When All Light Dies

"Prayed to be free, broken on my knees. God won't appear when all light dies." — Trivium

***

Someone is coming down the stairs.

My cold breath catches in my throat as a scream attempts to escape from behind my lips, but paralyzing fear freezes any sound. Chills seem to reach my shaking bones beneath my shivering skin, which simply feels like a layer of thick ice molding around an aching skeleton. I feel empty and transparent, like I do not exist at all. I might as well be nothing, though, since I am enveloped in complete blackness.

I lack any sight due to no light being provided in whatever sort of space I was brought to. The only senses I'm aware of are the pained pangs of hurt letting me know I'm alive, and the overwhelming sounds of blood rushing in my head, my loudly thumping heart, and a person making their way slowly down creaky stairs.

I am petrified as my hands feel for something, anything, in the absolute darkness. I have no idea where I am. My memory is a blank space of what has brought me here. The last thing I can remember is me in my best white dress, smiling, playing piano in front of a full church audience as I do every Sunday night for evening services. My head begins pounding in pain if I try to recollect anything after that. Someone has done something to me to make me not remember, and someone has brought me into a world of terrifying darkness.

My trembling hands fail to find anything. The surface I'm sprawled upon feels to be a scratchy mattress by the way it squeaks and dips when my weight shifts. It's too dark to see anything, so I don't attempt to move from my current place. I know a light has to turn on any moment, though, since whatever person making their way down the stairs will need light to see. Wherever the stairs are, they're close. And a person needs light.

The sound of a small click of a light switch affirms the thought of light needing to be provided. The faintest of light is suddenly brightening the top of the staircase as my eyes slowly adjust. I can't see any figures, or my surroundings, the dark still too thick for that. I can only see the lightbulb in the ceiling at the top of the stairs turn on, but it does not illuminate much else besides the beginning of the staircase and the closed door meeting it, trapping me in whatever space I'm in.

So the person who stalked down the stairs and knows I'm here is down that staircase with me.

From the drafty, moist, cold air around me, I assume I'm in an underground space of some kind. A basement, a cellar, I'm not sure. I can't be sure what the space is like, either, as I rather impatiently wait for another light to grant me more knowledge. I try to listen through the noise of my own blood running through my cold veins for sounds of footsteps, but I hear none.

I do hear soft breathing, though. It's close. I can't see anyone or anything in this darkness, but I know something is breathing within close vicinity of me.

The drag of a shoe along pavement is the next noise to be heard several long, agonizing seconds later. It's followed by another. And another. Slowly. Whoever is down here is in no hurry. I can't tell how close they are to me, but I do know the footsteps are gradually coming closer to me as I sit trembling on an unfamiliar mattress with no recollection of where in the world I am and why. I've never known a pain as great as this ignorance. And, I've never known the dark to be such a scary, intimidating thing.

There could be monsters beside me for all I know. I could be anywhere. From the loss of memory and throbbing headache behind my eyes, I know I've been drugged and I have no way of knowing for how long. The only reassurance I have is the fact that nothing else seems to be hurt on my body besides a headache and freezing skin. But who knows how long this pain free experience will last? Of all the horror stories I've heard in my short sixteen years of life, I know that none of them have included a girl being drugged and kept in the dark to not end up being hurt.