Cast The Die

Chapter Twelve

April 2019

It's a good job I'm not scared of the dark. I'm finally able to sit myself up, I must be in the middle of a room because I can't feel any walls around me with my legs. I push my feet into the ground and shuffle backwards until I hit something. I feel around with my hands behind my back, it's a wall. My head is still throbbing, and I'm drenched in what I'm assuming is blood. I lean back on the wall with my back flat against it, bringing my knees to my chest. I place my head in between my knees and start moving my head back and forth, wrestling the tightly tied blindfold from my eyes. It's not budging. I use the boniest part of my knee to push the blindfold up, one side at a time. It must be moving because I can feel it where I hit my head. It's tiring but I'm getting this blindfold off, I need to know where I am.

I was never interested in the Action and Adventure films that Jen used to watch. I was a sucker for romance, anything with drama I was obsessed. From the Twilight series to The Notebook. She always watched them with me because she loved how much I loved them. Her choices were from the Action and Adventure section, her favourite was a Liam Neeson movie called Taken, how ironic? I told her how she would be a terrible person to kidnap because she's so boisterous and annoying they'd want to give her back. She promised that if I ever got kidnapped, she would find me and kill the 'fuckers' that took her best friend. I promised I would do the same, but we burst into laughter at the idea of me fighting someone.

After what seemed like three hours, I finally got the blindfold onto my forehead. It won't move any further, so it'll have to stay there until my hands are free. There hasn't been any movement or noise since I woke up, so I think I'm still alone. I'm looking around the room and it's empty. Literally, empty. When I fell, I must have hit my head on the ground. There's light shining through small holes in what looks like a shutter door, that's the sound I heard when they threw me in here. It's dark but it looks like the storage unit my Dad rents. He used to bring me here when I was younger, he keeps boxes and furniture in there, things Mam doesn't want to throw away but also doesn't want in the house. The place is called Shed Space and it's not that big. Is that where I am? It's a five-minute drive from my house, if I can get out of here, I can easily get home. What if I'm not at Shed Space? What if I get out of here and I'm in a different country? I have no idea how long I was unconscious or how long I was in the van. I don't even know how long I've been in this unit. It could have been days, maybe even a week. I haven't eaten since before I went to the party, if it had been a week I would have been starving. My mouth is dry, and I am hungry, but I'm only bothered about getting out of here, I can't think about food.

My hands are tied behind my back, whatever they're tied with its cutting into my skin and I can't even wiggle my fingers. The more I try to pull my hands apart, the tighter it gets. There is no way I'm losing my fingers; I'm already being held captive. I clear my throat.

"He...Hello" I croak. "Hello...Is anybody there?" I start to cough. "Please, my hands, I can't feel my hands" my voice is hoarse, and my throat still burns. "Please, please help me. Anybody, please" my voice is becoming less husky with each word. The more I think about my hands the more painful it gets.

A few moments later, the shutter opens slightly from the bottom. The light shining through is so bright it burns my corneas, so I shut my eyes and look away to stop the pain. I hear footsteps walking towards me and the shutter goes down again. I can't see who it is, and he doesn't say a word. He pulls me up from the ground, turns me around and slams my face against the wall. I let out a weak scream and he tells me to shut up. The man who dragged me out the van. His hands feel the same, rough and ragged. He cut my hands free and ties them up again, this time with a softer piece of rope. He pulled my blindfold down over my eyes. Shit. He tightened it from the back before throwing me back down to the ground. I heard the shutter open and the light appeared again, less bright this time. The shutter was closed again, and I was left alone in the dark. Back where I started.