The Basement

First Encounter

When I got to work, my boss was already there waiting for me. I had a busy day ahead. First I had to clean all the surfaces in the shop, then I had to go collect some flowers for her and finally I had to tidy the stock room.

It was quite a cold and dreary day, so not many customers came in. I did the jobs on my list with out a problem, but then I came to the last job, the stock room.

I hated down in the stock room with a passion. It's dark, creepy and smells funny. I approached the door and took a deep breath in. "Stop being so stupid", I thought to myself and flung the door open. As soon as I opened the door the strong, damp, antique aroma hit me. It perplexed me how the shoes didn't smell as bad as the stock room. I carefully made my way down the staircase, turned on my music and got to work. The hole time I was down there, I turned and looked behind me every five seconds. I was usually jumpy anyway but something about this basement just made me super suspicious.

After five minutes I did start to loosen up a tad. I had already tidied one cabinet when guns n roses "Paradise City" came on to my iPod. I was getting ready to rock out to that bit after the chorus when suddenly the music stopped. I looked at my iPod, "crap", I cursed to myself, "the battery must have died". As I was about to return to work the lights went out. It was pitch black. An atmosphere arised, I felt like someone was about to jump out at me. I took a deep breath to calm myself down. "Victoria", I shouted to my boss upstairs, "the lights have gone off down here". No answer. I tried again, louder. "Victoria can you hear me?". No answer.

I was shaking with fear by this point. I hated being down here anyway, let alone in the pitch black. I took a step in the direction that I thought was towards the light switch. With my hands out in front of me, I took slow steps in the same direction. I kept my breathing steady and thought happy thoughts. I suddenly remembered what my mom had told me once. She told me that if I was ever scared to hum a song that I liked, and it would make the situation feel less worse. I thought for a good song and began to hum it. I hummed "I Need" by Maverick Sabre. Weirdly, humming a good song did make the situation feel better.

I had been walking for a while, and even though I was taking small steps, I would have been at the light switch. "Maybe I'm going in the wrong direction", I thought to myself. I turned at about a 90 degree angle and began to walk that way.

Suddenly my heart stopped. It felt like a hand had grabbed my ankle and was holding it with a tight grasp. Paralysed with fear, I didn't know what to do. "It's just in your head Jess", I said out loud. I went to take another step. I couldn't. Just as I realised that there really was a hand around my ankle, I felt a pull. My legs came from under me and I was know being pulled, at top speed across the floor. I was to scared to even feel the pain from hitting the hard concrete floor. I screamed and cried as loud as I could, hoping that someone would hear and come and save me but after being dragged for at least a minute I came to the hard realisation that I was no longer in the stock room .

That was one of the times in my life where I have felt completely and utterly hopeless. I was being dragged along the floor of some place I didn't know, by something or someone I didn't know. I tried digging my nails into the floor to stop myself. But that did nothing but make a horrible screeching sound. Then I kicked and thrashed my legs around, hoping my captor would let go. It only made the speed at which I was being dragged faster. Now I was starting to feel friction on my front. Ever had carpet burn? Well imagine that ten times worse and all over your body.

I felt like I had been going for about 3 minutes when my head started to pound and my chest started to hurt. I stopped screaming and gave up. Eventually I passed out.