Out of Sight

Chapter Four

After what Ivy could guess had been hours, the light flickered back on in the hallway. She had spent the night staring at the piece of paper, doing her best to decipher what the test she had completed was. That would be her first clue as to where she was.

If there even was a test. Ivy had only begun to question whether or not there even was. And if there wasn't one, then why tell her there was? There had to be some sort of reasoning for all of what she was seeing and experiencing. Ivy refused to believe otherwise.

Soon voices could be heard coming from the left side of the hallway, and Ivy scrambled weakly to make her way to the door of the cell.

"Hey," she called out hoarsely through the slat in the door. "I need some water. Someone bring me water." She waited for an answer as the voices got nearer to her cell and eventually quieted outside the door. She sat up to look through the cell window, hoping to see one of the people outside.

Two men stood before her on the opposite side of the door. One man had on a military uniform decorated in medals. He stood straight up and held eye contact with her, intensely. Ivy knew his type. He appeared to be of a higher rank, and could tell by his stature that he had earned his rank and carried it with responsibility. His body was stern, but his dark brown eyes remained relaxed and without emotion.

Breaking the awkward staring contest, Ivy looked to the soldiers left to see a shorter man in a white lab coat carrying a clipboard littered with papers and notes. He locked eyes with her momentarily, before quickly repositioning his gaze back down to the notepad in front of him.

Ivy's eyes turned back over to the soldier, "I need water."

The soldier stared reluctantly and turned his head as if to study her before turning to the other man and continuing on with their conversation.

Ivy became dumbfounded at the lack of humanity and weakly exclaimed toward the man in the lab coat, "I need water, now or I'm going to die." She had hoped that the other man would have compassion, but her words were only ignored further.

Using the last bit of energy left in her body, Ivy began pounding on the back of the cell door loudly. "Get me some damn water already! What is wrong with you people?" The soldier locked eyes with her yet again, and this time chuckled to himself before approaching the window with a smirk.

"You'll get water, when I say you can have it." The hair on the back of Ivy's neck stood straight, as his voice echoed throughout her cell. He had the kind of voice that was soft spoken, but his expression just reflected pure hatred.

Realizing the man wasn't going to help her, her eyes glanced over to the other man who just stood there silently watching the sorry excuse of a conversation happening in front of him. It was clear to Ivy that this man was not going to be helping her any time soon. He stance proved he was a follower and he looked like a coward.

Ivy glared back at the soldier man as she stepped back from the cell window. He had proven to her that her expectation of her stay here was going to be exactly what she had thought. Most likely brutal, and ending in her death. But the man in the lab coat, helped her feel a little more stable. She knew he was going to be completely useless as he appeared to be in control of the soldier man, but his unease was apparent and that gave her hope.

She watched as the two men turned on their way and continued walking down the hall. She breathed a sigh of disappointment, before returning back to her cot with the last force of energy she had left and began singing to herself the lullaby she used to sing to Elizabeth at night when she had bad dreams.

I know the name of a happy little girl,
Dancing, prancing, all around the world.
Give her a nickel, a song for you she'll sing
Making up a tune with a happy little ring.
There once was a man who proposed to the lass
She said no with a quite a bit of sass
But the man had the wealth and a thousand acres land
So her father he went to, the marriage he did grant.
Now I know a woman who always wears a frown,
Her life changed when she wore the wedding gown.
But it's been ten years, three children she did bear,
All of which the Lord saw fit to take their souls up there.
Now I know a woman with silver locks of life,
Dancing, prancing, and singing songs of strife.
Give her a nickel, a sing for you she'll sing,
Making up a tune, with a catchy little ring.

Although the song was sad, it always seemed to calm her daughter and put her right back to sleep. Now she used the song as a way to keep herself from losing control.

Her body continued to ache with pain, and the red light above her became to only thing she could concentrate on using it as a beacon to keep herself awake. Panic surpassed exhaustion when her vision became blurry once again. This time however, when she could see all she could see was red.

Ivy rubbed her eyes attempting to make the redness go away, but only failed at the task. Her head pounded with a migraine and she sat there becoming more and more willing to do anything to at least get something to kill the pain.

Water was no longer the first thing on her mind as she slowly faded in and out of consciousness. Ivy began to dig her nails into her thighs hard enough to draw blood. Anything to distract herself from fading out completely.

Any knowledge of survival she had, would not be as valuable as she once thought. She'd always imagined herself being abandoned in the forest before being kidnapped and stuck in a cell with no water. She knew how to survive on her own and knew how to handle herself defensively if the time came, but had no experience or information to go off of that would be valuable in her present situation.

For the first time in a long time she found herself wishing her ex husband was there with her. He had never been the best husband but with his Army experience, he would know more about what to do than she did with her limited police experience. However, he'd also have more luck at survival as well considering he had more than likely experienced and seen things she couldn't even imagine. Until now, anyway.

Ivy searched her memory for anything her ex could have told her that would be useful. They never had the best relationship to begin with, unfortunately and it had been so long that she couldn't remember if he had even told her anything about his experiences or training for the military.

Ivy remained sitting helplessly in the corner of her cell, left to ponder her thoughts. She did her best to convince herself that it was all a dream, and that everything she was seeing and hearing was just due to the dehydration.

Slowly her thoughts turned positive as she faded into a deep sleep brought on by the lack of sustenance, and began dreaming of her ex husband and their daughter.