Trapped

He noticed me looking at him. He looked casually away. Maybe he was just looking for someone else? Yeah, must be. I rolled my eyes at my foolishness. Really, Leslie? Really? It's just some dude at a water park.

"Leslie?" Melody asked. I snapped out of my thoughts and came back to reality.

"Sorry. What?"

"Do you want to go in the hot tub?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, sure." I smiled at them, as I knew they looked worried about me and the way I had been acting today.

The hot tub was empty when we got there, so we could talk about whatever. As we got more involved in our conversation, more people seemed to arrive at the pool and join us in the hot tub. Now due to the limited amount of privacy, we stopped talking.

"Hey, guys," I told them, "I'm gunna go to the bathroom real quick." They seemed to not have heard me because they were now talking to some guys our age they had just met. I got up and left the hot tub to go get my flip flops. Heading over to the bathroom, I glanced back at the hot tub where Scarlett and Melody were still talking to the two boys.

"That is so them," I mumbled to myself, smiling. "I wouldn't be surprised if Scar or Mel are going out with one of the guys by the end of the day." I laughed to myself.

I pushed open the door to be greeted by a dirty empty bathroom that contained the smell of chlorine. It seemed very humid in the bathroom, too. Through the closed door, I could hear the close-by echo of screams and conversation out in the pool area. The white tiled floor was wet and grimy. I found the least filthy stall at the far end of the room. It felt eerie in there; to be in there all alone. Every sound was amplified and echoed.

While in the stall, I heard the voices and noise outside become louder and closer, then they became muffled again. There were now deep footsteps throughout the room. I saw the shadow of the feet under my stall go into another stall nearby the bathroom door. Feeling awkward to be in there with only another person, I flushed the toilet and unlocked the stall door; I made my way to the sinks on the other side of the room. I saw the feet beneath the one stall shuffle as I approached it.

As I passed the stall with the person in it, several things happened at once. The stall's lock clicked open, and I had turned in its direction. The stall door swung open as I tried to run towards the bathroom door through instinct. The stall door had hit me in the back of my head and legs, sending me flying forward, where I subsequently fell face down on the wet, disgusting floor. I turned my body over to face the person; it was a skinny though muscular man around forty with a stubbly face and ruffled sandy-blond hair with piercing blue eyes.

It was the man at the end of the slide. The man from the top of the flight of stairs leading to the slides. The man I had felt scared of and had thought was watching me.

He jumped on top of me, pinning me down. I tried to move, but it was useless. He quickly put his big, rough hand to my mouth. He spoke softly but fiercely in a rough voice, "You scream, you will never see the light of day again." He has barely moved his lips when he spoke. He now smirked at me as he flourished a small, gleaming dagger in front of my face.

I let out a small sob as a tear trickled down my face.

How could this be happening to me? I should've listened to my mom. 'Stick together.' Where are Scar and Mel now?

"Now, are you going to listen to me?" he asked me gently. I nodded my head, still silently crying. "Good. Now, do what I say, and I won't hurt you. Now stay here." He got up and took my feet in his hands. He dragged me to the middle of the room. "That's in case you get any ideas." He headed off to a window on the other side of the room. I couldn't see what he was doing through my blurred vision of tears. I tried to squeeze the tears out of my eyes to see better.

Now's my chance to escape. Now or never.

Without any hesitation, I jumped to my feet and sprinted to the door. But I only took a few steps before being tackled to the ground again. I hit my head hard on a nearby sink.

Lights popped in my head and the edges of my sight went black. I submitted myself into the drowning darkness as I lost consciousness. The world around me seemed to swirl as everything became obscured.