Ed had moved into his new flat and was really having fun sorting things out. However, he had a mystery…

There was a tiny, almost infinitesimal amount of water and electricity being used. The water just meant a tiny leak somewhere, easily sorted, but the electric? It was almost like someone had left a piece of kit on charge, somewhere.

Ed looked around. Nothing obvious sprang to light; there was one annoyance, though. The previous tenant had left a piece of furniture behind, a chest of drawers, up against the wall in the spare room.

Ed tried to look in it, but the drawers were stuck. Seeing as he wasn’t going to keep it, he went to force a drawer open with a screwdriver. It was at that point he discovered the drawers were fakes, not meant to be opened at all.

He went to pull the furniture away from the wall, to see if he could get in the back of it. He then discovered his supposed water and electrical ‘leaks’…

The chest was connected to the plumbing by a hose, and plugged in. It was also still switched on.

He went to unplug it. As he did, his hand brushed against a hidden panel on the side of the chest…

The front opened up, like a blind going up.

Ed’s face twisted in shock, then disgust…

Inside the chest, behind a transparent panel, was a woman. She was now completely on show. She was wearing a transparent helmet, firmly gagged and looking at him pleadingly from behind the panel. Her hands had been removed, as had her toes, even though she had no way of escaping. Her captors had wanted to take away any means of harming herself.

As she was now awake and could see Ed, she started pressing on the panel with her arms, begging him to free her, pointing down at a button at the bottom right.

Ed, not sure what to do, pressed the button.

The clear panel slid up, and the woman fell out into his arms. Ed just held her as she sobbed, managing to undo her helmet while she did so and ungagging her.

“I don’t know how long I’ve been here!”, the woman wailed, clinging on to Ed. “Thank you for releasing me!”

“Who did this to you?”, Ed asked. “Why were you in there?”

“I’ve no idea!”, the woman said. “They took me on the way home from work, one evening.” She stared at the stumps of her arms, and her feet. “Look what they’ve done to me…”

Ed looked; he then stared closer.

“Luckily for you, I’m a male nurse”, he said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have spotted this…”

He took his left arm in his hands and started scratching at the skin. It started peeling off in his hand…

To the woman’s amazement, a completely fake forearm came off. Under it was her left hand, unharmed. He then did the same with her right arm, and both of her feet…

The woman spent minutes, then, just staring at her perfect hands and feet. She then started laughing and crying at the same time, tears of joy…

“There’s only two things you won’t be able to help me with”, she said. “One: I’m now violently agoraphobic; just sitting outside my cabinet in this room is terrifying me… I’d never be able to go outside the flat. Also, I haven’t got a clue who I am. I remembered working somewhere, but I’ve no idea where. It’s all a complete blank. They must have rubbed out all my memories; I suspect the agoraphobia has also been done deliberately to stop me from escaping when I’m out of my cabinet.”

All the time the woman had been saying this, she had been edging back towards the cabinet she had been held in.

Ed grabbed hold of her and held her fast.

“Feel this! I’m here for you. You don’t need to be in there anymore.”

“Sorry, but I do. I can’t cope with being out here! Just keep me plugged in, will you?”

The woman pulled out of Ed’s grasp, dived back into her cabinet and put her helmet back on, locking it. As soon as she locked it, the transparent shutter slid down, followed by the cover. The woman was hidden from sight again.

Ed just didn’t know what to do next…