My eyes open, and take in the almost blinding darkness. I take in a sharp, icy gasp, and my throat burns with the cold air. It’s so harshly cold that my body is completely numb. I try to move my hands, but they’re sealed together tightly with duct tape. I scream, but the screeching noise that comes from my mouth is almost inaudible, because of the rope that’s tied in my mouth. My fingers fumble for the tear of the tape, and find it. I rip it as hard as I can, and the tape falls onto the moist soil. My hands travel to the back of my head and untie the rope around my mouth. It tumbles down my chest and lands on my knees. My icy limbs frantically dig through the soil, until they find something hard. With the bit of vision I have, I make out something long and slender. A skeleton of a teenage girl. I scream and shuffle across the damp soil. I stand up and pull the roots and soil off the wall of dirt, but make no progress in getting out the hole that I’m trapped in. I crouch down in a ball at the very back of the hole, and cry.
Moments later, a rope ladder falls gracefully down the wall of the hole, and man climbs down it slowly. On his way down, he murmurs two words; It’s time, and I react when his feet touch the ground. I rip the shoulder bone off the icy skeleton and hit the man multiple times in the back of the head, neck and back. A blow to the jaw is what comes next, and I stumble to my feet. Through my blurry vision, I see the ladder hanging on the wall. My mouth tastes metallic and hot, and I spit a mouthful of blood onto the ground. I climb up the ladder and breathe in the cool early morning air, and brush the dirt of my floral designed silk pyjamas.
I push my long, blonde hair out of my face, and run faster then I’d ever run before. Ferns and branches slap and cut my tender skin. When I reach the centre of the forest, I see the sun peeking cheekily of the tired mountains. I run faster and faster, my throat burning a painful cold. The sun comes up slowly, but by the time it is fully up, I know where I am.
Free.
I stare around at my surroundings, the opal coloured sunrise beaming down on my face. The pain in my feet in agonising, and when I inspect them closer, they’re wet with blood. I run, not sure where I’m running to. I reach an opening in the park, with benches for picnics that my family and I used to go on my birthday. I laugh frantically, because from here, I know how to get out, I run diagonally to the east, through the benches and into another set of ferns and trees. The ground is wet with rain; which is natural for a rainy town like Portland I step on a sharp stick and yelp in pain. I pull the stick out of my foot, and hot tears pour down my already wet face.
I run faster, and to my surprise, I find the opening, and the car park. I run along the road, the gravel sticking to my blood stained feet. In what seems like hours later, I reach the entrance to Portland. I see a newspaper store, and read it inquisitively. The date reads February 23rd. I stare at it harder. This can’t be right; I say to myself, it was January 23rd yesterday. That’s when I realize; I’ve been missing for a month. A whole month.
I walk along the road a bit more, and come across an electricity pole with a missing sign. With me on it. I walk over to the pole, and my fingers slightly brush over the soft paper. The photo of me is my school photo. With my long, blonde hair pulled back into a hair crown, subtle makeup and a San Antonio Spurs T-Shirt on, I looked beautiful. A hot, soft tear rolls town my scratched and grazed face, and it stings like hand sanitiser on a paper cut. I wipe the tear tenderly of my skin, and walk down the main street. The Star diner is still running, the fatigued workers stumbling around like zombies. A Street light pulses, which seems more familiar to me then my own family. My family, I scream in my head, they’ll be waiting for me. I pick up my slow walking pace to a jog, and then sprint down the street and turn right down Docherty. I run along the wet pavements, and occasionally jump in a puddle, with a satisfying slosh. A group of 3 school girls walk past me, and one of them calls my name. The name that was called sounds nothing like the girl I’m feeling now. I turn right again on Smithton Street and see my tall, grey tower of a house at the end of the street.
I run up to the door and knock and bang on the front door frantically screaming out my mother’s name. I collapse in a heap on the floor, like I used to do when I was a child, and sob. The door opens with a loud creek, and I look up at the woman who’s staring down at me with a menacing grin.
“You’re not my mother.” I whisper.
