Surface Level

Chapter 3

Only Clara could coax anything out of the girl, who remained withdrawn and silent most of the time. The hope was that she'd see Clara as sort of a mother figure, and naturally, she drifted towards her. Through patient persistence, Clara managed to uncover a few key details. The person who had kept the girl in the basement – whom she confirmed was a man – made regular visits to her, spending time with her during each visit. The girl communicated mostly through writing, presumably too traumatized to speak freely about her ordeal. One of the most troubling things she revealed to Clara was that, around two weeks ago, the man had stopped coming altogether. She had been forced to ration what little food he had left behind – proven by a stack of opened and unopened cans in the basement, unsure of when or if he would return.

Clara shared this information with Eric later, recounting how the girl had been terrified and malnourished, unsure of her fate as she waited alone in the basement. The thought that this man who had, in a way, raised her had simply abandoned her gnawed at both of them, leaving them with more questions than answers. Why had he suddenly disappeared? And perhaps more urgently, how long had she been there before his visits stopped?

When Eric and Clara had initially searched the basement, they were surprised by what they found. Unlike the squalid, dungeon-like space they had expected, it was well-furnished, almost disturbingly so. There were chairs arranged neatly, blankets folded in the corner, and even a worn but functional mattress on the floor. The room had a small bathroom, further suggesting that the girl had been kept there for an extended period of time – not as a prisoner in chains, but as someone confined by fear and control. The setup was unsettling in its twisted normalcy. Whoever this man was, he had gone to lengths to make the space somewhat liveable, all while keeping the girl isolated from the outside world.

As the days passed, Eric and Clara found themselves haunted by the possibility that the girl could be Ariana Roberts. The town had never forgotten the mystery, and the Roberts family tragedy had left a permanent scar on Pineview Heights. Now, standing on the edge of what could be the biggest break in the case in years, Eric and Clara waited anxiously for the results of the DNA test to come back.

The waiting was unbearable. The girl had said little else, but her existence alone was a clue that seemed to fit, at least in part, with Ariana's disappearance. If she wasn't Ariana, she was certainly someone who had been taken by a similar kind of monster. They had hoped for answers, but instead, more questions kept emerging. Where had the man gone? How had she survived for so long in this confined space, cut off from the world? Why now, after all these years?

Sitting together in the sterile waiting room of the forensics lab, Clara turned to Eric, unable to hold back her thoughts any longer.

"What do you think it will come out as?" she asked, her voice low but tense with anticipation.

Eric let out a long breath, staring down at his hands before replying. "I honestly don't know," he said. "Either way, it's a win. Either we find out that this really is Ariana and we've found her after fourteen years, or we saved another girl from a horrible man."

Clara nodded, though her expression remained tight. "But what if it's her? What do we tell her? How do we even begin to explain?"

Eric didn't have an answer to that. No one did. If this girl was Ariana, she had been through unspeakable horrors, living in captivity for most of her life. The emotional and psychological scars would be deeper than anyone could imagine. But, at the very least, they could offer her a semblance of closure and the possibility of reuniting with the world that had lost her.

After what felt like an eternity, the results finally came through. Both Eric and Clara straightened in their seats, the weight of the moment hanging over them like a storm cloud.