Release My Soul

I Didn't Think Enough ~ Prologue

I walked down the hall, turning off all the lights in the house. My parents were out for the night, like always, so I had the house to myself. It was a quiet night, no friends over for a change, and I planned on curling up in bed with my favorite romance novel for a few hours before calling it a night.

I didn’t, however, account for the fact that someone might want to come over anyway. My family was one of the only families in the town - most likely the world - who still owned a landline. I hated it because it meant that my parents were less inclined to pay my phone bill each month, but then again, I could always blame long distance calls on them and never get in trouble for it.

I was just about to make my way upstairs when that very same landline started to ring. Glancing at the clock I saw that it was 1 AM already. Who’s calling this late? Hopping off the bottom step, I hurried to snatch it off the receiver and pressed the answer button.

“Hello?” I answered, slightly annoyed.

Static greeted me on the other end of the phone. I removed it from my ear and looked down at it, confused. “Hello?” I said again, this time not masking the annoyance that I was feeling.

The static continued for a few more moments, before the dial tone began to ring in my ear. Well hello to you to, asshole. I angrily slammed the phone back into the receiver and stomped over to the stairs. I just wasted five minutes of my life on that prick and he couldn’t even be bother to say a simple “sorry wrong number.”

I had just climbed the final step when I heard that infuriating landline begin to ring again.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered, narrowing my eyes in the direction of where the phone was sitting.”I could be reading my book right now,” I grumbled as I stomped back down the stairs.

I pick up the phone right as it’s nearing its last ring and press the little green button. “Hello?” I snapped, tapping my foot impatiently. “You better not be messing with me or so help me, I’ll call the cops on your ass before you can even think to say ‘oh shit’!”

A dark chuckled greeted me from the other side of the phone. “You seem like a feisty one. It’ll be all the more fun playing with you instead of one of your other friends.”

My heart stuttered in fear at the words that come out of the phone and the glaring intention of the man I was talking to. “Wh-Who is this?” I managed to say.

“You’ll find out soon enough, my dear,” he replied, the dial tone following his words.

As the dial tone rang out, I stood rooted in place. I knew that I should be running up stairs, locking the door to my room, and calling the police, but I couldn’t make my feet move. What did he mean by I would “find out soon”? Who the hell was that? What did he want with me?

I couldn’t think straight and I felt a sinking feeling in my gut. Something was going to happen. Something really, really bad.

Finally managing to snap out of my frozen state, I raced up the stairs, the phone still clutched in my hand, and locked my bedroom door behind me. I was breathing heavily, my chest heaving up and down, as I surveyed my room to make sure it was still safe.

Everything seemed to be in it’s place, but there was no way I was taking chances. Edging around the room, I checked each corner, under the bed, and even in my closet. If anyone had been looking through my window, I probably looked like a little kid that was afraid of the monsters hiding in her room. They wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

Sighing in relief when I found my room to be undisturbed, I finally crawled into bed, grabbing my tattered copy of If I Stay, and began to read. It was just a prank call. Some kids trying to scare me. I nodded to myself, yes, that’s what it was. Just some punk kids messing around. No matter how much I told myself that, however, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen.

It wasn’t long before my eyes were drooping and I had to set my book aside. My clock said that it was 2 AM and since nothing else had happened, I felt safe enough to go to sleep.

I was nearing oblivion when the sound of a door creaking open snapped me awake. I looked towards  my door and saw it slowly moving open. Hadn’t I locked that?

With shaky hands, I reached over to my nightstand where the phone was sitting. The whole time I reached for the phone, I was watching the door. That was my mistake. Instead of quickly grabbing the phone, dialing 911 and shouting at them to help me, I watched the door open and wasn’t as quick as I should have been in grabbing the phone.

A shadow slipped inside my room, closing the door softly behind them. When they turned and saw that I was awake, watching them, they quickly moved across the room. I fumbled with the phone, dialing 911 as quickly as I could, but I didn’t even get to see if the picked up or get to ask for help before I felt hands in my hair, roughly yanking me out of my bed.

A scream ripped through me and tears sprung to my eyes. This couldn’t be happening. This only happened in movies, not to girls like me.

The man, because it could only be a man wanting to do this to me right, slammed my head against the ground, pinned my arms above my head, and bound them together. My vision swam and everything around me was going dark. I couldn’t concentrate enough to try and fight back.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

I couldn’t even open my mouth to scream before the man slammed my head into the ground again and everything went dark.

“Hello? What’s your emergency?”

“Ma’am? Sir? Are you there?”

The problem was... No one was there. Not anymore.