Featherless Bird

Carolyn, tears still in her eyes looked around, but saw nothing for the mere fact that the room was pitch black. Carolyn couldn’t see how big the room was, or if anything was in it, and that was when she started to hyperventilate. It was a horrible feeling, but she couldn’t help herself, the darkness plus being locked in a room didn’t match well with her. She started doing some breathing exercises that she had learned, and thankfully her breathing became increasingly slower, making its way back to being normal.

She didn’t know how long she would be there, and that’s when she started getting scared again. Maybe Wade had abandoned her and he’d never come back and she would die in that room. Maybe the cops would one day find her, just to see that she was just a rotting corpse with rats living inside of her.

Carolyn slapped herself mentally and told herself to stop trying to scare her. It would give her nothing and would probably just make the time she would be in there pass slower.
So, she started singing. She sang every song she could think of, and when she couldn’t remember the lyrics she whistled the rhythm.

After a while, her bladder couldn’t take anymore so she urinated on herself, making the already awful stench in the room even more horrible with the new scent of piss. The horrible feeling of her skirt being all wet disgusted her and made her uncomfortable, but after a while she managed to get to sleep, ignoring the scary thoughts that would jump into her mind.
When Carolyn woke up, she felt extremely groggy and stiff, probably because she had been sleeping on wood. The scent was still lingering in the room, though it had diluted with time, but her skirt and underwear were still as uncomfortable as ever.

She had no idea how long she had been in there, or what time it was. For all that she knew, the apocalypse had finally happened and she was the last human beings still alive.

Not for long. She thought as her stomach grumbled in fury at the lack of food it was receiving. Her thoughts started to wander to places that a person on marijuana might have, she started thinking that maybe it was because of the fumes of her own piss.

After a while, she just started blacking out occasionally, from lack of water and food probably. It’s not like she could just walk out and go get some food from the kitchen or anything like that.

She had no idea how long passed, or how long she had slept or had stayed unconscious, it was all a big blur of blackness and psychedelic thoughts.

Finally, she heard a sound that she hadn’t heard in God knows how long. The noise of a door opening. She looked up just in time to see a crack of light filtering through the open door, and then it swung open. For some moments it blinded her completely, her eyes had been adjusted to the light so the sudden realization that there was actually still light on Earth startled her.

Carolyn blinked her eyes several times before she was able to recognize Wade’s face looking down at her. Without a word, he picked her up bridal style and brought her to her room. He laid her on her bed, Carolyn still unresponsive. But when he went away, she got up and uttered a single ‘no’, almost silence since she hadn’t talked in so long.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right back.” Wade said, before continuing his way wherever he was going. Carolyn lay back down, unable to actually stay up any longer. She closed her eyes, but just when sleep was about to engulf her, Wade came back, holding in his hands a pair of boxers.

“Here you go.” He said, but Carolyn didn’t have the energy to get up, so she only stayed there, not moving. Wade sighed, and began to pull off her skirt and underwear. In any other circumstances, Carolyn would’ve never let this happen, but she was past the stage of caring at this point.

When Wade saw that she had urinated on herself, he sighed and picked her up and brought her to the bathroom, where he finished taking her clothes off, and sat her in the shower before starting the shower. When the hot water hit her, it seemed as if the life returned in her just a bit, and she was able to sit as Wade rubbed a wet cloth over her.

After that, he dressed her in the pair of boxers he had gotten and an over-sized T-shirt. Carolyn stayed limp through this all; she knew that Wade wasn’t going to hurt her at that moment, so it didn’t bother her.

Once the process was over, he brought her back to her room and made her eat some soup, which she ate hungrily until there wasn’t a smudge left. The minute she finished eating, she started feeling extremely dizzy and tired again, so the minute she rested her head on the pillow, she was a goner.

When Carolyn woke up once more, she felt better than she had in what seemed like age. She was clean, fed, and wasn’t passing out, so those were all good signs. She looked to her left, where the sun was peeking through the trees, making its way in the room. Carolyn suddenly heard the door open a bit, and Wade standing in the doorway.
He looked horrible, it didn’t seem like he had shaved in days, his clothes were all rumpled, and he just looked downright awful.

“You okay?” She asked her voice still raspy and broken. Carolyn had no idea why she was asking that, it just seemed to escape from her mouth.

Wade scoffed and looked around the room, still refusing to look at her. “Sure, but I’m not the one who was locked up in that room for four days.” Carolyn looked at him with wide eyes. Four days? She had been locked in that damn room for four days?! She tried to sit up, but her arm muscles failed her and she just fell back. The young girl groaned in frustration but stayed put, not wanting to fail at getting up again.

“Come on, let’s get you some food. You’ll feel better after that.” Carolyn nodded, and Wade picked her up, having figured that she wouldn’t be able to walk. Silence engulfed the two of them while Wade made her a grilled-cheese and some more soup. She didn’t say anything, but she was already getting sick of soup.

She ate in silence as Wade made sure she ate all of it. He didn’t have to though; she pretty much inhaled her food. Carolyn still tried to wrap her mind with the thought that she had actually been in that room for four days. It didn’t seem possible, but why would Wade lie about that anyways?

“Was I really in there for four days?” She asked, the feeling that she had to make sure was stronger than her common sense.

“Yeah.” Wade said, looking down as though he was ashamed. “If I stayed here I would’ve probably killed you, so I went to town for a couple of days.” The fact that he said that upfront surprised Carolyn even more than the fact that he didn’t get angry at her.

“Alright.” She said, not wanting to go accusing him because well, she was still alive and wanted to keep it that way.

“Actually, no it’s not. You could’ve pretty much died in there.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t. So just drop it.” Carolyn had said it more sternly than she meant too, but it worked. Wade silenced again, his head still down, probably still feeling bad. She didn’t exactly know why though, he had kidnapped her for a reason she still didn’t know, and now he was feeling bad that she almost died? And, why wasn’t she mad at him? Why wasn’t she fighting back as much as she should’ve? This was all too much for Carolyn’s mind so she decided just to store those thoughts away for some other time.