Prisoner

I guess I had cried myself to sleep. Waking up was a harsh jolt into reality. I was almost at peace when I had been sleeping. Not now. Not anymore that I was awake. My head hurt so much, I though it was going to cave in and kill me. Though, I wouldn’t mind that, at least I wouldn’t be here anymore.

I listened for Smitty. For any sign the he was still alive....nothing. I was worried. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t leave me alone in here, all by myself. I had to know if he was still alive, but if he was just sleeping, I didn’t want to wake him. I knew how nice sleep was. How much of an escape it was. Maybe if I just said his name...just once, he might hear me. He might make some little noise, or even better, a joke, to let me know he was still here.

“Smitty,” I whispered, barely audible. “Are you still here?”

I waited.......nothing, again. I started shaking uncontrollably. He was dead, I knew it. Tears rolled down my cheeks again. This time they were not silent. Small sobs were emitted from my mouth. Reality had finally sunk in. I was really kidnaped, trapped, and Smitty was dead. This could not be happening to me. Not to me!

Through my sobs I heard a voice. I stopped crying. He was still alive! I wasn’t alone. For one fleeing moment, I felt glad.

“Smitty?” I asked.

But to my horror, the voice answered, “No.”

Dread filled me again.

This voice wasn’t as deep as the man that had come in before. It was coming from my left. Smitty was on my right. If he wasn’t Smitty...he could have been the one that hurt him. I was convinced that’s who it was, and I was angry.

“You sick, twisted bastard!” I yelled. “You killed him. He’s DEAD! You ass hole! You demented fuckin’ bastar-“

”Katee-“ he tried to cut me off.

“Go to hell!” And I spit in the direction his voice was coming from. I heard him voice his disgust in a curse, and I was happy that I made him mad. But I wasn’t done. “You perverted, madman!” I was running out of things to say. I’m not exactly the mean type. “BASTARD!”

“KATEE!” he yelled again.

“WHAT?” I yelled back.

“He’s still alive!”

I stopped breathing. Was he telling the truth? My question was answered by another voice.

“Katee,” it mumbled.

It was Smitty. He was still alive. I sighed and let myself slide down as far as the chains would let me. But...who was the other person? And what’s more, how did he know my name?

“Katee,” the person said again. “it’s okay. We’re all alive.”

I listened hard to the voice. It obviously knew me. But I couldn’t place it. “Who-“

”Jason.” he said, cutting me off again.

Jason...a friend of a friend. If he had been in here and I didn’t know it, couldn’t that mean there were others in here we hadn’t heard yet? Others that were in the same place we were? And he had said that we were all alive, but...

“For how long?” I asked.

“What?” Jason asked.

I’m not sure if he was asking what I meant, or if he had heard me at all.

“How long will we be alive?” I asked again. And how long will they keep us like this? I thought to myself.

No one answered my question. I guessed Smitty had gone back to sleep. We sat in darkness for a long time. My head slowly stopped throbbing, as loudly.

My fingers were cold, and it wasn’t just because it was cold down here. The shackles were cutting off the circulation to my hands. I tenderly stretched out my fingers, then curled them back in again. I repeated this several times, until they weren’t quite as cold.

My thoughts went back to Smitty. I knew he was hurt, bad. He needed help. He, most of all, needed out of here. Maybe if I... if I made some kind of deal with them...gave my- myself to them or something, they’d let him go. More tears came at this thought. But I knew it was what I had to do...he'd sure as hell do the same thing for me and I knew it.

It was a long time before anybody said anything. Actually, I don’t even think Smittywas awake when he started mumbling.

I had been trying to see if I could reach him with my foot. For some reason, I just felt like I really needed to touch him, to make sure he was still there. I was moving my foot closer to him, I knew it was stupid, but I didn’t want him to know I was trying to reach him. As soon as I heard him mumble something, I immediately froze. He didn’t seem to realize I was as close to him as I was, or I thought I was, it was too dark to see anything. I stopped thinking to listen to what he was saying. I couldn’t quite make it out at first.

“What’s he saying?” Apparently Jason couldn’t make out what he was saying either.

I listened more. He was still mumbling something...something about...Sunday? He’s dreaming about Sunday? No...that couldn’t be it...could it? Then it dawned on me. Yes, it was Sunday he was mumbling, but not the Sunday I had thought, it was a sundae, with ice-cream. How he could want something cold, I didn’t know. Myself, I was freezing.

“He’s hungry,” I told Jason. “He apparently wants...a sundae.”

“Oh! that sounds so good.” Jason said. “And maybe with some hot fudge and a cherry.”

“Really?” I questioned. “Ice-cream? Aren’t you cold?”

“Well yeah...” Jason admitted. “But I’m really hungry. Anything sounds good at this point.”

I smiled to myself. I could think of a lot of things that I’d never want to eat...ever! Probably Jason too. Take a broccoli/pickle sandwich for instance...yuck! But I didn’t bother to say anything. I was too shy. Plus I didn’t really know Jason. Then a thought came to me.

“How long have we been here?” I asked.

“Ummm...I dunno. Why?” Jason asked.

“The rules of three,” I answered.

“What?” Obviously he didn’t know about them. I’d heard them on CSI once, that’s how I knew.

