Crucial Pieces

Overview: Each of them are missing a crucial piece of the human puzzle; the survival instinct.

---

The Puzzle Box Trap

The clock sounded off its steady rhythm, a methodical beat that moved through the entire warehouse, echoing on the rusty folded tin doors and flowing through the dripping, tangled mass of overhead pipes. Tick, tick, tick, steady.

Tick, tick, tick, the hammering of a human heart.

William opened his bleary green eyes to the world around him, to the years old dust that clung to his barren surroundings, to the naked, scarred cement floor. He felt numb all over, but only for the first few seconds, and then sensation came crashing into him. First he was overwhelmed by the feeling of cold in his mouth, and then by the pain in it; his jaw ached unbearably, and he couldn't move his head, or his limbs.

The enormous cold thing jammed between his upper and lower jaw had the raw tang of metal. He mumbled incoherently around it, his eyelids flickering as his mind came to - and then panic set in. For a moment, he tried to scream, but to no avail - after that, he tried to pull back, but the base of his neck pressed up against a lever that sunk inwards, and the metal plates in his mouth began to push together.

Pain shot through William's entire head as he came to the realization that the metal wasn't just sitting in his mouth, it had been hooked into the roots of his gums, and his tongue sat between the plates with no where else to go. He moved his head forward again and the lever followed, the pain eased, but his jaw still throbbed; he could feel something warm trickling from the corner of his mouth, and he knew it wasn't saliva.

Though he couldn't move his head, his eyes darted downwards, and he realized his entire body was strapped down, his arms trapped in similar bracers to the one in his mouth. There was no give.

And yet his legs were free. William drew in air through his nose, filling his lungs as best he could even as his body urged him to panic; he lifted a leg, but only as he almost had it fully extended did he realized there was a cuff of some sort attached to his ankle, some sort of wire pulling along with it.

Something began to whir, like an old engine starting up, and then there was the sound of crackling static - his eyes moved to the source of it, and he discovered an ancient-looking television, the kind with a dial and rabbit ears. It showed a snowy screen for a moment, before the image of two swirling things showed on the television; the camera moved out to reveal the over-sized head of a doll.

William's stomach clenched and his heart began to race. He had seen this thing before.

The doll's mouth began to move,

"Hello William, I want to play a game."

William's chest began to heave, and the doll continued in its deep, articulate voice,

"As a Criminal Lawyer, you've had the chance to make a difference, and for a time, years ago, you did. But now your years in the ironically named justice system have curdled your ideals, broken you, changed you - you've given into the temptation and put your money where your mouth is, so to speak."

The voice seemed to giggle a little, as though having found itself funny, and then the camera swivelled away from the dummy, focusing on the surroundings now; William recognized it as the same warehouse he was sitting in.

"Rather than using your skills for justice, you have used them for deceit, won cases for rapists and murderers based off of false testimonials and planted evidence. Your golden tongue only recently allowed a pedophile to walk free due to a convenient loophole in the system, leaving a stream of victims damaged - without closure."

A masked figure in black came on screen, his back to the camera, and he pulled the same cord that was secured around William's ankle. The same engine started up,

"But redemption is not out of reach, in fact, you may even be able to taste it. Your penance to free yourself from guilt is to sacrifice the thing you've relied on to earn your blood money."

William's eyes flicked down to his mouth, to the thing in it, and then back to the screen. The engine on the video seemed to have reached its peak; the video moved in to the clamp that was currently in his mouth, and he saw the full thing for the first time, realizing only then that the inside edges of the metal plates were razor sharp.

The man in the video was carefully placing a mannequin into the chair, dressed in one of William's suits. The video moved to a side view.

"There is a lever behind your neck; to gain your freedom, all you must do is wrench your head backwards. Pull back hard, William, and remove your poisonous tongue from your head, releasing your limbs; you'll be free to go. Fail,"

The arm clamps in the video suddenly twisted downwards and then backwards, effectively snapping the mannequin’s arms. Following that, the back of the chair very suddenly snapped back, and then the head brace, effectively turning the mannequin into a human square, its broken neck allowing the top of its head to touch its own ankles.

"Fail," the doll repeated, "Refuse your punishment, and pay the ultimate price. When this ends, the timer will begin. Make your choice; live, or die."

One last shot of Billie's swirling eyes, and the video turned snowy once more before shutting off. Silence filled the warehouse, and for an instant, William thought his heart would beat through his chest - then something clicked near his ear, and a panel lit up in front of his eyes, displaying in sharp red numbers:

'0:59'

William had seen the doll before, and he had seen the aftermath of Jigsaw's experiments. He didn't think twice; closing his eyes, he wrenched his head back, and his gurgling shriek of pain echoed through the entire warehouse.

It took five hours for the crime scene investigators to find all of his teeth; his tongue wasn't salvageable.

It was on the news the next morning, but William couldn't answer the reporters.