Unfound

21

Seth zipped his pants back up and gave me a final kiss before he wandered back up the steps, telling me he'd be back down for dinner. When I heard the brutal green cell door click shut, I rolled over and forced myself up with shaking arms, struggling against the ropes at my wrists. I got to my feet savagely slowly and somehow managed to run to the bathroom. I knelt down before the toilet and released everything that had been in my stomach and then some. The cool touch of the seat beneath my grip making me shiver, my clothes still on the floor where they had been torn from me. I embraced the cold, hoping I'd freeze myself to death. Once my stomach was completely empty, I sat down and sobbed, my legs full of lead unable to keep me up any longer. I had let him take more of me than anyone else ever had. He wanted me to know that he owned me, and until further notice, he did. I couldn't fight. I couldn't play along. I couldn't win.

My tears began to burn as I became increasingly infuriated. I struggled against the ropes on my wrist, which held more firm than the skin underneath. I became increasingly angry. I struggled and cried, until drops of blood flowed freely from my wrists. I stared at the blood, willing there to be more, hoping to drown myself in it. Hoping I could end it all before Seth managed to take even more of me. He had made me cry again. I had promised myself I wouldn't let him do that to me, but I did. I gave him that. I shouldn't have.

I slowly stood up, knees and arms shaking, struggling to carry my weight. I went over to the already broken mirror, seeing ten versions of a broken me. My eyes puffy and cheeks pink from the tears. I could see a body, I think it was mine, but it was unrecognizable. Marked and naked. There were marks on me from him that I hadn't even noticed before. His hand print bright red on my neck from where he had choked me, another one on my breast from how hard he had squeezed. I closed my eyes and I swallowed the bile in my throat. I let another tear fall onto my naked and foreign body. I wiped them away, letting them mix with the blood on the floor. He wasn't going to get away with this. Not again. I had to live. If only to avenge the lives of the girls he killed, simply because they weren't me. They hadn't made it this far, but I had a chance. The fear inside of me burned away as it formed into sheer will.

I sauntered over to the mattress, disgusted with myself. Disgusted and disgraced, full of nothing but shame and pity. I wished Seth would just rip the knife from my heart instead of twisting and twisting each day, keeping me alive, but just barely. Hoping for death. That's where his torture came from. He didn't want you to die until you wanted yourself to die. Psychopath. Serial Killer. Serial torturer. The list of names I could think of for him were as endless as this pain. I'd get in front of him. End this for him too. He didn't get to go on living like this. I'd make sure of it.

I scooped up my clothes and put them back on. No longer naked, no longer scared. I had a plan, a portion of one, and I was going to get the hell out of here. I just had to play the part of someone else. I could do that. I could separate myself, my body from this. I just had to pretend that I were on a stage with another actor, playing the role of a happy couple. Up until the day I broke myself out. There was only one spot that no one could see into at all, making me invisible to anyone else especially if he isn't thinking correctly. He never locked the door while down here, and though I knew he was fast, I had enough adrenaline and anger to power myself and four others. Because I was powerful. I stood up tall and strong, no longer shaking. I looked at the small bed and began to strip it of its sheets. Gently wrapping it into a ball and then throwing them into a far corner. They were dirty, and I was going to be clean.

I was clean. Or I would be soon. Clean of Seth. There was nothing in this room I could use to hurt him except for myself and... I smiled to myself. I was so dumb to not think of it before. How could I have been so stupid. I looked back at the mirror, all ten of my faces smiling back at me. The glass was cracked, easy enough to peel off a small piece without anyone noticing that there was something amiss. I would have a knife of my own. I managed to rip off a corner of one of the sheets and wrapped it around my hand for protection. I climbed onto the counter and braced myself on the wall, difficult with hands and legs bound together.

I grabbed onto a piece of the mirror and pulled. Unlike the shelf, it gave way easily and before I knew it, I had a sharp piece of glass in my hand. My now 9 reflections looked back at me, proud. I wrapped it with the fabric I had tied around my hand and tucked it in my shorts. I would eventually hide it among the books, a corner where he never dared to go. He owned the books, but I knew all the stories, a power that he didn't have over me. My brain was full of the narratives of other victims who managed to escape their killer. Seth left that dark, spider infested corner as my safe space, and that's exactly what it would become. It would be his downfall.

I stood, hands in front of me, surveying the space that had become my room. Three weeks. I had almost been here three weeks. Three goddamned weeks too long. I would be here for no more than five days longer I promised myself. I was going to break out.