Featherless Bird

It took Carolyn almost three day to get back to normal, ‘normal’ including not sleeping all day, eating the right dose of food, and being able to function by herself. Wade was there through it all, though sometimes Carolyn would just get fed up by him and wished he would leave. It never happened; he didn’t even go to work, not until he knew she was back on her feet.

There was one good thing that came out of that whole scenario though. Carolyn was able to roam the house when Wade was gone at work or wherever he went. There was only one door and it was always locked, plus there weren't any windows on the bottom floor that she could break and escape from. There was no way she could have gotten out of that house without getting seriously injured in the process.

Carolyn’s days were spent more leisurely from that day on. She still played her violin most of the day, but she cleaned the house spotless, and attempted to learn to cook also. The latter didn’t work too well, so she continued to eat things that didn’t require great cooking skills. That was another thing that had changed, during the day she could eat as she pleased.

So there she was, one afternoon that Wade was working, scrubbing the floor with a wet towel, attempting to rub off some of the dirt that covered the floor. Carolyn was starting to think that maybe she was starting a case of ODC, but she wasn’t totally sure.

She sighed as she looked down to the floor; it was still dirty, a thin layer of grime on it, but less than before. She got up from the ground, rubbing her sore knees in the process. For the last few days she had been literally on her knees all day, trying to get the house to look a bit more livable. The only thing she had done though was take off the layers of dirt that were everywhere, cleaned all the dishes in the cabinets so they were actually clean and attempted to do the same with the bathroom. That last attempt had been a total failure, as she had found almost no cleaning supply for that particular room, plus, when she had looked deep enough it was so filthy she had just given up.

Carolyn decided that she had done all the cleaning possible for the day and decided to go watch TV for a while. She flipped through the channels lazily, nothing catching her attention until she stopped at a local news report. There was a picture of a very familiar girl, and when she finally realized who it was, she gasped. It was a picture of her, taken about a year ago while she had been visiting her family.

She turned up the volume just in time to hear: If you see this girl, please call this number. With that, a telephone number appeared on the bottom of the screen. But before Carolyn knew what to do, the number was gone and the spokeswoman was already talking about a flood that had happened in some town.

Carolyn was stupefied. She didn’t know what to do. Maybe she should call, but she already forgot what the number was. Also, she wasn’t even sure if there was a phone in the house. But, even if there was, and that she could’ve called, would she? The automatic answer was of course. So with that thought, Carolyn pushed back the other thoughts that were beginning to swarm her head and decided to go do something to get her mind off missing a chance to escape.

She decided to explore the house, since she hadn’t properly done it yet. She climbed up the stairs, and looked at the doors. She already knew that the door at the end was where her violin was, and that the second door on the right was hers, and that the room before hers was Wade’s.

Curiosity took over Carolyn as she opened the door to Wade’s room slowly. For the most part, it looked a lot like her room. The same color, the same dainty window, though his didn’t have any nails shutting it. He did have more things than her though; he had a queen sized bed, two desks, a chair and a mirror.
Carolyn stepped in further, wanting to investigate a bit. In one of the desks, there were three drawers. In the first two, it was filled with clothes, all varying in the black and grey family. In the third drawer, it was filled to the brim with comic books.

There were the usual Batman and Superman but there were also the weird ones that she had never heard of. Carolyn stared in awe at them, although she had never been into comic books. She was ready to bet anything that all of them together were probably more expensive than his TV bill.

She didn’t dare touch any, in fear that Wade would figure out that she had been in his room if one of his comics wasn’t exactly in the right spot.

On the other desk was a small aquarium, in it was a fish, but as Carolyn looked closer she figured out that the fish was actually dead, and had probably been for some time. She stared at it, afraid that it was suddenly going to come back to life and viciously attack her. At this point, she started thinking that maybe being locked inside a house with a mentally deranged man probably wasn’t helping her own mental state.

Since there was no point in continuing to look in his room, there was nothing much to see anyways, she decided to go explore the two other rooms.

Carolyn had no idea how long she stood looking at the two white doors in front of her, debating whether to actually go in, and then which she should enter first. Finally, she decided that she’d go, and she’d start with the right door. She opened it slowly, afraid of what she would find inside, but was almost deceived when there was only an old, worn out sofa sitting in the middle with emptiness surrounding it.

Carolyn then went to the other door, with this one, she didn't know what to expect. It would either be extremely deceiving like the other one, or there would be something in there that would scar her for life. She didn't know if she actually wanted to find out what was in it. But her curiosity won over yet again, and she found herself pushing the door slowly open.

