"Fifteen minutes, then boom." That was all they said to Aether before they started the timer and left. Nothing more, nothing less. Aether was bound, gagged, and completely naked on the bed in the seedy motel room. She knew she needed to escape.

She had fifteen minutes, then fourteen, then thirteen. The ropes only seemed get tighter on her wrists, her ankles, her knees. She screamed into the gag. No sound left the room.

Twelve minutes, and the struggling kept going, but there wasn't anything she could do. Aether wondered why this was happening. Who was behind this. It might...

"Fifteen minutes, then boom." That was all they said to Aether before they started the timer and left. Nothing more, nothing less. Aether was bound, gagged, and completely naked on the bed in the seedy motel room. She knew she needed to escape.

She had fifteen minutes, then fourteen, then thirteen. The ropes only seemed get tighter on her wrists, her ankles, her knees. She screamed into the gag. No sound left the room.

Twelve minutes, and the struggling kept going, but there wasn't anything she could do. Aether wondered why this was happening. Who was behind this. It might reassure her to know that this was a random thing. They needed to record a lady in desperate peril for a client, and so they did. She kept fighting. Past eleven minutes, then ten, then nine.

There would be no escape. The timer was relentless, the counter, although silent, ticked in Aether's head. Eight minutes, seven, six. She tried to plead into the camera recording her. But she hoped maybe someone who knew about this would show her some mercy. The struggle continued.

Five minutes. Two thirds of Aether's time was gone. And again, there was nothing she could do. Her wrists were raw from struggling, her ankles the same. But again, no one was there to save her. Four minutes. Three minutes. Two minutes. The digits were counting down on the timer, but they were pounding in Aether's head.

There was now less than one minute. Her remaining time would be in seconds and there was nothing she could do. She let out a final scream into the tape, just as time ran out.