Another You // Alan Ashby {discontinued}

Chapter 8

The unexpected sound of something - or someone - stumbling around the house, seemingly throwing whatever it could find to the floor, pulled Jacklyne out of her deep slumber - something that she had not been getting a lot lately. She quickly sat up in her bed, her eyes widened in alarm as the sounds began to get closer and closer to her location. The next thing that she heard caught her unbelievably off guard - the mechanical clicks of the door being unlocked. Maybe, just maybe, her captor would be supplying her with the food that she oh so desperately needed, something that her body was craving for well over a week. Since you could very well go without food for seven weeks, as long as you get some water as well as be healthy, it didn’t come as a surprise to her that she was still breathing, just incredibly weakened by the lack of nutrients.

Before she knew it, the door that had barely been opened in what seemed like forever swung open right before Jacklyne’s eyes, causing her to flinch due to the loud banging noise that came with the wooden door making contact with the nearest wall. Standing in the doorway was no other than Alan, a deranged look on his face. He stumbled over to the bed, his movements sloppy as if he was going to fall over at any given moment. As soon as he got close enough to her, Jacklyne could smell the strong stench of alcohol lingering on her captors clothing and breath. It hit her like a slap to the face, and even caused her to cower back against the backboard of the bed.

“You’re drunk.” Was the only thing that Jacklyne could muster, given the fact that she was both in shock from everything that happened so suddenly, and because she was becoming dehydrated. The majority of the water that Alan had supplied her to give to her cat a week before was beginning to disappear almost completely, there being only a half of a water bottle left.

Instead of replying verbally, a huge smile grew across Alan’s face as he lifted a bottle of amber liquid that Jacklyne hadn’t seen at first, gulping the contents down as if it was water. As much as she wanted to tear the bottle away from him, worried for the safety of him, she knew that he would become angered. She had seen him angered before, but those emotions could be amplified under the influence of alcohol and that was not something that Jacklyne would want to witness firsthand.

Much to her relief, the bottle was set down on one of the side tables when the contents were nearly gone, before Alan focused all of his attention on the terrified girl in front of him rather than the alcohol that was coursing through his body. After a few moments of him doing nothing but staring at her, he began to laugh almost uncontrollably, as if he found the fact that Jacklyne was scared out of her wits was one of the funniest things that he had ever seen in his life.

The laughter took a couple minutes before it died down completely, and Alan’s previously humored expression transitioned to one of confusion. “Why are you afraid of me?” He asked, his words coming out in a slurred and jumbled mess as he advanced towards her, perching himself on the edge of his bed. It took a couple times for him to find a spot at the edge where he wouldn’t almost fall off due to how off-balance he was given the situation, however. Jacklyne watched him attentively, ready to jump to her feet at any sign of him almost falling over.

The caring behavior that she took towards him was nothing short of surprising, considering he was the one who was pretty much ruining her life, and starving her to the point to where she could barely move - and even then, she would waste her energy saving someone who didn’t deserve that at all. Jacklyne ignored his question almost completely before sighing, making her way over to where he was and carefully maneuvering him so that he  was laying down on the bed.

Alan’s eyes remained fixed on her as he opened his mouth again as if he was going to ask her something again, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a series of weird noises and yawns that Jacklyne assumed was his way of communicating when he was this far gone, before he faded into unconsciousness completely.  

Jacklyne moved so that she was about a foot away from her captor’s sleeping body, simply staring at him for a moment to make sure that he was actually gone before carefully getting to her feet, trying her hardest not to make a noise. Maintaining that silence in the room, she began packing up everything that she owned - everything that Alan had given her since she had been locked up in the house. Thankfully, the carrier that the ginger haired man had bought for her cat was conventionally in her room as well, so she didn’t have to worry about leaving the helpless kitten with someone as seemingly dangerous as Alan.

With her bags under her arms and in her hands, she tip-toed out of the room before softly shutting the door behind her. The hallway leading up towards the room was completely trashed, a product of all the noise that Jacklyne had heard upon Alan’s arrival.

Every couple feet or so, she had to place her belongings on the ground in order to give her weak arms a break, before continuing her seemingly neverending trek to the outdoors that she hadn’t seen in forever.

Deciding that it was probably best for her, when Jacklyne reached the kitchen, she once again placed all of the things in her grasp on the floor and began searching for food, stuffing whatever she could find in the various cabinets and the fridge in her mouth as quick as she could. Alan could wake up unexpectedly and catch her in the act, and all hell would break loose at the sight of her trying to escape once again, so all of her actions were as fast as she could.

Once all the hunger that she had been feeling for so long subsided, Jacklyne gathered all of her things before taking the final steps to the front door, twisting the door handle and pushing it forward until the door swung open, revealing the one thing that she had been wanting to see for so long, but there was something holding her back. As soon as she was standing in the doorway - out foot out of the door - she began to feel the overwhelming urge to retreat back to the room that she called home. She couldn’t just leave Alan like that, after everything that he had done for her, even if he was denying her some of the basic necessities of life. It was almost like a betraying of his trust, a trust that he should’ve never earned in the first place.

And before she knew it, Jacklyne found herself laying back down in the bed that she had been stuck in for so long, and all of her belongings back in their correct spots across the room.