Like in all of my stories I want to clarify that I'm not a native speaker, so grammar mistakes and whacky dialogue may be found in this story due to that.
Part 1: Monastery in Paradise
Sarah Harper was an archeology student on the verge of graduation, she had been inspired to pursue her career by the adventures of
Indiana Jones, Nathan Drake and especially Lara Croft, who probably was the character that gave her the last push to study archeology.
However, after many years in the university Sarah had been disappointed to find out that what real archeologist did had little to do with what those characters did and much more to do with thousands of pages of history books and sometimes even more hours in a field where in most cases they would just find an ancient vase and call it a day. But that did not meant that Sarah lost interest in her career, for years she read countless books of theory and worked on fields both nationally and abroad, everywhere from the freezing andes mountains to the scorching desserts of the Levant.
But a few months ago, Sarah had found something that could not only be the best material she could wish for to use for her graduation thesis, but also the perfect chance she ever had to live one of those adventures that until now she had only fantasized about.
Through some contacts she had made abroad in her many travels, she was told about a strange stone formation in southern Mexico, to the untrained eye it would just seem like a pile of rocks in the middle of the jungle, but to her, an experienced archaeologist who knew that a lot of meso-american temples were found in that state before being uncovered in the 20th century it seemed like an undiscovered ruin, and she would not let the chance of exploring an uncharted native American settlement pass.
She had to take many more steps to prepare for this travel than for her regular archaeological expeditions. Usually she just needed to save some money because the university would pay for pretty much everything, but this time she had to save a lot more and since she wouldn’t be able to afford everything on her own she had asked for help to some of her contacts in Mexico with that.
Sarah also trained her body for the occasion, because something told her that this wasn’t going to be all ground digging and sand scratching. Even though Sarah had always been a regular at the gym she had started to take fitness more seriously since she decided to embark on this mission. For months she had been not only frequenting the gym more, she had also been jogging and on a strict diet. Once it was time to leave for Mexico the results of her training were easy to see both by her and by everyone who looked at her, her legs and arms had gotten more firm and thicker, her abdomen flattened and became as solid as rock and so did her back. Her new physique, her tanned skin and her long brown hair made her feel like Lara Croft herself about to embark on and adventure.
When the time came Sarah embarked on her adventure, she had not arrived ar the airport and her excitement was already so great that when she got to the plane she had trouble falling asleep, so she decided to watch one of her favorite childhood movies, ‘Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc.
Never in the one hour and fifty five minutes that movie lasted did Sarah even thought that she was going to end up not like Dr.Jones, but actually like Marion, the movie’s damsel in distress, standing upright, tied to a column inside some ancient ruins in the middle of the jungle. Rope ran all over Sarah’s legs and chest and her arms were tied behind the pole both at the elbows and the wrists.
“Mpghg!” She moaned, it was all she could do, her captors had gagged her properly enough for her to be unable to make any sound that wasn’t heavily muffled, let alone speak.
But to know why Sarah had ended up in this position we must go back, way more back than just a few hours like one could think. Because the reason why Sarah found herself tightly bound and gagged inside a ruined monastery in the middle a jungle in southern Mexico was related to nobody else but one of her professors.
Dana Henderson was at her luxurious study when she was informed of the discovery of a strange stone formation in a jungle in southern Mexico, she immediately left everything that she was doing and got to work. Driving all attention away from the place before she got there was not a hard task for someone so smart and financially powerful as her.
Profesor Henderson, as she was usually called by her students, was famous in the history scene because of her work, although she was undeniably very smart, she was often criticized for being an armchair historian yet teaching history to future Archaeologists. But she cared little about the criticisms, let alone the ones she heard from her students behind her back. She had managed to become a professor at a very young age, so young that she was younger than some of her students, because of her intelligence, but undoubtedly the wealth of her family had contributed.
For months Dana collected data on the recently discovered mysterious structure, and after months of aerial photography and sending out small investigation teams Dana was sure about something, not only was the structure a real deal but it also was something she wanted to see in person.
Unlike Sarah, who had to travel in economy class and stay at the home of a friend upon arrival, Dana traveled comfortably on first class and stayed at a five star hotel along with her entourage of specialists.
Dana was very unlike Sarah not only in way of thinking and traveling, but physically too. Being a so called armchair historia, Dana had no need for Sarah’s fit body, so she felt comfortable in her thin frame. She also never had the many hours under the sun that Sarah had, so her skin was very pale and always seemed to be clean. Her hair was a very light tone of blonde and her eyes a very light blue. It only took seeing her to know why the people who knew her thought that her passion about world war two Germany was suspicious at best.
But Dana had a second objective apart from uncovering whatever mystery was buried beneath the jungle. After all, it had been one of her students who had made that discovery, so she would like to thank her right there.
