Page 82 of Say You Love Me

I wiggle my fingers. Nothing. My arms are dead. All the blood has drained from them as they hang above my head, enough to allow a bend at my elbows, enough to allow my head to rest against my forearms.

I test my restraints. The chains clank as they jostle together. I can move my hands up, from side to side, but I cannot pull them down. My left shoulder hurts more than my right. It is pressed to a wall that reflects the coldness and smoothness of the floor.

All parts of my body ache. It is a dull, deep ache. The type that has settled into my bones, stiff from sitting in the same position for however long I have been here.

Trying to sort through my thoughts is like wading through fog. Memories are there but I can’t recall them. The cloud that has settled in my brain hides them from me. Maybe that is why I’m not screaming, not crying. Although my body drips with panic and dread, my mind is blank. And that terrifies me most of all.

I have no idea where I am, or why I’m here.

Wincing, I twist my body so I can sit on my backside, my back pressed to the wall, my hands hanging at approximately the same level as my forehead. I stretch out my legs, push my feet over the smooth surface and wiggle my toes. Painful tingles of pins and needles torment my feet. I long to reach down and rub them. Push my fingers into the webbing of my toes for relief. Stretch the tendons. Massage the sensation away.

Then I laugh. It is just a small bubble of sound, but it escapes my lips and falls into the empty space. I am tied—no—chained. I have no idea how I got here, why I am here, and yet, I am worried about the pins and needles in my feet.

I laugh again. But it is a splutter this time. A series of foamy bubbles at the back of my throat that eventually turn to tears.

And then I sob.

I scream.

I jerk on my chains.

I kick out across the floor.

I bang my head against the wall.

But none of it makes any difference. No one comes to my rescue.

The silence is deafening. Only my own voice echoes around the small space. At least, I think it must be small. It sounds small. It sounds as though I am trapped, that no one can hear me because my screams reverberate off the walls until I’m no longer sure if I am still screaming or if I am just left with the echo.

I scream for hours. For minutes. Or maybe for seconds. My throat is raw. There is something warm and damp running down my arms but I no longer feel pain. My arms don’t ache. My shoulders, neck, stomach, and legs no longer exist. I am nothing but a pile of flesh and bones leaning against a wall.

But the fog that drapes over my mind like a blanket is beginning to lift. I still don’t know anything, no answers as to where I am, why I am here, but little connections begin to form. I imagine them as sparks, linking the patterns of my brain. So I sit silent and still, waiting for them to make sense. Waiting for them to give me the answers I’m looking for.

There is this part, the smallest part of me that hopes, or rather dreams, that this is some sick practical joke. That a door will clank open and the blindfold will be ripped from my eyes. I would blink, stunned by the sudden brightness, and people would shout ‘surprise’. But the ache in my muscles tells me I have been here for too long. And the sensibility of my brain tells me that no one I know would be that cruel.

But I long for it. For some sort of sickness in one of my friends that might lead to them thinking a practical joke like that would be funny.

And then I hear it. The beep of a keypad, the hushed opening of a door, the feel of slightly warmer air hitting my skin.

“Hello?” I say. It isn’t a scream or a cry. It’s just one word, usually meant as a greeting and followed by a smile.

Silence.

“Hello?” I try again, this time louder. More desperate. “Is someone there?” My voice catches, a plea tearing my throat.

There is someone in the room. Whereas before I felt coldness and emptiness, now there is a presence. A dark presence.

“Hello? If you’re there, if someone is there, please answer me.”

Only silence.

I can smell them. Their scent is musky. A man’s cologne mixed with wood and dirt.

“I know you’re there.” I try a different tack. One that doesn’t show my fear, that doesn’t have me cowering in the corner. I move to sit on my knees, ears scanning the room for a hint of sound that will betray his position.

There is a hitch of breath so quiet, so faint, that had my ears not been straining for a glimpse of sound, I would have missed it.

“I can hear you,” I whisper. “I know you’re there.”

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