For the first moments, she was incredibly relieved that nothing had jumped on her, and that it wasn't some sort of place where a bunch of corpses were. But then she realized where she was, she was in the room that she had been locked in for so long. She looked to her right to find a light switch, and slapped herself mentally because she hadn't found it while she was in there. Though, she couldn't entirely blame herself, she wouldn't have found it if it wasn't for the light in the hall.

Carolyn took a deep breath, and when she turned the light on, she gasped. Pictures of her decorated the walls, almost none of the beige paiting appearing. She suppressed a shriek as she made her way further into the room. The pictures were all recent enough; they were all while she lived in London. There were pictures of her with Ellie and Albert while they were walking or sitting at a restaurant, there were pictures of her entering the subway, of her walking down the street, of her drinking coffee at the damned coffee house. Her legs abandoned her as she crumpled to the ground, her knuckle shoved into her mouth so as not to let any sound come out. This couldn't be possible. She would've noticed if someone followed her like that. The other part of her just thought about how Wade had said that he hadn't stalked her, all of this vanished when she had seen those pictures. Maybe he had hired someone different every time to take pictures of her so Carolyn didn't get suspicious, or maybe she was just too into her own little world to notice anything. She didn't know, nor did she care as she inspected every picture, trying to recall when all of them were taken.

She saw one of her and Ellie shopping, and remembered that that day, Ellie had just broken up with one of her boyfriends and that she had called Carolyn in a rush saying she needed 'therapeutic shopping'.
There was also one of her and Albert, sitting on a bench, just talking. Carolyn noted at that moment that Albert had his arm around her, maybe she had led him on that she liked him unknowingly. The tears started once again, as she looked at all the memories of her former life, and realized that it would never be the same, that she would never be the same.

Maybe she would be trapped in this house with Wade forever. Or maybe he would kill her in a matter of days or weeks. Maybe someone would come rescue her, but even if that happened, she knew that things wouldn't be the same. She wouldn't be as carefree or as shallow as before. She'd take fewer things for granted. She'd tell Albert how she really felt about him, and would try to talk to Ellie about her boy problems. Maybe she'd move back to Vancouver with her family and would become a hermit who'd be afraid to get out.

She didn't know and it began to scare her.

Suddenly, she heard a door open, and then slam shut. Carolyn's eyes got wide as she scrambled to her feet, wiped the tears off her face and ran went downstairs, making sure to close the door behind her.

"Damn cold." She heard Wade mutter as a welcoming present.
"Well, it is winter." She said, unable to keep her sarcastic remark to herself, although she could feel that she was shaking from her prior discovery.

"Doesn't mean a thing. If we were in Miami it wouldn't be this cold, now would it? So, did you make me a delicious turkey dinner?" Wade asked, mocking her.

"Not turkey but I can make you a delicious dinner. Would you like to eat your Kraft Dinner now, or later?" He rolled his eyes at her, but she just ignored it, just happy that he hadn't noticed the tear stains on her face. Wade had a bag in his hands, and Carolyn shook her head as she recognized the logo on it. More comic books.

"So, why do you like comic books anyways?" The question caught him off guard, and he froze while in the middle of taking his right boot off.

"What?"

"Why do you like them?" Wade seemed to think for a minute, considering his answer carefully.
"I guess it's because it can take you to a whole other place, without you having to imagine all the details. If it's talking about a monster or something, it's drawn in there. Also, it doesn't waste its time telling you every single detail like in regular books; it's usually pretty straight forward."

Carolyn nodded, still not getting why he liked the books. But she decided that maybe he didn't get why she loved her violin so much, so it was fair.

"Alright, well, one day can I read one?" That seemed to catch Wade of guard too, as he looked at her with the fridge opened wide.

"Why?"

Well, I'm pretty bored here sometimes. A little reading would probably be more interesting than scrubbing the back of a toilet." Wade let out a small chuckle before looking back into the fridge, not noticing the sigh of relief that escaped Catherine's lips. She had been afraid that she had gone too far, and that he'd snap at her once more.

"Yeah, I guess you could borrow a comic book. But I'm telling you, if you ruin it in any way, you'll never get out of your room again." He smiled as he said that, and Carolyn thought it a bit creepy but nodded, more out of fear than anything else.

The young woman could use something to get her mind off things, to travel to another world where none of this happened.