Dipping Into Together

Ch 20

The first thing I notice is my massive headache, the second thing I notice is that it’s pitch black.  I’m lying down with my face pressed against cold cement. I drag my upper body up to a sitting position and try to stretch, but my hands won’t move apart. Blinking in confusion, I realize that my wrists are bound together behind my back. What the…?

Instantaneously everything comes rushing back at me. Uncle. The sewer chase. Falling.

I grunt in frustration at my lack of ability to escape him. Why did he have to be so strong? That didn’t matter anymore. What mattered now was my current predicament. Metal cuts into my skin, and I realize that it’s not rope around my wrists. I wiggle them and metal shakes, like it’s a chain.

I gasp when I realize that it’s handcuffs around my wrists. Pushing each wrist in the opposite direction, I try to break it. Obviously, this doesn’t work out very successfully. How did Uncle even get handcuffs? I gasp again when I realize that I’m gagged. Groaning, I roll my shoulders and scoot back until my hands hit a wall, pushing myself back until my back hits the wall. Then, I use the wall to try and stand up, knowing already that my ankles are also shackled. Once I’m standing I do my best to stretch my legs.

How long have we been here? It seems like it’s been months, but in reality it’s probably just like, a week or two. How have the police not found us yet? I know for sure that my mom would’ve alerted the police as soon as she’d gotten home and found me gone. I keep saying ‘us’, when really, I don’t even know if it’s an ‘us’ anymore.  I must’ve been sitting in that position for a while, because all of the sudden I become really dizzy.

“Oomph.” My vision blurs and I can’t focus very well. Knowing it’ll pass in a second, I try to readjust my feet for a steadier stance, but in doing that, I somehow lose my balance, and go tumbling down. I twist my body, knowing that I have nothing to protect my face with if I fall; I’ll simply fall face first and break my nose. Instead, I end up landing on my right side. On impact I feel something sharp bury itself into my right shoulder.

“Ah,” I say, wincing. I shift myself, trying to roll over on my stomach and get the thing out, but instead the movement makes the object tear down my arm. Blood seeps out of my now long cut, and I roll once more, detaching whatever it was from my shoulder at last. I lie there for a moment, feeling the blood rushing out of my shoulder. That’s going to hurt, I think to myself. Because of the darkness and the cement, I know that I’m down in the sewer, and for some reason that thought scares me even more. Suddenly, I hear a noise to my left. I raise myself up a little and look, which is stupid, because I can’t see anything regardless.

I grunt cautiously, not being able to speak because of the gag. I hear a little sound, almost like scurrying. The noise comes closer to me. Tensing up, I brace myself. Along my leg I feel something furry. Screaming, I wiggle around, and the thing, probably a rat, runs away. After it’s gone, I lay there, heart beating, face against the concrete, scared. I’m alone shackled in a sewer. No one knows I’m even down here.

Suddenly, an idea comes to me. I could crawl through the sewer. I don’t know where I would go, but it’s better than staying put, just being afraid. So I start inching my body, moving along, which is hard considering the fact that my hands are shackled behind my back. I’m like an inchworm. I’m moving at a snail’s pace, and I’ve probably only gone a foot. Then, while raising my foot, I’m restrained. I can’t move any farther. Something else is connected to the handcuffs around my ankles. I shake my feet and hear the sound of metal against metal. Inching back a little, I bend my body backwards and stretch my arms back until I can grab my feet. When I start feeling it, I realize that another chain is attached to it. Am I chained to the wall? I start inching back, this time following to see where the chain leads. About a minute later I go into a wall. Pushing myself up to a sitting position, I twist around and feel, trying to figure out what kind of predicament I’m in.