I could hear their wet footsteps echoing; nine sounded like nine hundred in the tunnel. I was dragged onto the field. My struggles caused me to slip on the wet grass, but my captors didn’t let me fall.

There was a loud click and the lights buzzed angrily, casting long wedges of light onto the rutted green field. I tried to shake them off me but the two holding me gripped harder, their fingers like pincers trying to tear through my suit, digging between the muscles.

Then the beating started.

I could feel them really laying into me, pounding their fists into my ribs and kidneys. A grizzled old man with a rugby player’s build came around front with a balled up fist; I managed to kick him between his legs, but the satisfaction was short lived.

“Hey, he’s still got some fight in him!” said the guy with glasses holding my left arm, and he released me long enough to clout my ear until the lobe was torn and numb and everything was as bright as the sodium lamps.

When I woke up I was facedown in the mud.