“The rules of three,” I repeated. “Three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food.”

....silence...

To my right I noticed a small, blue light. I didn’t know if I was imagining it or not. But it was soon gone. I must have been.

“It’s 18th,” came Smitty's voice. It must have still hurt him to talk. That wasn’t quite a complete sentence, but I knew what he meant.

“H-how did you...” I started to ask, but decided there was a better question. “Are you sure?”

“Watch,” was his only reply. So that must have been what the light was. He had on one of those watches that you could press a button and it lit up. Digital too I suppose. That’s how he knew what day it was.

“What happens after three days?” Jason asked.

“Huh?” I’d forgotten what we were talking about.

“Three days without water,” he quoted. “What happens after three days?”

“Oh...” I thought about it. There was only one answer... “We die,” I said simply. “Dehydration.”

...more silence...

So if this is the 18th, I thought, and it was the 16th when we went out for the walk...we had about one day left to live. From every movie I’d ever seen, I knew I should be panicking, but I wasn’t. And I couldn’t figure out why.

I was spending my last hours with Smitty...it wasn’t that bad. But I should tell him how I feel, I knew I’d never get a chance again. But I didn’t think I could do it. I mean, this was the guy that I’ve liked since grade five, and knew since kindergarten. I couldn’t possibly tell him how I felt now. I guess I’d just die alone.

When I was in elementary, I used to think life would be perfect when I grew up. I’d get married to the perfect guy, have perfect kids who loved me, live in a little house with blue shutters, and maybe have a family cat. I drew a picture of my dream life once for show n’ tell in grade four. A lot of people laughed at me, but I can remember that Smitty (Ryan at the time) didn’t laugh. I never understood why. He always acted different around me, I noticed that later when I got older. When I went out with my first boyfriend, Craig Blaine( he was good friends with Craig), he asked me almost everyday if I liked Craig. I never understood why. But now I was starting to think... Could he have liked me....no, that was impossible. Yet Sherlock Holmes once said that when you eliminate all other possibilities, what ever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the answer.

Or something like that.

So did that mean Smitty liked me?

Impossible! Wasn’t it?

No, that wasn’t it. I had finally gone crazy! Yes. That was it. Three days without food and almost dead. I had cracked.

I let out a maniacal laugh. But I couldn’t stop. I kept laughing. I wanted to stop, really I did. I just...couldn’t. I laughed so hard, tears streamed down my face. My laughing was slowly replaced by small sobs, which eventually evolved into a full out wail. I cried until my eyes were dry and no more tears would come.

I didn’t care what Smitty thought of me. I didn’t care what Jason thought of me. I was dying and I wanted to be heard. Some one would save me. This is not how it would end. I would not go out like this. Someone would save us!

Whenever I cry and feel sorry for myself, every bad memory comes flooding back to me. Everything I’d ever done wrong. Everything I’d ever gotten in trouble for. Every moment of awkwardness, it was all floating around in my mind, taunting me.

I was no longer sad, I was angry. No, not angry, furious. Who were they to keep me against my will, without food, to my death?

I heard the door being pushed open. The light blinded my eyes. Heavy footsteps came my way. A hand slapped me hard across my face.

“Shut the hell up!” he said.

This time Smitty didn’t stick up for me. I almost felt offended, but this was my battle.

I felt something cold against my lip. I pulled away.

“Drink!” he ordered.

They were saving us, keeping us alive. But why? What did we have? It must help them in someway, keeping us alive.

I turned my head away. I would rather die then benefit their cause.

“Drink!” he demanded.

I shook my head.

I heard Jason being picked up.

“If you don’t eat now, you’ll die soon,” he threatened.

He ran the cool blade of a knife along my neck. I didn’t care if they tortured me. I’d just die sooner. I said nothing.

“I’m sure your friends don’t like metal in their flesh.”

I turned towards him. He wasn’t threatening me, he was threatening me with the pain of the others. I slowly took a drink. It was water. Cold water. It tasted disgusting. It was town water. I’m not form the town. Sure, I go to school there, but I live outside of it. We have our own well, with clean, fresh water. This was not our water. So we were obviously still in town, or some city. I began to wonder if we were still even in the same country.

My thoughts were interrupted when the cup was jerked away from my lips. I stretched my neck out for it. I still wanted it. I was still thirsty and dying. Instead of the cool metal of the cup on my lips I felt something more warm, and soft. It wasn’t all that soft, but softer then the metal. He shoved it into my mouth.

“Chew!” he ordered.

This time I obeyed. I ground the piece of food up between my back teeth. It was tough and stale. I was pretty sure it was a small loaf of bread. It was hard to make myself swallow it. It felt like a small rodent wiggling around in my mouth. But I finally managed to get it down. He kept shoving small pieces into my mouth until, I guessed, it was all gone.

Again the tart water was pushed to my lips. I drank it thirstily. I tried to catch every drop he presented to me, but to my dismay, some still rolled down my chin. This is not when I was going to die. This is not when any of us were going to die.

With that done, he stood up, but not before he leaned in close to me. He must have been going to say something, but decided against it. I watched him leave. Two others followed him. The door was shut and we were out into the darkness again. I was safe again.