Sarah had walked through the jungle for hours before reaching the place, it had been a tortuous way. Her outfit that seemed to pay homage to her childhood hero Lara Croft, with the blue tank top, tiny shorts, big boots and all, seemed logical, it was a hot humid place so dressing lightly seemed reasonable. But when once Sarah arrived to the temple mosquitoes had already feasted on her bare legs and exposed arms, not to mention that she was a mess of dirt, sweat and insect repellent.
Forgetting about the hellish jungle, Sarah approached the massive pile of stone and looked for an entrance, and she eventually found one. Covered in tropical foliage was an archway leading into the dark insides of the structure, but Sarah was surprised to find out that the archway she was gazing upon was not a corbel arch like the one used by the Mayans, it was a full blown semicircular arch in the romanesque style of XII century Europe, something that should have no place in the middle of a jungle in central America.
Now surprise was added to a great extent to all of the feelings Sarah had about the expedition, maybe she’d not only discover a new native American city and have something unique to write her thesis about, maybe she was about to rewrite all known history.
Sarah lit the insides of the temple with her flashlight and was met with a long hallway that ended in a staircase and had many rooms to its sides. The sides of the hallway were adorned with columns and reliefs of religious motifs, the place really didn’t seemed like anything known to exists in pre-columbian America.
Sarah decided to leave the doors untouched as to not disturb the structure, so she walked forward and up the stairs until she found herself in the structure’s second floor. There Sarah saw how in the middle of all the structure was what used to be a garden, now completely overgrown, which was surrounded by a walkway and had a fountain in its middle.
In the second floor Sarah was also met with her first challenge, the floor had collapsed in many places so she had to jump and cling to some surfaces to get around the place, Sarah retied her ponytail and gladly accepted the challenge. Although what she was doing was dangerous, she loved every minute of it, she finally felt like the archeologist that had inspired her to become one and it felt great.
After hours of jumping and climbing around the abandoned structure, Sarah deduced that the place she was must have been a monastery of some sort, it was very reminiscent of Silos in Spain, but the style in which the place was built was beyond dead by the point that the Spanish reached the coasts of México. But that only made Sarah become more fascinated with her discovery.
Going deeper into the structure, Sarah found herself inside a room bigger than all of the other places she had seen inside the supposed monastery. It was long and although the foliage of the jungle had entered inside it, a broken window on the end of the structure allowed some sunlight inside the place, which allowed Sarah to turn off her flashlight.
It didn’t took long for Sarah to realize that she was standing inside a church, one that if not covered in the extensive foliage it was covered in at the moment would have rivaled the greatest exponents of romanesque architecture in Europe.
Sarah walked forward without much thought while she looked at the broken windows at the end of the structure, but she was brought out of her trance by something rattling beneath her feet. Sarah looked down and was met by a less divine and more disturbing scene.
Although as an archeologist Sarah was no stranger to Bones, she found the scene that the skeletons on the floor portrayed disturbing. There were skeletons with arrows going through its eye sockets, others with broken bones and more than a few were still holding to their weapons. She saw out of place European weaponry like steel broadswords, now as rusty as old as the helmets that were over the skulls of some of the skeletons.
“Well well, out of all of the things that I expected to find in this place I never expected to find one of my students” Dana’s smug’s voice echoed through the abandoned temple.
Absorbed the battle scene that laid on the floor Sarah had not been able to hear the footsteps approaching from behind, so when she turned backwards she couldn’t have been more surprised to see her professor standing smugly behind her.
“Profesor?” Asked Sarah more confused than ever.
“You don’t have to call me that outside of the university” Dana replied as she walked up to her student.
Unlike Sarah, Dana had come prepared for the jungle, she was wearing long and somewhat tight cargo pants as well as a long sleeved black jacked over over her white shirt. Her clothes as well as her pale white skin and blonde hair were surprisingly clean for someone who was in the middle of the jungle.
“What are you doing here? How did you find this place?” Sarah asked.
“Hush, you’re asking too many questions and like I said, I’m not your professor here so i don’t have to answer them” Dana refused to answer all of Sarah’s questions.
“Can you at least tell me what this place is?” Asked Sarah, already loosing her patience at Dana, who seemed to be even more even more annoying outside of the university than inside.
“Maybe I will, if you come with me” Dana tried to persuade Sarah.
“No way!” Sarah shouted back at her professor “I wont leave this place until I know what this is!”
“Listen dear, we can do this the easy way or the hard way, and by talking to me like that you’re heavily leaning towards the latter” Dana sighed, getting visible fed up with the conversation.
Dana’s tone was so incredible condescending that Sarah was getting beyond annoyed. Even though Dana was about the same age as Sarah, she was talking to her like if she was a teacher talking down to her high school student, and Sarah hated that.
