~I'm standing on a cliff of ice. Around me the piercing wind blows through to my bones, whipping around my arms and hair like vicious arrows. One grazes my cheek. A drop of blood falls to the blinding snow. Ravens circle above.~
Five minutes later, I found myself once again in a closet, this time with hands bound gently with a handkerchief and a strip of duct tape across my mouth. *I'm going to kill them,* I thought. For a while I stared moodily at a wall.
*Wait a minute.*
I wiggled my hands around behind me and after a few minutes managed to slip them out of their bond. I bet Jase had failed his knot-tying badge. Deciding I didn't want to risk taking off the tape now, I stood up and pushed on the closet doors. Locked, of course. I considered my original plan to bust through with the clothes pole, but I realized that it was still lying on the floor outside along with the rest of the clothes I'd inadvertently torn down. I sat to think. If I could bang really loudly... but Jase had said something about 'Mel' and I didn't want to push my luck. I sat there for a while.
Then it hit me. There were no hinges... When Jase first found me, he'd SLID open the closet doors... *Wow I'm such an idiot.*
I stood up, edged my fingers into the crack between the two doors, and slid them apart easily.
I stepped out into the hall cautiously. I turned to the left and made my way towards the sound of adults chatting and the clinking of glasses and utensils. There I found a staircase leading down to another hallway. I crept down softly and came to a stop where the solid wall on one side gave way to a gilt banister. I peeked past the wall and saw a scene right out of a posh mansion in a movie.
An enormous, long, oak dining table stood in the middle of a large room lit by red crystal chandeliers hanging from the two-story high ceiling. On the table were several dishes of rich food, reminding me that I hadn't eaten lunch or dinner. Around the table sat many adults in formal attire, three solemn looking girls my age, a young boy, a dog, and our two friends Jase and Zale.
I sighed, and just as I was about to back up and search for another exit, he looked up. Zale did. He met my pale jade ones with his dark onyx and shook his head slightly, motioning for me to go back upstairs. I considered that I could make a break for it, and I think he saw my intentions, because he stood up and said something to a middle-aged lady on his side. He started walking around the table towards me. Uh oh, time to run.
I dashed down the stairs and into a room in the opposite direction, the kitchen, then made my way out of the other door. That led to another room, one with a few couches and a large television above a white marble fireplace. I swerved towards another door and found myself in a sitting room, where an elderly woman sat knitting. I dashed out another door and ended up in a long corridor with several branching hallways and multiple doors. *Great, how am I supposed to find my way out of here?*
I thought I saw a window on the far end of the corridor, which meant an exterior wall, which probably meant a door. I sprinted towards it, glanced behind me to see if I was being followed, and smacked head on into a figure who stepped right in front of me right as I passed a hall. Zale.
I tried to scream, but found that I had left the duct tape on my mouth. Smart me. He grabbed my wrists in a gentle but firm hold and pulled me over to a room on the side. It contained a few chairs and a couch of a champagne color, a piano, a harp, and a shelf of books. He sat me down on a couch and flipped on the lights.
"Okay, listen. You want to leave, fine, just PLEASE don't go running around here! You really don't understand, there are some people here that you DON'T want to meet, trust me."
"YMMHT, mmhy MHNNT mndtnd!" Impatiently, I ripped off the tape and immediately regretted it. "YES, I DON'T understand! You won't tell me anything! I was just leaving the art studio, and I wake up in a closet, some people find me, tell me NOTHING, then lock me up in a closet again! What about my mom? What about me? Don't I deserve an explanation? I could- I could call the police! I'm pretty sure binding and gagging someone and throwing them in a closet is illegal."
