Nick’s blood-curdling screams echoed from the basement hellhole with a raw, animal terror that no one in the Newman family had ever heard from him before, a sound so primal and violent that it seemed to rattle the very foundations of the old, abandoned property where he’d been dragged against his will, because the moment the heavy metal door slammed shut above him, plunging him into suffocating darkness, he knew he wasn’t just trapped—he was being hunted, toyed with, pushed to the edge of madness by someone who understood exactly how to rip open the buried trauma he’d spent years trying to seal away, and as the echo of the lock clicking into place vibrated through the cold concrete walls, Nick stumbled forward, hands outstretched, throat already raw from shouting for help that never came, his breath forming icy plumes in the freezing air as he shouted again, louder, desperate, furious, “Let me out!” only for his voice to be swallowed by the endless, merciless silence that followed, but then—just as he began to pace, trying to steady the panic threatening to crush his ribs—the basement lights snapped on with a violent flicker, a harsh fluorescence that illuminated every terrifying detail of the nightmare he had awakened in, from the rusted chains bolted into the walls to the tools scattered across an old wooden table like props from a twisted horror film, and at the center of it all sat a single, old-fashioned cassette recorder with a red button flashing slowly, ominously, as though waiting for him, and Nick’s heart pounded because he recognized the device instantly, recognized it from a time in his life he swore he’d never revisit, and when he approached it, forcing himself to breathe through the adrenaline clawing at his throat, the machine suddenly clicked, whirred, and began to play a distorted recording of his own voice—a recording from decades earlier, trembling, terrified, begging for his father to find him during a kidnapping he thought he had healed from but clearly someone had been studying, analyzing, weaponizing, and when that younger version of himself screamed through the speaker, the real Nick erupted with a roar of agony, slamming his fists against the table, his eyes burning with fury and fear as he shouted at the unseen tormentor, “Why are you doing this? Who are you?” but only eerie static answered him until a new voice, low and distorted, broke through the static like a whisper dripping with venom, taunting him with words that froze his blood: “You once survived. Let’s see if you can do it again,” and the recorder clicked off with a final, sinister beep that left the basement eerily quiet, the kind of quiet that made Nick’s skin crawl, because he could sense he wasn’t alone anymore, could feel the presence of someone unseen moving behind the walls or above the ceiling, stalking him, studying every reaction, waiting for him to crack, and he spun around, calling out again, voice cracking as fear and rage collided inside him, but then the lights cut out once more, plunging him into pitch-black darkness so absolute that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, and his breath hitched as he heard footsteps—slow, deliberate, echoing in the far corner—followed by the scraping sound of metal dragged across the floor, and Nick stumbled backward, adrenaline spiking, hands shaking as he reached for anything he could use as a weapon, but found nothing except cold concrete and the unyielding truth that he was trapped in the one place he swore he would never be again: helpless, hunted, and isolated in the dark, and the fear that clawed at him was unlike anything he had felt in years, dredging up flashes of memories he had buried—gagged cries, blindfolds, cold floors, the helplessness of being utterly at someone else’s mercy—and for a moment he felt himself slipping, spiraling, his breath coming in panicked gasps as he dropped to his knees, clutching his head while trying to force reality into focus, whispering to himself that he was stronger now, that he could fight, that he wasn’t that terrified teenager anymore, but then the lights snapped on again with a violent buzz, and standing at the far end of the basement was a shadowy figure wearing a mask—dark, featureless, emotionless—holding a small remote in one gloved hand and an object wrapped in cloth in the other, and Nick surged to his feet, fists clenched, shouting for them to show their face, but the figure simply tilted its head as though amused and pressed the remote, triggering the recorder again, this time playing a different tape, one filled with Victor’s voice—panicked, frantic, calling Nick’s name as if searching for him through time and memory—and Nick’s heart twisted painfully as he realized what the tormentor was doing: breaking him piece by piece by resurrecting the worst pain of his past, and when the masked figure slowly unwrapped the object in its hand, revealing a small, silver watch identical to the one Nick had once worn as a boy during his kidnapping, Nick let out a scream—raw, furious, and heartbreaking—that reverberated through the entire basement, a scream so intense that dust fell from the rafters and even the masked figure froze for a moment, startled by the sheer force of his agony, because this wasn’t a cry of fear anymore but a battle cry, a vow, a declaration that he would fight his way out of this nightmare or die trying, and as his voice echoed through the suffocating space, bouncing off cold walls like a warning shot, Nick charged forward, determined to rip off the mask, to see the face of the monster who dared drag him back into the darkest chapter of his life, but the figure darted into the shadows, the lights flickered once more, and the basement door slammed shut again, leaving Nick alone with only the echo of his own scream—and the chilling knowledge that the real terror had only just begun.