My Escape

A low whimper escapes my mouth as I cry in terror. My hands grasp at the thick rope around my wrists, trying to untie it.

“Stop it!” the man who kidnapped me, ‘Alan’ snaps. I freeze at the sudden approach of Alan who is stroking my left cheek with the back of his hand, his breathe blowing into me. “It’s ok sweetie, no need to cry” he whispers into my ear; his all too familiar breathe blows across  the back of my neck shooting a shiver down my spine as I try desperately to move away from the horrid wrath of his breathe.

Behind me; what sounds to be a door, starts creaking open, then it stops and I can hear a little pitter patter of feet coming this way. It must be his daughter Bethany.

“Dad? What are you doing?” whispers the little girl’s voice sounding in shock. Alan briskly moves away, walking back to his daughter.

“Get out; you know you’re not aloud down here! Get out NOW!” he yells showing a lot of anger towards the Bethany. She lets out a slight shriek as I hear feet scurry away into the house above.

I lean my head forward, letting out a sigh. I still don’t know where I am nor how I got here. All I know is that I have been down here for five whole years, locked away and tortured.

 The last thing I remember is saying goodnight to my parents in my nice cosy bed; gosh I miss my own bed. I also miss seeing ‘Rusty’ my German shepherd who is an ex-police dog, he was my best friend.

Alan starts walking back my way. Slowly coming closer, he turns my chair around as he finally reaches me bending down to my face, his breathe is stale and lined with mint; as usual. He starts stroking my cheeks with both of his calloused hands; I can feel his gaze on me even through my blindfold. He strokes my hair with his left hand and moves both his hands behind my head, fiddling around, the blindfold comes loose. As it slides off, I try my best to get my eye’s to adjust to the very bright white light. My eyes slowly adjust as I start looking frantically around the room I was in, I was in the cellar; I’ve never been down here before. He usually does all the torturing in his back shed. The walls are a pale blue and there was a mahogany coloured, round table with two chairs placed on either side placed in front of me. On the table was a thick glass vase full of slightly wilting lilies. I could see a large wooden door with a steel handle. There wasn’t a staircase in front of me, so I figured the way to get in and out was probably behind that door.

“How are you feeling?” Alan said watching me as I take in my surroundings. His dark brown eye’s boring into me, waiting for me to answer.   

“F-fine” I stutter looking down and out through my lashes.

“I enjoyed last night. Did you enjoy it?” he says in a lustful tone. “NO!” I spat at him in disgust.

He then smirks wickedly at me, winking and chuckling slightly as if he is enjoying my outburst towards him. He walks behind me grabing my wrists and yanking me upright, pulling me tight so my back is pressed tightly against his chest. Pushing me forward quickly, he then walks abruptly towards the large wooden door, prying it open with his right hand, as his left grips tightly onto my wrists. The door fly’s open and I can see inside that there is a much larger room then the cellar, there is a narrow staircase to the back left of the room and there is a queen sized bed laying underneath it; it’s covers all neatly propped on top of it. I automatically know what’s coming next, so I start to squirm roughly, trying to get out of his tight grip on my wrists. Alen punches the side of my head and pushes me into the room shutting the door behind him. He then unties my wrists and pushes me back onto the bed, holding my hands above my head whilst sitting on my chest holding my arms down with his knee’s as he tries to tie my wrists to the bed posts. He sits up a little bit to reach for the bed post. As soon as Alan reaches over to the other post I fling my knee’s up, kneeing him where it hurts and as he bends down to hold himself I make my move. I slide off the bed and hop with two feet back towards the door we had previously come through. The whole time that I had been taking in my surroundings after he took my blindfold off, I had actually been planning my escape. It’s been too long, I now have to fight back and get home.

I got to the door and turned the handle, hopping inside the cellar. I shut the door with a loud creak then a sudden thud, locking it on my side as I turn around facing the table, I start hopping as fast as I can. I snatch the glass vase off of the table while pouring out its contents onto the cold cement floor and I hop back towards the wooden door. As quick as I can, I smash the vase onto the steel handle of the door praying that it will break; to no avail, it doesn’t break, so I try again another time, it still doesn’t break. I can now hear Alan coming towards the door, so I use all of my strength to force the vase onto the handle again. The vase makes a loud crashing sound as different shaped and sized shards start flying everywhere, I look around hopeful to find a large piece and to my luck, I do; I clasp the large piece in my hand and hop back to the to the side of the table. I use my hands to push the table on its side to create a shield for myself as I lean my back against it, breathing deeply, trying to calm myself so my plan doesn’t go wrong. Alan starts fiddling around with what sounds to be a set of keys. I start to sit up a little trying to crouch down; I start to slice at the rope around my ankles cutting my ankles as well as the rope. Alan keeps fiddling around with his keys as I try so desperately to cut through the rope. The rope slowly starts to fray as I begin cutting faster, slicing my palms in the process. The rope comes loose just as the man shoves open the door. I take a large deep breathe, composing myself before I go through with my plan. The man takes a step, crunching the broken glass underneath his boots.

“3” I whisper to myself. He takes another step, chuckling to himself.

“Clare. Come out, come out wherever you are.”  He says chuckling to himself again.

“2” I whisper closing my eyes tightly and sighing.

The man takes one more step, just inches away from the front of the table.

“1!” I scream as I jump up from my squatting position while launching forward, plunging the glass shard right into his chest. He bends over holding his hands over his chest while desperately trying to gasp for air. I make no hesitation as I race towards and through door; I race up the stairs and open the door that must lead into the house. I push it open with so much force that my body goes flying through it and across the tiled floor. I look around and see that I am in the hallway, to my right are all the rooms and to my left is what looks to be the front door. I charge towards it, not looking behind me as I rip it open and run out into the open. I dart to the sidewalk out front of the house and notice I am only few blocks from my house as I start running in the direction of my house, I can hear someone or something chasing after me. I quickly snap my head behind me and look; no one is there until I look down beside me. It’s Rusty; he must have followed my scent and found me. I kept running until I reach my front porch, knocking on my front door rapidly. My brother opens the door and a look of shock spreads across his face. He looks so different now, oh how I missed him so much. I jump into his arms giving him the biggest hug and pushing my head into the crook of his neck, I love my brother, we use to be so close. I look over my brothers shoulder and notice my mother, father and little 11yo sister Lacy, standing there with their mouths a jar and their eye’s watery and in total shock. I jump out of my brother’s embrace and run towards my father giving him a tight hug, I cry into his shoulder as my mums wraps her fragile arms around us as if I may break at any minute. My sister comes up behind me and hugs around my waist with her head buried into my side. We stay there hugging for a while just crying and holding each other tight. I do love my family, more so now that I haven’t seen them for five years.

My life is better now, it’s been only four months since I ran away form that terrible place and came home. I went to the police later that week and told them what had happened. The man and his family fled shortly after I ran away, the police are still out looking for them.

Life is great. I started school last week and saw all my old friends, there were a few tears but nothing drastic, they were just happy to have me back.

My parents are still worried that he is going to come after me, so they asked to have an undercover officer to watch over me until the man and his family are found.

The events that have happened to me will always be in the past, never forgotten but always in the past. What is happening now is what I have to focus on.

 No more torture, no more dark rooms and hideous cellars. No more nightmares or day mares, just me, my family and my future.