• secrets don't sleep { oli sykes} •

•{01}•

There is a dank smell. Like the odor that lingers in the basement of an old apartment building, where they keep all the washing machines, rumbling and shaking and leaking their dirty water all over the stained concrete floor. Only here it is silent, nothing but the sound of my shaking breath bouncing off the walls.

A hollow gasp escapes my lips and I sit up, light headed and more than confused. My eyes search for some source of light and only find darkness. Nonetheless I get to my feet, and run. I am rewarded with the cold sting of a concrete wall, scraping my hands and cheeks.

I feel all four walls of my enclosure with careful hands, as if knowing every detail will somehow liberate me. Three walls are pure concrete, and one wall-- I can't tell if it's the front, side, or back of my cage-- is some sort of smooth, cold metal with a small rectangular indentation near the top of it.

The whole cell is maybe about eight by eight feet, void of space or cool air, it seems.

Shaking, I stand on tip toes and reach upward. I jump as high as I can and try to touch every corner of the room. My fingers can barely graze the ceiling, though I think one corner has some sort of smooth, rounded dome on it, around the size of a golf ball.

When I am done, I stand in the center of my cell at a loss for words. Panic has yet to reach me, there is nothing but blankness when I try to recall how I've gotten here.

Alright, I breathe to myself. Grounding details about myself.

I touch my collarbone and wrack my brain. How could it be so hard to know myself?

I am a girl. Almost a woman, and I am 17 years old. I am 5'3 and a half, proudly.

I reach up and touch what I remember to be gorgeous orangey-red-brown curls, but they feel like a matted mess.

But no, that's right. I am a proud ginger, with hazely green eyes. Skin like dark caramel. My mother's is like milk chocolate with a hint of cinnamon on top, my favorite desert.

I whimper a little. My mom.

If it's after midnight, we call. She always wants to know where I am, like every minute I have to be accounted for. This must be a nightmare for her, her greatest fear, the gnawing thing inside that keeps her up at night when I'm not home.

It's just me and her, against the world. She'll panic when she realizes I've been... kidnapped.

The word hangs in the air, refusing to set into my mind.

Taken.

My breath is coming to me quickly now, as are my thoughts. I run toward the metal wall and place my hands against it, pushing with all my might, as if that combined with the sheer will of my mind will force it to give. Wild thoughts of my mother drive me onward.

My breath is loud, raucous now, my hands are balling into fists and they are banging painfully against the metal.

"Help," the first rusty croak escapes my lips. "Help, please... help me! Let me out!"

My words are increasing in volume, as are my bangings. I can't help but to release all this pent up helplessness, all this pain and confusion I feel. Where am I? Why am I here, and how have I gotten here? Why can't I leave?

I am screaming now, at the top of my lungs, banging on all the walls, even the concrete ones until my hands start to bleed. I can't feel that pain in comparison to the internal monsoon of emotion.

And then an eerie male voice comes to me.

"Stop that, if you know what's good for you!"

It's a quiet, intense whisper coming from one of the concrete walls. I wait for just a moment, waiting for the voice to come again. When it doesn't, I decide that I must be hearing things.

This mania doesn't continue on for much longer before I am rewarded with a sliver of light from the indented rectangle on the metal wall. It shifts, and I hardly have time to register this before a door-shaped opening appears and two figures shuffle toward me.

I rush toward the light, but one figure flings me back down to the floor before I can get far.

Fear sweeps through me, but it's too late.

Then there is pain, white hot pain so intense that I almost can't recognize it. One figure has his hands clamping around my neck, pinning me to the floor. The other has twisted my arm at an impossible angle, shoving a cold needle into it.

Whatever is in that needle releases an endless inferno. It feels like every muscle I possess spasms, like they are all trying to escape my body and leave my bones free. My blood boils in my veins, reaching an insufferable fever pitch.

Bloodcurlding screams escape my lips, wasting what little breath I have. The figures say nothing. They are frighteningly anonymous-- there is only ambiguity where their faces should be.

Finally I feel them recede. The metal door shuts, but the pain is still glaring.

I am relieved when my head starts to spin, and even more blackness envelops me.

****

I can't tell the difference between consciousness and sleep for a moment. My eyes reopen, welcomed by darkness, and immediately, they are wet. My throat is quite the opposite and my body aches all over, like when you get the flu, but much more intense.

There's the slightest hint of light coming from beneath the metal wall, so slight it's probably not there at all.

Something wells up in me. Something from the burning pain that still lingers in my fingertips, something from the thought of my mom somewhere hysterically crying, calling the police to search for me. Something from the fact that I am naked, wearing nothing but a thin scrap of a gown.

It errupts from me in the form of tears, which turn into sobs, which turn into full-fledged wailing. I am gasping for air, clawing at the ground, for any scrap of warmth in this cold, damp place.

"Shut the fuck up!"

It's here again, the hissing whisper from the concrete wall.

"Crying won't get you shit here."

I sit up straight, so quickly that my head spins and my aching muscles contract in protest.

"What?" I sniffle and wipe my eyes.

I scuttle on my hands and knees toward the sound of the voice and end up in the corner between two concrete walls, directly below the golf-ball dome. I press myself against the wall, waiting for the sound to come again.

"Hello?"

"I said shut up." The voice is sharp and impatient, but to me it's like soft velvet pajamas on a twenty degree day. Any human interaction is better than the silence.

The sound is coming through a hole, a tiny hole-- my fingers locate it, right where the wall meets the floor. Around, it's the size of a quarter.

"Can you help me? Can you-- can you help me get out of here? Please?"

There is more silence for a very long time-- so long that I again consider that this is some cruel trick of the mind.

Then there is a light chuckle.

"The only way out is to give... in."

There is the slight sound of some shuffling on the other side of the hole. A door opens and shuts, and just like that I'm alone again.

I crawl back to the center of the floor and lay my head down. I am shivering with cold, but none of that matters anymore. I envision that voice, who it might belong to. It was undoubtedly male, and something about it was odd-- not American.

It was very British. Am I in another country now?

It was young I think. Young and male and British. And he is somewhere outside of the cell now. But I don't want to take his advice; I will not give my captors the satisfaction of obedience. It's the last thing I will do.

****

Thanks so much for reading, especially if you got this far! I would really appreciate if you voted and/or commented and let me know if you'd like me to continue the story!

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