She Sits Alone
She sits alone. Her mother is asleep in the chair next to her. It is dark except for the faint flickering light next to her mother. Silence, besides the music playing in the next room, and the fan on upstairs. She leans back in her chair… something doesn’t feel right.
‘Click.’
The light turns off.
The music stops.
The fan whirs to a stop.
The girl whispers for her mother, telling her to wake up.
She stands up out of her chair and trips on something.
She rubs her knee then whispers for her mother again.
No reply.
She reaches her hand out to her mothers chair; her hand touches the seat cushion. She whispers for her mother again, now with a hint of worry in her voice. There is a scraping sound outside.
The girl gets a rush of panic, and looks around frantically. She puts her hands out in front of her to feel. She touches the wall. Her small hands run along the plaster as she crawls on the cold brick floor. She comes to a corner and her fingers slide around the edge of the plaster wall.
He follows along the wall some more, and she tries to get the layout of the room in her head. She thinks there should be a chair in front of her, then a potted plant and then the steps down to the garage door that they never opened. She feels in front of her for the chair, and then puts her hand on one of the legs and crawls around it back to the wall, still heading in the same direction. She doesn’t know where she’s going, or why, but she keeps crawling. She crawls a bit more and feels the plant in front of her, and again, crawls around it and places her hand back on the wall.
She hears a footstep behind her, and turns her head even though it is too dark to see anything.
‘Thud.’
She feels her self falling down the stairs helplessly, her body like a big twisted mess. She falls through the garage door. The one they never opened. And then she blacks out.
The girl wakes up, and opens her eyes. It doesn’t make much difference whether her eyes are open or closed; it’s so dark she can hardly see anything. She hears a door closing behind her.
And locked.
From the inside.
She tries to stay silent and holds her breath, listening for any sounds around her, afraid of what she might hear. She crawls towards what she thinks is the door.
She hears a sound from behind her, maybe three metres, over near the car door to the garage.
She freezes mid-crawl.
Her heart is beating at a million miles per hour. She suddenly hears a shuffle behind her, and a hand in a thick leather glove is shoved down her throat, making it impossible for her to breathe or scream, and she gags on his strong grip. He forces his arm under her shoulder and pulls her out the door outside.
He dragged her like that the whole way. Her jaw ached and her feet were bruised and rubbed raw from the rough surface of the road.
When she tried to shake herself free of his tough grip, he pulled her up and kneed her forcefully in the stomach. She collapsed down on the ground and he continued dragging her.
She felt herself being pulled over a road, and then through some bush. She felt like passing out from the passing out from the pain, but she tried to stay awake.
She felt like vomiting from his deep hold on her throat. She needed to get away.
After almost 20 minutes being dragged, the girl is released onto the ground. She looks around quickly, but it is still dark, and so hard to see.
She suddenly feels a deep pain in her stomach. He has kicked her again, harder this time. She vomits on the ground then collapses in a heap. She can still feel her throbbing stomach. She tries to drag her self away, tears streaming down her face. But the leather grip is back, this time on her wrists. The dark figure looms above her, and then pulls her up to her knees. She pulls away with a rush of energy, tries to escape, but he grabs her fingers.
She feels an intense, sharp, throbbing pain.
He has bent her fingers backward so far that they touch the tops of her arms.
A scream shoots through the dead air.
She wakes up.
Her mother leans over her, a worried expression on her face.
Th girls heart is beating fast.
Sweat pours down her face and body.
She looks around. Back in her living room.
Then,
The lights turn off.
So does the music,
And the fan.
There is a scraping sound outside.