Malik's body ached, his muscles sore from hours of struggling against the ropes. His wrists were raw, the skin chafed and bleeding, and his throat was dry from thirst. The basement’s oppressive darkness pressed in on him, and the cold seeped into his bones. His mind teetered on the edge, a fragile balance between despair and determination. The constant fear gnawed at him, but the glimmer of hope—that slim chance of escape—kept him from slipping into complete hopelessness.
He couldn’t afford to lose focus. Every time Malik heard Maya’s footsteps on the stairs, his heart would race, and his hands would clench into fists, fighting back the rising panic. She was unpredictable, a force of nature who could either kill him on a whim or keep him alive for her amusement. But she was also his captor, and that meant she had to leave him alone sometimes, if only to hunt for her next victim. And those were the moments he had to use.
He began to study his surroundings as best he could in the dim light. The basement was cluttered, but the clutter could work to his advantage. Boxes stacked in one corner, an old workbench with scattered tools in another—he mentally cataloged everything. He knew the ropes binding him were his first obstacle. He had to find something to cut them with or find a way to loosen them more.
Maya left him for long stretches of time, and during those moments, Malik allowed himself to test the strength of his bonds again, using the rough edge of the wooden chair to fray the rope little by little. His fingers were numb from the cold, but he refused to stop. He couldn't.
His mind, though foggy from exhaustion and hunger, clung to the idea of escape. Whenever his thoughts strayed to despair—of never seeing his sister again, of dying in this hellhole—he forced himself to think of Asha. He remembered her smile, her voice, and the way she would tease him about his fears. She would want him to fight. She would want him to live.
On one occasion, when Maya was gone longer than usual, Malik managed to reach the edge of a discarded nail on the floor. It was rusted, but it was sharp enough. Holding it between his fingers, he began to scrape at the ropes binding his wrists. It was slow, agonizing work, and he had to stop often to listen for Maya’s return. Each time, his heart would leap into his throat, but he kept going.
His body was weakening with each passing hour. The lack of food and water made him dizzy, and the cold sapped his energy. He felt himself getting weaker, his movements more sluggish. But he also knew that his only chance was to act before he was too far gone to move.
He had no idea how long he had been in the basement—days, maybe? The lack of windows made it impossible to tell. His mental state was deteriorating rapidly. His thoughts became jumbled, and he found himself talking to Asha as if she were in the room with him, urging her to help him.
But even as he slipped further into delirium, that small spark of hope refused to die. He knew he needed to escape, and he knew Maya’s pattern now. She always came back around the same time, and she always left him alone after their conversations—those twisted, manipulative talks where she tried to break him down, where she toyed with his emotions.
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Terror𝘐𝘯 "𝘍𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘈𝘵𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯," 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳/𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘶𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘔𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘬, 𝘢 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘮𝘢𝘯, 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘪𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘺...