Out of Sight

Chapter 1

The screaming of a loud alarm, jolted Ivy from her forced slumber. She opened her eyes slowly and absorbed her surroundings, only to find herself locked in a windowless cell with concrete walls and one flashing red light in the corner above where her cot lay carelessly on the ground. The air smelled foul and musty, although the cell itself appeared fairly clean and modern.

Ivy lifted her hand to touch the side of her head where her short brown hair was clumped with blood. Underneath, a large open wound remained bleeding , but must have been stitched while she was asleep. Realizing she had been injured, she proceeded to check the rest of her body for other possible injuries or any signs of infection.

Scouring over her body, she could only guess that the clothes she now wore were also put on while she was unconscious - as she herself did not recognize the thin white cotton shirt and pants that hung loosely on her tall and slender figure.

Satisfied that she hadn't found any other injuries - yet - she continued to check out her surroundings. The cell seemed bigger than necessary with the wall furthest away being easily twenty-five feet. Although the width of the room was more the size of a singlewide trailer. The cell door was in the center of the wall to her left, and had a small window with bars built into the glass itself. There was only one source of light in the cell, which just so happened to be the flashing red light above her cot, that laid in the far right corner from the door.

Realizing she couldn't remember where she was or how she got there, Ivy stood up slowly. Taking a deep breath she counted to ten, doing her best to remain from panicking. Just as she had been trained to do.

Ivy began walking the length of the cell while holding her fingers against the walls, counting each footstep and looking for any clues as to where she was.

Closing her eyes, Ivy took a moment to try and recall where she was before she woke up in the prison like cell - and even more so trying to figure out what she could have done to be held in the first place.

Her police background came with a lot of risk, and she had undoubtedly made a lot of enemies out of a few she had helped put in prison. Some of which could very well have planned her kidnapping, from behind bars.

But the appearance of the cell lead Ivy to believe that it had to be someone on the outside with power and money, to build something so clean. Surely someone looking to kidnap and possibly kill an ex-police officer, wouldn't spend the time and effort into something so; comfortable.

"Twenty-seven," she whispered to herself as she reached the end of the cell. Twenty-seven steps from her cot to the opposite wall, and no definitive signs as to her location or her captors.

A yellow light appeared outside the window on the cell door and a shadow passed gracefully along the floor. Voices echoed outside, but quickly passed as the people speaking continued walking on their way.

Hunched over to avoid being seen, Ivy tiptoed to the window and peered outside.

There wasn't much to see, but there was a long vast hallway stretching in both directions. There were two other cell doors just a few feet across from her own, both with their own little custom barred windows. Each door had a small slat for a tray of food to pass through, and was heavily locked from the outside.

The walls stretching left and white, were painted a classic bright white and seemed to reflect the LED lights on the ceiling.

Ivy's face pressed against the window as she did her best to see what was beyond her and her neighbors' cells, but to no avail.

Realizing there was nothing left to do but wait, Ivy began pacing the length of her cell. As her mind started to clear, she soon began to hear the alarm once again. This time with each buzz of alarm, it's sound became louder and louder.

Red flashing lights began blinking in the hallway outside the cell, and loud footsteps could be heard running down the halls. Shouts came from both directions as people scrambled to exit the building away from whatever was happening.

Ivy raced to the window just in time to hear the lock on her cell door click as it slowly crept open, leaving the perfect escape right in front of her. Soon to follow, the cell doors across from her also crept open slowly revealing two prisoners dressed in tattered rags with horror written all over their faces.

She paused to study them for a few seconds, her mind racing with questions. They looked healthy, but acted sick. Their clothes were similar to the ones she now wore, but were black with dirt and ridden with tears and rips. Blood covered their feet from where their many wounds and injuries were slowly dripping down their bodies onto the cement floor.

"Run." One of them whispered to her silently before creeping back into his cell.

His word ran like a chill down her spine, and for a moment her body was frozen before she finally bolted down the hallway to her right not bothering to look back and see what had happened to the second prisoner.

The hallway seemed endless with cell doors lining each wall. The left side seemed to have more doors, which at that moment she could only guess there were more cells. Each cell had a serious of numbers listed on a plaque on the doors after the word "patient".

The lights continued to flash from red to white and the alarm continued blaring in her ears.

The police officer in her screamed to find any sort of weapon but the only things she had seen so far since her cell, were the two prisoners in the cells across from hers. The floors were baron with not even a spec of dust and there were no stands or chairs anywhere to be seen.

With almost no notice, a wall quickly appeared before her as she neared the end of the hall. The was no other way to go. No left, no right.

It had been a long time since she had run that fast and she found herself quickly fighting off the urge to reminisce. Her breath was uneven and her chest was tight, but she knew the only way to escape this place was to continue running as fast as she could for as long as she could.

She ran the length of the hall only to find another dead end.

"Impossible!" She shouted, using the last push of oxygen her lungs had left to give. She began to panic as her mind raced with newer questions. Where did everybody go? How did she get there?

Her breathing became frantic as she started jogging the length of the halls, searching every cell for any signs of another person. The cells across from her own, were now empty with not even a spot of blood from the prisoners that had been there before.

Ivy's eyes widened as she began to pray that it was all a dream and that she wasn't crazy - hoping that at any moment, she would wake up in her apartment with her jack russell, Brother, sleeping peacefully at the foot of the bed.

But instead she found herself stuck with no way out and nowhere to go but back inside her cell to her cot.

She covered her ears as she bit her lips as hard as she could, doing her best to try and wake herself up.

Over and over and over.

Ivy cried as blood trickled down her neck from her lips, praying in her mind that everything would just go away.

Her police training had not prepared her for this. She was not familiar with the feelings of anxiety and terror, that the idea of being kidnapped and put into a cell would bring.

And now here she was. Living it. And as Ivy cried harder and harder, each scream getting quieter and quieter with exhaustion, she came to a realization.

This was her worst fear.