A few more corridors through the building and Brian felt his voice returning. He expressed so.

“Heeellpp!” he screamed, fairly hoarse. “Somebody he—”

His kidnapper just raised his eyes to the heavens and withdrew a small canister from his back pocket, filled with some dark, glistening substance. He inched it out and slapped it over Brian’s mouth, silencing his cries.

Brian just huffed through his nose in frustration, attempting to regain control of some limb or another. But it was no use. The man just dragged him along, without a second glance from any of the passerby.

Finally, they neared a hall of nothing but heavy metal doors, each with a small slot in the middle. Brian was expecting what was coming next, and he received it, being dumped unceremoniously onto the freezing steel floor.

“Mmmm!” he yelled (or tried to). “Mmm-hmm-mmm!”

The man just shut the door in his face.

There was a click.