After

Chapter 11

Dim light floods into Laurens beautiful green eyes. Everything she sees is blurry, the only thing she can tell is someone is punching another person repeatedly and the person being punched isn't moving a muscle, almost as though they are unconscious. As Lauren grows more aware of her surroundings, she notices she is unnaturally cold. She notices her shirt and shorts in the corner of the room and begins to shake violently. What did he do to her while she was unconscious? Did he ra- before she is able to finish her thought, Dinah approaches her, concern written all over her face.

"Don't worry, Lauren. He wasn't able to do anything to you." Dinah lightly grasps Laurens hand before bringing her clothes back over to her and helping her put them on. "Come on, we gotta get out of here before he wakes up." She grabs a key out of his pocket and limps up the stairs to the basement door.

"Dinah. Stop." Lauren shakily demands.

Dinah spins around, hoping she didn't hear what she thought she heard. The man was still passed out and yet Lauren wouldn't leave. "What the hell do you mean, Lauren? This is our chance to get the heck out of here."

"No. You-you don't understand."

"You better explain to me right now what you're talking about." Dinah speaks with a great amount of frustration.

"There's more of them, Dinah." Lauren cries as new tears flow from each of their eyes, "There's not just one or two more either, there's three more, and I'm sure they are watching us right now, just waiting for us to open that door and torture us until we beg for death but they won't grant it to us. They continue to hurt us until we don't even care anymore. Our emotions, our feelings, everything that makes us... us... gone. And then, finally, when we have come to terms with how our life will be, they find another way to hurt us and we begin to feel again. We will want to go back to the time that we couldn't feel because we know that was better." She pauses, hoping Dinah understands everything she is saying, "Dinah. If you open that door right now, that's what's going to happen and I don't care if it happens to me, but I do care if it happens to you."

In this moment, Dinah has never been more conflicted in her life. If she opens the door, there is a chance that she and Lauren could escape and they could get out of this place, but there's also a chance that their situation here gets a million times worse.

"She's right, Dinah." The man in the mask says. Dinah was so lost in her thoughts she never even realized that the man was now standing up and leaning casually against a wall. "The other people here are right behind that door and if I say one thing, they come busting in and do exactly what your little friend said we were going to do."

As the realization hits Dinah that she is not getting out of here unless they let her, her legs give out on her. She tumbles down the stairs until she gets to Laurens feet. Dinah regrets that she didn't momentarily unmask the man so she could see who is behind the mask that she has grown to hate with every fiber of her being. But now she knows that there are four people keeping Lauren and her here, and that they have somehow broken her friend more than she realized she could even be broken. Lauren has to know or at least have an idea of who is keeping her here though; they have to have slipped up at least once.

Suddenly, the man approaches Dinah again but she doesn't even try to move away. She knows that if one man can do so much to her and to Lauren, what can four? Only a moment passes between him picking her up and throwing her into the blood-stained cage Lauren was previously in. There is something even more unsettling with being in the cage and Dinah feels bad that Lauren has ever had to be in this place. Especially by herself. She was struck with absolute fear as he dragged Lauren out of the basement and out of sight.