Those 7 years: Missing One Shot Chapter

12

Two years.
That's how long I had been stuck in this hell, a prisoner in my own body as much as in this dark, suffocating shed. The days had bled together into one long, endless nightmare. Every morning, I woke up with the same sickening feeling of dread, not knowing what kind of torment awaited me. Every night, I prayed I wouldn't wake up at all.
But I always did.
The abuse had become routine. The pain, the starvation, the isolation-it was my new normal. My bruised and battered body had long since stopped trying to heal itself. Even the most basic movements-sitting up, walking-hurt in ways I never thought possible. But the worst pain wasn't physical. The worst pain came from knowing that I had been forgotten.

Travis had stopped looking for me.
My family had moved on.
No one was coming.
My captors still reveled in their power over me, taking sick pleasure in my suffering. They played their mind games, whispering lies in my ears, taunting me with glimpses of freedom that would never come. They beat me when they felt like it, sometimes out of sheer boredom. I had learned not to fight back. It only made things worse.
I had been sitting on the cold concrete floor for what felt like hours, my back pressed against the wall, knees pulled up to my chest to protect myself from the damp chill that had soaked into my bones. I barely registered the door creaking open anymore. It always signaled the same thing-more hurt, more pain.

"Get up," the harsh voice of one of my captors barked. He was the cruelest of them, the one who always made sure I knew how powerless I was.
I didn't move fast enough.
The next thing I felt was the sharp, biting pain of his boot slamming into my ribs. I gasped, the air forced from my lungs, the taste of blood filling my mouth as I crumpled to the ground.
"Didn't you hear me? I said get up!"
I struggled to push myself up onto my hands and knees, but the second I moved, another kick landed squarely in my side. A strangled scream escaped me as I collapsed again, my vision blurring from the pain.
"Pathetic," he spat, looming over me like a shadow. "Look at you. You're nothing. Nothing."

I wanted to cry, to scream, to fight. But I was too weak. I'd long since run out of tears.
I tried to curl into myself, shielding my stomach as best I could, but his hands were on me before I could move, dragging me to my feet by my hair. I bit back the sob that rose in my throat, my scalp burning as he yanked me upright.
"Please," | whimpered, my voice barely a whisper. "Please, just stop-"
His fist connected with my face before I could finish the sentence, the sharp crack of bone against bone echoing in the small, dark room. My head snapped back, and I crumpled to the ground once again, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth.

"You're not worth stopping for," he hissed, crouching down next to me, his face inches from mine. "You're just here to suffer. That's all you're good for now."
He stood up, kicking me one last time for good measure before leaving the room, slamming the door behind him.
The sound of the lock clicking into place reverberated through my skull, a reminder that I was trapped in this living nightmare.
I lay there for a long time, too weak to move, my entire body screaming in pain. My ribs throbbed where they had been kicked, and my face was swollen and bruised, the taste of blood still heavy on my tongue.
And yet, even through the haze of pain, I felt it—a flutter. A faint, unfamiliar sensation in my abdomen that made me freeze.

9 Months Later
The realization had come slowly, creeping into my thoughts like a whisper in the darkness. At first, I hadn't wanted to believe it. I had convinced myself that the strange fluttering in my stomach was just another cruel trick my body was playing on me, the result of malnutrition or stress. But as the days turned into weeks, and the fluttering grew stronger, I couldn't deny it anymore.
I was pregnant.

I didn't know how it had happened— how, after everything, my body could still be capable of this. But there was no denying the life growing inside me. My belly had swollen with each passing month, the baby kicking and squirming inside me, a constant reminder that I wasn't completely alone.
My captors had noticed, of course.
They taunted me relentlessly, calling me all sorts of vile names. But they hadn't done anything to stop the pregnancy. If anything, they seemed to take pleasure in watching me grow weaker, more vulnerable, as my body struggled to cope with the demands of carrying a child in such horrific conditions.