Found 16

As usual, I head up to bed early. I find there is comfort in consistency. Washing my face and brushing my hair out, I felt guaranteed to have a good nights rest.

I was so very wrong.

As I'm getting myself into bed one evening, something catches my eye. I turn to look out my bedroom window and there's a face grinning back at me. Peering into my dimly lit room he adjusts himself to see better. With only my bedside lamp on, thank God he didn't notice me. I crept off my bed and quietly slunk down the hall. My bare feet making little to no sound, padding down the hallway.

CRASH

The downstairs living room window shatters all over the floor. I hear a solid THUMP then boots crunching on glass.

I need to get out.

My hand slides across the wall, feeling for the end. Signaling the entrance to our large oak staircase.

I sneak downstairs, remembering to skip the second to last step. Our house is older so it has it's own little sounds and secrets, here and there. I peek around the corner, hoping to find the living room empty.

It wasn't.

This tall bearded man was rifling through my knickknacks. Hurriedly looking for something of value I suppose. Quickly I turned and went around towards the kitchen. He was quiet. But I was more so.

Once in the kitchen I scanned for something to defend myself with. My eyes landed on the industrial knife block I had been given last Christmas. Glancing behind me, seeing the coast was clear, I reach for the knife. It slides delicately out of the holder. I pause.

Suddenly, it's silent. The rushed sounds of this man looking through my things had stopped. My ears perked.

In a flash of a second there was a searing hot pain across the back of my head.

"Mmmm.." I mumbled incoherently into the dusty concrete floor. My next breath brought that chalky dirt straight into my lungs. I coughed. With every breath in and out my head throbbed. Chains clanked around my wrists, pinning my hands above my head. It takes me a moment but I finally caught my breath. Scraping my cheek against the cold floor I turn my head to find my bearings. As much as I could in my current situation.

I see him. He turns to face me, sitting in an office chair. "Good morning honey, I was wondering when you would wake." His voice sounds like cashmere, if I were into this type of thing. But my mind was elsewhere.

"What do you want from me?" I stumble across my words, the most cliché thing I could have ever said.

A beam of light sneaks across his face. Snickering, his lip curls just a little on the left. I could just barely make out his silhouette in the dingy basement. "I'm not here to make you do anything you don't want to."

I shake the chains around my wrists sarcastically, "You have a funny way of showing it."

His smile darkens. The hostility in the room is back with a vengeance. In a swift motion he's suddenly off the chair and in front of my face, bent down to stare at me closely. I retreat, bringing my chin down in defense. My eyes aglow with fresh fear. Rudely he pulls my face up and forces me to look him in his cold glacier blue eyes.

"Do you think you would have listened to me any other way? I had to get you like this." He glances down at my torn jeans, my knee bleeding through the torn material. A sly smile creeps across his already thin lips.

Stunned, I'm confused. What kind of relationship did this guy think that we had? I couldn't remember this man for the life of me. I had never seen this man before, but some how he knew me.

Continuing on, he boasts, "You're not that hard to follow hon, work then home. Rinse and repeat. Come on darlin'! Hell even I have more of a social life than you." He laughs at his own sick joke.

"Come on, let's get you out of those dirty clothes now. Can't have my Princess catching a cold." He chuckles.

He reaches for the chains around my wrists, follows the chain from wrist to wall. With a small gesture he reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a meager golden key. Clink clink.

The chain is in his hands.

Drastically he pulls me to my feet, not a care or whim. Pulling me towards a dark red door I only noticed now that I was upright.

"Let's go Darlin', show me what you can do."

And I'm pulled violently through the crimson door. My screams are cut short by the slamming of the door.