By: Meghan Bleck
Heavy footsteps clomping on the ceiling above her brought the girl back from the troubled unconscious state she was in. Lifting her leaden arm to her head, she could feel the dried blood and knew the worst of it was over. She wouldn’t bleed out here. A door opening above grabbed the girl’s attention even further when light appeared through tiny slits along the ceiling. Stairs. She was being kept under the basement stairs, or so she assumed, and now with the minute bit of light she was being offered she could see that it was no bigger than Harry Potter’s own cupboard. If she stretched her arms, she could be within fingertip length of any of the dirt covered walls. Thinking that she was alone in the space, she was surprised to see an ancient, rusty bucket sitting next to the metal door in front of her. Not knowing what to think and with the man getting ever closer to her again, the girl began to panic. How was she going to make it out of this alive?
Looking back to the only other object occupying the space with her, the girl tried to think of anything she could do to over-power this man when he finally came for her. She could slam the bucket on his head when he came in? What if he was too tall, or big? She couldn’t risk it and started running through millions of plans that crossed her mind. She was thinking so intently that she almost didn’t notice when a shadow started to descend from above. With every step the man took, the steps would celebrate and mourn all at the same time under his weight. As quietly as she could, the girl picked up the bucket and discovered it had a wire handle that had been hidden on the other side. With some tinkering, it definitely would be able to come apart from the bucket itself, unlike her and her cell at the moment.
It seemed to happen all at once. The footsteps stopped and her heart stopped, but her fingers never did. Just as he opened the door, she was able to free the handle from the bucket. The man took a step in and had to duck his head. He was wearing a welders mask, apron, gloves, and had what appeared to be a hot piece of metal. Without thinking about it too long, the girl shoved the handle that she had semi-straightened out under his mask into the space under his chin where his neck began. The man fell forward and dropped the metal he’d once been carrying and the girl didn’t hesitate to run past him and up the stairs out of her prison. She didn’t stop when she got to the top of the stairs. She pushed through the door and came into another enclosed room. There was one window and one door on the same wall that she was facing when she came up the stairs. It was as dark and dank upstairs as it had been in her makeshift cell. Lunging for the door she opened it to find that she was in the middle of a forest and had no way to tell which way to go.
Shivering, the girl stepped back in the cabin and looked around to find anything that would help. There was a jacket on a chair by the window and fire poker adjacent to small wood burning stove. She grabbed both items and turned back around out of the unwelcoming place. She started jogging in the direction she thought might get her to a road, but really any place was better than where she just was. Sooner than she expected she ran into a barbwire fence and could see the road on the other side of it. There were cars. Lots of cars. She never knew that she loved cars so much, but there the feeling was and it grew every time another pair of lights gleamed on the road. In her excitement of finding the road, she never even heard the twigs snapping and the panting of a wounded animal approaching her. By the time she was aware of the noise it was too late.
She couldn’t see anything. The musty smell that filled the cramped space filled her nose and threatened to travel down her throat and out her mouth… again.