Trapped

          Macy could hardly believe that this was happening, to her of all people. Just that morning, she had thought that she had everything, that her life was perfect. She had a loving family, she was the captain of the varsity volleyball team at her prestigious high school, and everyone loved her. So then how did she end up in a room with a psychotic murderer who was determined to torture her to death, in all senses of the word?

          Before she could ponder this question any further, the door of her tiny, dark cell slammed open for the second time that day. The first time had been to give her food, which she was reluctantly grateful for, even if it was just scraps of bread. She was brought out of her thoughts by a shadow falling over her. The man who had slowly become her worst nightmare was here... and Macy could guess what he was here for.

          She thought about how this whole unfortunate situation had happened, and the series of events that led to it. She had decided to walk home from school instead of calling for a ride when she heard a squeak coming from a dark alley. She thought nothing of it until she heard footsteps following her for several minutes without a change of course. The last thing she remembered before everything went black was seeing a large figure standing over her, the setting sun surrounding it like a halo. When she woke up, she had been chained up in the same cell she was in now. Nothing much had changed, except for all the fresh cuts and bruises that littered her skin. The man had given her a beating everyday since she had been here, until Macy begged and pleaded for him to stop. Still, she knew that the worst of it was yet to come.

          A deep, maniacal laugh echoed through the cell. The man slowly crept towards her, with a deranged smirk on his face. Macy's heart pounded so hard and so loud that she thought the man must have heard it. He did seem to hear it, because his sinister smile only widened at the thought of striking fear in a girl who thought herself fearless. This fear, this anticipation of the torture that was surely coming, broke Macy's fragile grip on sanity. Everything that she had been holding in, all the anger, the fear, to avoid giving the man exactly what he wanted, suddenly burst through the wall that Macy had put up.

          "What do you want from me, you sick freak?!!" She screamed, pulling herself to her feet. She regretted the decision immediately as she swayed to the right, leaning on the stained wall behind her. "You've been holding me captive in here for weeks, and for what, to satisfy your insane need to hurt people, to watch people tremble in fear before you, to watch them writhe in pain as you beat them to the brink of death, but never enough so that they die?" She was sobbing by the end of her desperate rant.

          The man was silent for a few dreadful moments, then chuckled in a way that made Macy shrink back in fear. "You want to know why I've kept you here? Why I kidnapped you in the first place? Well, there is a perfectly good reason behind it. It's not like I just stalked you for weeks and then captured you for no reason. I'm not that crazy!" The smirk that had been on his face dropped, replaced by a scowl as he said, "My brother killed himself because of you. He was so happy when you two were together. He was in love with you! But you, you selfish bitch, broke up with him. What, was he not rich enough for you? Not good looking enough? Or was it that he wasn't a mindless jock? Tell me, Marie! Answer me!"

          Finally daring to step forward, she responded in a quivering voice, "I don't know what you're talking about! I didn't know your brother, I didn't break up with him and my name is Macy, not Marie. You have the wrong person. Please, just let me go! Please-"

          She was cut off by fist slamming into her cheek, making her stagger backwards.

          "Shut up!" He screamed madly in her face. "You're wrong! You are Marie, the girl who made my little brother take his own life!"

          Suddenly, he backed away and calmly said, "I have a proposition for you. I'll let you escape."

          Macy was rendered speechless by the man's sudden calm statement, but before her hopes could rise too high, the man continued with a sinister smile, "Of course, I'll make it more fun for the both of us with a little game. I'll give you two minutes to run as far away from here as you can, and then I'll start chasing you. If you win and manage to find a way off my property, then I'll let you leave."

          "W-w-what if I lose?" She asked, stuttering heavily.

          Still smiling creepily, the man replied with a short, "Don't."

          And so the cat and mouse game begun. Macy ran out of the cell as fast as her legs could carry her, thanking the lord for all the training she had gotten. After only a minute of running through identical hallways, however, she realized how weak she was from weeks of staying in that cell. As she ran, Macy couldn't stop crying. She cried for her family, whom she missed immensely, and for her best friend, who was like the sister she always wanted, and most importantly for herself and her old life. She didn't know where she was running. She had been blindfolded when she was first brought in, so she didn't know her way around. She understood two things at that moment. One, that she wasn't going to win, no matter how fast or long she ran. She was going to lose and the man was going to kill her. The second thing she realized was that the man had known when he proposed the "game" that Macy would not have even the slightest chance of winning. He had known that she was weak and that she wouldn't know where she was going, or even where she had to go to get off the property.

         Macy was so deep in her self pitying thoughts that she hadn't realized that she had come to a dead end. She also just now heard the heavy footsteps behind her, and she knew now that this was truly the end. She wouldn't live to escape, or to ever see her family again. As she turned around to face her death, the man raised the butcher knife that he had been swinging around in his hand.

          The last thing Macy saw was the man lunging towards her with his hand outstretched, before she hit the ground, never to get back up again.