The warm breeze floats around me, kissing my sensitive skin. I’m in a forest, surrounded by large pine trees. I tilt my head toward the sky.
“What can you see, pretty girl?”
I turn toward the person who fills me with so much warmth and am met with a blurry face. Everything except her eyes is distorted.
“Umm… who are you?” I sound like a little child. I glance down at my body, and it’s the size of a small girl’s, maybe a five-year-old’s. Even though my mind is my adult self. I remember Suzie, my kidnapper, everything that has gone on, but what is this place and who is this lady?
I keep my focus on the blurry face, trying to make out who it is.
“Why, dear, I’m…” As she speaks, her eyes turn to black pools, and a man in a ski mask appears. “Your worst nightmare.”
I jolt awake. I’m back in my living nightmare. I think I’m on day five, going by the marks I’ve been scratching into the wall with a piece of fallen concrete. Although now, it’s all blending together. My body feels so depleted and malnourished. I think my stomach has given up asking for food.
I’ve survived this long with my crappy upbringing.
What’s the saying—what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger?
Well, I grew strong with everything I went through. When I left my home and lived with Suzie, she nurtured me, taught me not to stand idly looking on, but to grab life by the balls and live. When she took me in, I found myself afraid to ask for anything in case I wasn’t allowed to have it, and she would ultimately punish me. Her kind and sensitive nature brought me out of my shell so much when I realized everything I did didn’t involve punishment.
I remember the first time I saw my bed. It was an actual bed with a big soft mattress that hugged your body each time you laid down. I don’t know what I’d done to deserve it.
Suzie was, and is, the best mother anyone could wish for.
The face in my dream, the blur, who was she? The voice, so tender and caring, sounded familiar. I’ve never met her before. Not that I recall.
A noise startles me, and my heart jumps into action. My body doesn’t have the strength to move, to save itself. It’s weak. I turn my head to the bars of my cage. There stands the masked man, my captor. Those black pools from my dream stare back at me.
“What do you want?” My tone is somber, and even to myself, I sound like a broken woman who can take no more.
My captor hasn’t hit me, aside from when he first took me. He’s had me strapped to the bed, and after he cut me, my feet bled for hours. My blood now marks the walls of my cell along with the rest of his victims’ and since then, I’ve just been lying on the bed in this cell, my own bodily functions mess and vomit keeping me company.
“Here.” He slides a tray under the cell bars. On the tray is a bottle of water and bowl of something that resembles dog food. There’s a sliver of a gap there; I guess it’s for this purpose. I don’t move; my body won’t allow it. It’s broken. I have no energy, even if I wanted to get up, so I glare at him, hoping he sees the disdain in my eyes. I shut them and block out the sight of him.
When I hear him huff and leave, I peek through the crease of my eyelids, noticing he’s gone. Ever so slowly, because that’s all I can do, I shift my body upright. I feel so weak. My arms tremble as they hold my weight when I sit upright.
What is it?
“Just kill me already,” I whisper under my breath. While I wait for the dizziness in my head to stop, I take a moment to absorb my surroundings like I’ve done plenty of times before over the last few days. It’s gray and bleak, and the dried blood covering the walls encloses a little on me each day. What I wouldn’t give to be able to walk around outside during the sunlight hours one more time. To be free in general.
My emotions are all over the place. A small part of me wants to throw it all in and die. A larger part pushes harder to live, to survive what’s coming. My dreams hold no hope when those evil eyes invade them. I have no strength to be able to survive.
In an attempt to stand, I collapse on the ground, crying out in agony. My fingers lightly touch the open wounds on the soles of my bare, dirty feet. A burning sensation builds. The throbbing begins in my toes and goes right up my legs.
The bottle of water has an appealing look to it, like liquid gold. My body craves it. I don’t care so much for the brown slush, but that water, I need it. I get on my hands and knees, fighting the urge to collapse. I push on. I fight.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity of crawling, I make it to the tray. My vibrating fingers pick up the water, and with everything I have in me, I twist the cap to discover it’s been loosened. Well, maybe he’s not as heartless as I think. But what he’s done to my body… I can’t help but wonder why he does this. Is he messed up in the head? Does he believe he has to do it? Does he hear voices? Who the hell knows?
Opening the cap the remainder of the way, I immediately want to suck the bottle dry. Only I know if I do it, I’ll throw it all up in seconds. Little sips, I remind myself.
As soon as the chilled, clear liquid touches my tongue, it’s an instant relief. I feel it hit my empty stomach. The chill sits there for a moment, so I take another sip. Leaning against the wall, not caring about whose blood is on it. I close my eyes and cherish the deliciousness I hold within my grasp. I clutch it to me for dear life.
After a few more sips, I begin to feel a little better, not much, but better than I’ve felt the last two days. Even well enough to inspect the bowl of food. Upon close inspection, I can see bits of meat, potatoes, and some vegetables. Could it be a stew?
Taking a smell, my senses go into overdrive, and my taste buds tingle with anticipation of eating. Again, I know I need to eat very little; my stomach isn’t the same as it was.
This isn’t a new feeling to me. I recall the week my father locked me in the dark room after I’d accidentally dropped a glass. Well, when I think back on it, he had tricked me. He’d gone to hand me an empty glass he’d finished with and before I extended my hand to take it, he dropped it, allowing it to shatter around my bare feet. He just wanted to punish me, to cause me pain. I’d been good all week, then he brought my world crashing down in the form of shattering glass.
I was locked up, and every two days I’d get a slice of bread and not even a full cup of water. How I survived that hell amazes the heck out of me.
Suddenly, a lock clicks. My head snaps up, and I see a silhouette coming down the stairs. I’m not strong enough to move to my corner, so I stay grounded on the spot. My body shakes as if my bones will vibrate out of my skin. My breathing hitches, so I take short, shallow breaths. The tightness in my throat I used to get with my father comes back whenever this monster comes into view.
It’s the most horrible sensation, one I hoped I would never experience again after my father and mother went away. When they disappeared, a wave of pure and utter relief washed over me. I felt clean and told myself I’d never allow another man, or person in general, to make me feel that way again. I told myself every day for about a year I was worth something. That I was to become so much more than my father ever wanted of me.
I remember now. I’m so much more than just some weak little girl you can lock in a basement. My neck twists to the monster who stands before my cell, and I don’t hold back. “What do you want with me?”
He pauses and takes hold of the bars. “I want you to suffer. How the others have.”
“But why? I’ve done nothing to you. If anything, I’ve suffered at the hands of another monster.” I watch his knuckles turn white as he tightens his grip on the bars. Perhaps my words have affected him in some way.
Those dark pools look down and burn right into my own. There’s poison in the glare he’s giving me. “You’ll die soon, just like the rest of them.” With those few words, he turns and leaves while I release a huge breath.
I don’t understand why he feels I have to die.
I do know, though, I will try my very hardest to live.