Taken

Chapter - 4

Amyra woke up disoriented and puzzled from her deep slumber when it was still dark outside. She didn't know what has woken her up until the sound came again, cutting and booming in the dark silence of the night.

BANG! BANG!

The sound startled her. Her eyes were wide open now and she was sitting upright in her bed in a flash, her eyes still trying to adjust to the darkness in her room. She didn't move an inch, sitting still like a statue as she paid attention to anything and everything that her senses could pick up on. Breathing slow and steady, her mind tried to register any little change in her environment, her room. Tiny sweat droplets decorated her forehead in a strange kind of pattern as they merged in each other and trickled down her temple in a single line and dropped on the sheets. She looked like a plastic doll in the darkness with her raven hair framing her pale, ghost-like white face and sitting unnaturally still in the darkness. Amyra waited silently - she was as much alert as she seemed dazed - for a second bang on her main gate. She waited for confirmation that she wasn't dreaming or hallucinating in the late night, or maybe early morning (who cares about the time?) And then it happened again.

BANG! BANG!

The second rumble broke the spell and she hurried out of her bed to the bedroom door in a flash. There was a hockey stick by the wall and she slowly picked it up. It was kept there just for situations like this. She hadn't turned the lights on yet, she didn't want to alert the perpetrator. Keeping her hands on the door handle, she debated if she should go out and check on the door, or just wait inside the safety of her room.

And then there was Riya. Hadn't she heard that loud sound? She doubted, otherwise Riya would've already been here in a minute or two. Heaven save her from her deadly slumber - who the hell could have slept through that?

Finally, slowly, taking one step at a time, Amyra retreated back to her bed and sat there on the edge of it, hockey stick resting on bedside between her knees, her eyes still looking everywhere and her ears still hearing out for every loud noise and every quiet tinkle of sound. She was still shaken from the sudden attack on her door. Alert as ever, she felt around the bed for her cellphone. She groaned in frustration when realized that her phone was switched off. Of course, the battery was dead and she had forgotten to put her phone on charge last night.

When there hadn't been another crazed banging at the main door for some 15 minutes or so, she got up from the bed, hockey stick still in her hand, and carefully opened her bedroom door. She really hoped as she walked out that whoever the crazy psycho was outside, had gone away by now. The hallway was very slightly illuminated, only enough to figure out the silhouettes of the furniture in the living room. Her own footsteps were too loud in the silence of the night.

Riya's room was across Amyra's, on the other end of the hallway. She got there and knocked at her room, waiting for the door to open, uttering silent prayer in her head. It felt stupid to be scared when she knew that the main door of the house was locked and the culprit was outside, but she couldn't help the feeling of dread that was slowly overcoming her rationality. When Riya didn't open the door, she knocked again - louder this time, wondering what the hell was taking her so long. Frustrated and without really paying attention, she pushed at the door in annoyance and it creaked open, having been stuck earlier. Amyra was startled for a second and then walked in hurriedly and switched on the lights, only to find the room empty and abandoned.

Panic struck her immediately and an involuntary gasp left her mouth. "Oh God! Where is she at this time?"

Amyra stood there for a moment holding her head in her one hand and a hockey stick in another, puzzled and confused and scared. She could feel her heart going fast enough to drum her chest and loud enough to ring her ears. Many pernicious and baneful thoughts started to occupy her mind even after much resistance.