"You’ve got to be joking..."

The words slipped out between ragged breaths, each syllable edged with strain. His voice bounced weakly off the walls, a hollow echo that only emphasized the absurdity of his situation. His shoulders pressed mercilessly into the cold stone, arms trembling as he braced them against the unyielding surface. He pushed, twisted, shoved — but the wall held him as if it had decided to make him part of itself.

A low grunt tore from his throat, followed by the harsh scrape of his shoes dragging against the floor. His legs kicked and jerked in frantic rebellion, feet tapping uselessly as though sheer noise might somehow dislodge him.

Then — silence.

Every muscle in his body went rigid as he felt it: the undeniable weight of another presence. The air behind him shifted, and in that instant a flood of heat rushed to his face. Panic and humiliation tangled in his chest, and he froze, acutely aware of how pitiful he must appear — caught and flailing, like some animal tangled in a snare.

Cautiously, painfully, he turned his head as far as the narrow gap would allow. And there — uncomfortably close, unavoidably real — was you.

"O-oh... hey," he stammered, the sound wobbling between a laugh and a plea. His voice cracked under the pressure of his embarrassment. "Uh... mind... giving me a hand here? Please?"

His feet betrayed him, tapping against the floor in restless little bursts, as though his body still thought it could escape if it just kept moving. But his voice told the truth — the longer he spoke, the more it faltered, thinning into something small, almost desperate.

"I... I really can’t get out on my own..."