“You’re not my professor right now remember?” Sarah argued as she walked up to Dana “I’ll do whatever I want, so get out of my way and don’t bother me while I’m at it”
Sarah turned her back on Dana and kept walking towards the end of the structure while closely looking at the skeletons on the floor. She had no words to describe how good it felt to finally snap back at her most hated professor and act towards her like she had always wanted to.
“Don’t say I didn’t tried” Dana sighed “Come on, get back here” She ordered with a calm voice.
Out of mere curiosity Sarah looked back at Dana over her shoulder, but she was met with a not very pleasant scene. Dana was holding a gun, and she was pointing it to her.
“Oh don’t act all scared now, I told you I was going to do this the hard way if you didn’t complied” Dana said before signaling to Sarah to come closer with her gun “Now come here”
“What the hell are you doing?” Sarah said with all of the confidence of her previous words lost.
“I have no reason to explain anything to you, but I may do so later if that makes you comply more easily” Said Dana “Now come here, with your hands up if you please”
Sarah had no option other to obey, as much as she had imagined herself as her childhood heroes while she was hopping around the place now she had been brought back to the reality where just seeing a gun scared her. So she did as told and raised her hands before walking up to Dana.
Standing right before Dana Sarah felt incredibly humiliated, she was visibly taller and stronger than Dana, yet she was completely subdued by her. It was like if even outside the classroom Dana had the ability to keep her down, and she hated it.
“Now stay still and nothing will happen to you” Said Dana as she slowly walked behind Sarah, taking a detailed and very undisguised look at her body.
Despite being afraid, Sarah’s face showed nothing but anger the anger she felt towards Dena and the situation she had put her in, that anger was much greater than the fear she had of her gun.
Dana grabbed Sarah’s arms and tried to force them behind her back, but Sarah resisted and Dena couldn’t do much about that.
“Oh you don’t want to know what happens if you do that again” Dana whispered getting uncomfortably close to Sarah, close enough for her breasts to rub against Sarah’s back, and as she ran her gun along her side.
“Fine” Sarah snorted as she loosened her arms.
Dena then forced Sarah’s hands behind her back, Sarah didn’t knew what she was doing until she heard the metallic ‘Clink’ behind her and felt a ring of cold steel around her wrist, and then on the other. Dana had just handcuffed her.
“What the hell are you doing!?” Shouted Sarah as she tried to break free of the handcuffs to no avail.
“Making sure sure you stay put while I take you with me” Dana explained.
“What do you mean Take me with you!?” Sarah screamed absolutely infuriated.
“Ugh, I knew that should have brought a gag with me” Sighed Dana “But seeing how you insist on screaming and asking questions I’ll have to gag you with something else”
Then Dana ordered Sarah to lay on the floor, initially Sarah refused but was easily persuaded by Dana’s weapon. She reluctantly laid on the floor and once Dana felt safe she concealed her gun under her jacket and crouched besides Sarah.
“God you look disgusting” Said Dana as she looked at Sarah on the floor “Don’t get me wrong, you’re gorgeous, but you clearly had a rough time getting here”
Sarah decided not say anything about what Dana had said, she felt like it would be furthering humiliation if she did.
Inadvertently, Dana removed one of Sarah’s boots and almost immediately the smell of sweat reached her nostrils and her face showed undisguised disgust. Sarah could only wonder what she was doing.
“What the hell?” Asked Sarah as she felt and saw Dena removing her sock.
“God this smells awful, I don’t know if I’ll be able to take out the other one” Dana said as she held the black sock away from her face.
Dana gulped and started to ball up the sock with visible disgust on her face, Sarah knew that the small was far from pleasing but what did Dana expect from the socks of someone who had walked through the hot and humid jungle of hours?
“Open up dear” Said Dana as she moved besides Sarah’s face.
Sarah couldn’t believe what was happening to her, was she really about to be gagged with her own disgusting socks? She couldn’t believe it. And having the sock so close to her face allowed her to smell the awful scent of it, in no way she was letting Dana put that inside her mouth.
“Do it or else” Dena said as she reached below her jacket for her gun.
Just seeing the handle of the gun reminded Sarah of the position she was in, so she started to slowly open her mouth, she did so reluctantly and with disgust in her eyes, but she did so anyway and that was what Dana was happy about.
Dana started to slowly shove the sock inside Sarah’s mouth, pushing it inside with her index and middle finger, so deep inside that Sarah thought that she was about to puke, but she stopped once the socks were deep enough.
“Don’t you dare to spit that” Dana said as she showed the gun to her prisoner again.
It was difficult to obey, all of her instincts were asking Sarah to spit out the disgusting cloth that had been shoved inside her mouth, but she forced herself to keep it inside despite the awful taste that had already filled her mouth.
