atop the bureau.<br/><br/>The laptop had no signal but it was fully charged. She couldn’t get online…and she couldn’t get a signal with her phone. She cursed Nokia (in Japanese - yes, again) and slammed her phone down. She calmed herself quickly, however; whatever was going on, if there was hot water, she would take a shower. She checked her clothes and her boots; they were clean and there were no “bugs” in them. She was used to searching rooms, furniture, and equipment for “bugs” that corporate enemies (and supposed allies) of her employer frequently planted when the opportunities were afforded them. One last glance around showed her an old bulb with a chain hanging from the slanted wood ceiling.<br/><br/>She moved a cabinet in the bathroom in front of the door and tested the water. After a few moments, it was hot enough to burn her. It always took a while to get hot water in old places such as this one. There were towels and rags, soap, shampoo - everything she needed. Surprisingly, the consumable toiletries were the exact kinds of toiletries that she would have used: cherry-scented soap, the kind made in Nagasaki by farmers local to the region; her favorite shampoo and conditioner from Tsubaki; her favorite body wash, also from Tsubaki; her best hair and tooth brushes, as well as a stack of paper cups for rinsing; and a tube of Aquafresh complete with Kanji labels. Someone had clearly gone out of his or her way to make certain that she felt right at home despite the disorientation of being in an unfamiliar place against her will (she certainly never would have stayed in a room that looked this run-down by choice).<br/><br/>When she had showered, she slipped on the tight-fitting leather garments. It was always a slightly difficult process, donning such tight attire. She had 40Ds and shapely hips, though there wasn’t much fat on her, and such features were always squeezed a little when she got dressed. But she loved the feel of tight clothing; if something moved in a way she didn’t want it to, her clothing wasn’t tight enough. Fortunately, she had worked hard to replace any fat that might be on her body with muscle; she was thus mostly lean and had some strength to her, although her body was built more for flexibility than strength. Interestingly enough, she’d found the perfect balance of tension for her clothing - a tension that let her move however she needed to while restricting the movements of the parts of her body that she didn’t want to move. What resulted was a sexy woman in a tight outfit who looked like she could still kick your ass (and she probably could, though she only practiced Tai Chi and had never put it to combative use).<br/><br/>There was no one about when she reentered the bedroom. Her long, straight black hair flowed behind her, still shimmering from her shower, as her soft brown eyes lit upon her boots once more. Contrary to the rest of her attire, her boots were always designed more for comfort than for look. They didn’t have the same sheen that her leather attire did but they were polished well enough. She slipped her boots on and zipped them up. Her earrings flashed in the sunbeam as she passed it by, heading for the door.<br/><br/>She stopped.<br/><br/>Old houses always made for terrible barriers. There were other people in this house; she could hear them moving about. The din of the creaking floorboards reverberated through the house quickly and subtly. She was not alone in this house, although that didn’t surprise her. Whoever wanted her here had wanted her to be relatively comfortable - and alive. But her captor did not seem to think she was special enough for an exclusive kidnapping.<br/><br/>She<span style="font-style: italic">really</span>should have said no to that second bottle of sake…