Daime

Dumbfounded

It was late at night, although I had no idea what time it was, when I suddenly sat upright in my bed, not even realizing why. Next to me, Leo shut up from his bed, and I froze when I heard sounds downstairs. I looked at Leo, and he nodded, and slowly, I climbed out of my bed, quickly pulling on socks as not to make a sound. I tiptoed out of the room, behind Leo, who was already waving at me impatiently. We had no weapons upstairs whatsoever, and I could only hope that whoever was downstairs had peaceful intentions, like Leo when he broke in and made me pancakes. I realized that that was probably a one-time shot, but I was hoping with all of my heart that this was just another lonely person, looking for company, or maybe for supplies.

My heart was beating in my chest as I followed Leo down, through the kitchen, as the sounds came from the living room. I listened closely and realized that we weren't dealing with one, but at least two others; and I really hoped they had good intentions. Yet my gut told me they didn't.

Well, they didn't. I was pretty sure of that when we were sitting back to back in the living room, tied up and beaten, as the intruders were slowly taking all our supplies, laughing at our hopeless attempts to free ourselves. We'd entered the living room, and even the knife I'd grabbed in the kitchen hardly did us any good. It turned out to be a trap, because when we opened the double doors to the living room, we were both grabbed and gagged. There were far more intruders than I'd imagined; four people stood watching us right now, and two more were upstairs. I'd used the knife when they grabbed us, slashing one's arm and cutting another's fingers, but the result was that four of them pushed me down, and now my head was throbbing and I was pretty sure that my face looked like it was used as a boxing ball. Probably because it was.

And now we sat here, bound to the pipes connected to the radiator, Leo's back against mine, and I was gagged. I tried not to think about that, or I would start to gag, like I had several times the past hour. Leo was shivering against my back, because the intruders had opened the window he was sitting in front of. They were dressed warmly; they hardly bothered with the cold anyway. All they did was steal our stuff and laugh at us, sometimes insulting us or hitting us with whatever they had found.

"Daime, you okay?"

Leo said to me, nudging my back with his, and I rose from my dormant state.

I nodded, since I couldn't say anything. I'd almost blacked out from exhaustion and pain, but Leo had woken me. It was probably for the best; if I fell asleep they would just kick me awake again.

"Try to stay awake, Daime."

I nodded again to the back of his head, and I wished I could at least look at him, thinking that that would solve our problems. I knew it wouldn't, but maybe there was something else that would.

The intruders were dividing all of our stuff, our food, our precious stack of medicine, even our games, over the bags they'd brought, completely ignoring us for the moment. I distracted myself with thinking about the past days with Leo, how lovely they had been, and how glad I was for his warmth at my back, the feeling that I wasn't alone. I had no idea what would have happened if these guys had come a few days earlier, or if Leo had never stood in my kitchen baking pancakes. I felt bad for getting him into this situation but I couldn't deny that I was so happy for not being alone right now.

I was lost in thought, when the wind outside increased from a slight breeze to what seemed like a small storm. The house creaked, the window that stood open shrieked and Leo and I were shivering, as the weather outside grew worse. I looked at the other window, as well as I could with the ropes binding me, and realized something. The wind wasn't blowing harder. It was going round this house. It pulled a wood flower loose from the wall, and I saw it flying around the house. I blinked, and again, and wished I could tell Leo to look. But by that time, the intruders followed my gaze and realized the same thing as me. But where it left me in confusion, it left them in fear.

"He's here." One ofthem whispered, and that left the others grabbing their bags with haste,running from the house, leaving Leo and me dumbfounded, tied to the heating . I seriously had no clue about what had just happened.