Dana put the boot back on Sarah’s right foot, but she removed the other one and the sock underneath it, which needless to say was as disgusting as the other one. With the sock removed, Dana finished Sarah’s gag by tying the recently removed and equally disgusting sock over her mouth. Sarah was forced to bite down the sock because of how tightly it had been tied around her head.
“If you behave next time I’ll use a propped gag” Said put the boot back on Sarah’s foot “But for now I need you to start walking, so get up”
“Mpghgh!?” Sarah tried to ask what did she meant about a next time, but her gag rendered her question unintelligible.
Sarah was then forced to stand up and walk at the point of Dana’s gun. Walking with her heavy boots but without socks was extremely uncomfortable, and having her balance changed by having her hands tied behind her back did not helped at all. But neither of those very uncomfortable things was as awful as having the sour, disguising taste of her own sock inside her mouth, being kept in by her other sock which smell managed to reach and intoxicate her nose.
Dena forced Sarah to walk out of the place, taking her to a room a hallway apart from the church. Upon opening the door leading to the new room Sarah was met with a surprising sight. There was a whole investigation center set up in there, although everything was set up provisionally, it was also done so professionally, with microscopes, computers and light using electricity from many generators.
Sarah wouldn’t have minded being taken in there more than she minded being walked around at gun point by her most hater professor while she was tied up and gagged with her own socks, but she did mind to be looked at when she was in that condition. She felt absolutely humiliated when she was taken into the room and the people inside laid their eyes on her.
“Take her to my room while I do some stuff” Said Dana as she pushed Sarah towards a pair of security staff “Be sure to secure her, I don’t want anything funny with her”
And that was how Sarah had ended up in her current situation, tied to a column in some ancient room. Ropes held her legs to the column at the ankles, above and below the knees and at her thighs and her torso was forced against the column by ropes around her waist and below her breasts.
Despite not being a single clock in sight Sarah was sure that she must’ve been tied up and gagged like she as for at least an hour, maybe even more, and the results of it were showing. Her legs were strained because of standing up for so long and the socks inside her mouth had absorbed so much of her saliva that her mouth was as dry as a desert, she could only be surprised at how her socks could soak up saliva when they were already drenched in sweat.
At least Sarah’s current predicament gave her the chance to investigate her surroundings, the room she was taken into was just next to the makeshift investigation center, separated by a thick stone wall and a heavy wooden door. Thanks to the sunlight that filtered through a big window, Sarah could see clearly the room, it seemed to be some sort of study where everything had been laid for investigation, there was a computer and many ancient books laid on a drop down table that she would have loved to get her hands on if she wasn’t tied up.
Being tied up for so long without an ability to do anything about it had left Sarah with nothing but lingering questions on her mind. Of course she wondered with fear what was going to happen to her, but she also asked herself what was all of what she had seen about. Everything from what a romanesque monastery was doing in the middle of Mexican jungle to why was her professor and an entire research team already inside the place.
The loud noise of the heavy wooden door being opened took Sarah out of her thoughts and back to the reality. She saw Dana enter the room looking as smug and confident as always, then one of her lackeys closed the door behind her, leaving prisoner and captive alone.
“Aww, why are you giving me that look?” Asked Dana as she stood in front of Sarah “Does it have anything to do with the ropes? Maybe with the gag on your mouth?”
“Mpghg!” Sarah complained, she hated how much Dana was enjoying the situation, and she was doing it so explicitly that she angered her even more.
“I see that they tied you really tight” Dena said after getting closer to Sarah and as she ran a finger between the ropes around her chest and her body “Oh, and I see that they changed the handcuffs for rope, great, handcuffs are really practical but I think rope looks much better” She said as she looked at the restraints that have been tied around Sarah’s arms.
Sarah felt incredibly uncomfortable with how touchy Dana was getting while inspecting her and her restraints, she didn’t knew what she was looking for if she was looking for anything apart from making her uncomfortable. The guards had taken everything that she had on her and her backpack was laid against one of the room walls, so if Dana wanted to find something she should know that Sarah’s body wasn’t the place to look.
“Well I think that you’re tied properly enough” Said Dana as she stood back to take off her jacket “I’d still make some changes, maybe tie you in an entirely different way if I had the time, but I just can’t stand this jungle any longer”
Sarah glared at her, Dana really seemed to be into the idea of tying her up and it should be clear to her by the way that Sarah was looking at her, that she was absolutely enraged at her.
“The guards told me that you were really feisty when it came to tying you up, that you put up a hell of a fight” Dana said as she took out the leather harnesses that kept the conceal of her gun in place and laid them on the desk “I’ll have you know that no prisoner of mine can behave like that and remain unpunished”