Split- The Company She Keeps

Chapter 5- The Note

Casey woke expecting to find her captor still in the bed, holding her against him, but he was gone. Along with heavy breathing and  a worryingly warm body temperature. Listening to the room around her for a moment, she tried to distinguish any sound that might indicate he was in the room with her. When nothing but silence fell around her, the teen moved to sit up, spotting a tray with a sandwich at the end of the bed and a slip of paper. 

The growling response from her stomach had Casey leaning for the tray, pulling onto her lap and tucking in. It was ham and mustard. Though she didn't like mustard, she ate it in about a minute and a half anyway, ignoring any of the irrational thoughts invading her head concerning lacing the meal with drugs or poisons. Once finished, the tray with the plate and folded paper were moved to the floor, Casey rising to go to the door and press her eye against the crack between it and the wall. The light was on, it was always on. But no sign of Barry, Jade, Orwell or any of those who kept her locked up. Nothing. 

Her mind started to track back to the last time she was visited. Dennis with his hold on her painfully tight and crushing. Goosebumps rose on her arms as she looked back at the bed, replaying the moment in her head, unable to understand the calming feeling his presence gave her right after he tried to smother her. It was wrong. It was sick. She was sick. No. He was sick. They both were. Casey leaned against the door, lowing her head. It felt like she had been there for years. It must have been at least a week? Maybe two? Did it matter? If her or the others were going to get out at all, the last thing that would bother her would be the amount of time she was kept there. Wherever she was. Casey had been trying to figure out where that was. It seemed too big to be a basement, but if it was above ground surely it would have windows? 

Before she drove herself mad with unanswerable questions, the teen walked back to the bed and sat down, picking up the note left on the tray, unfolding it and looking at the very neat handwriting with slight envy. Her own handwriting was only slightly neater than Hedwig's, an almost illegible scrawl that resorted to Casey typing much more than writing out of embarrassment. Smoothing out the crease in the expensive looking thick paper, she read the note in silence. 

Eat. You must eat so you are ready for the sacred night. He is coming. He is real. He is coming for you and you must be ready. The Beast is real.  He will be here so very soon. You are the chosen one. It is a sacred night.

That was it. Cryptic. Repetitive. Threatening. It seemed like Casey was expected to be grateful for being the 'chosen' one. What about the others? Had they been let out? Had they been- No. Mustn't think like that. Thought they were not friends, they were comrades, at least if they were still alive, even in another room, Casey wouldn't be alone in her predicament.  Who was this Beast? It might be another person her captor had locked up. Perhaps he was a murderer. A psycho maybe. Maybe it was an animal- that would explain the term Beast. Casey read the note over and over, trying to make sense of it or read into it enough to understand why a certain night would be sacred. At least she knew who wrote it from the use of that word. It had to be Patricia. The only religious identity Casey had met, quoting from the bible like the preachers on street corners that used to bother her and tell her she was damned. If she was, at least she would have some experience in the hell she was facing. It was a sick joke to think that hell came early to those who ignored the preachers, she had always believed that they were the ones already there, blinded by a book written two thousand years ago by a group of easily influenced young men at a time when anyone would be desperate for some kind of higher power. God wasn't watching her now. He didn't watch over her as a child when her uncle had his way. God was too busy creating natural disasters and convincing the poor people of the church that they're lives were not being wasted there.

Folding the note back in half, Casey tucked it under her pillow before removing the playing cards, deciding that she might as well entertain herself instead of turning her mind to mush going over and over vague messages and tiny clues of her location. 

// Hello my lovely readers! So this chapter is slightly shorter than the others and is more mellow. I did this as I thought I would give Casey a bit of a break after putting her through so much. Thank you endlessly for reading this far and I will update as soon as I can! I am also sorry if this doesn't load up properly with the picture etc, my account seems to be having a bit of a funny moment...//