The Cabin

When I came to, I looked around and all I saw was black. I couldn't see the hand in front of my face. Come to think of it, I couldn't even lift my hand. Why? I attempt to move around, but quickly realize that I'm bound to a chair. Each of my arms is bound to an armrest and my legs are bound to the front chair legs, both with rope. Something catches my eye and I look ahead. About twenty feet in front of me, I see the last remnants of what was a fire, in a cobble stone fireplace. As my eyes begin to adjust, I begin to recognize more of my surroundings. I observe that I am in some sort of log cabin. I look to my right and see a window. The moonlight is very dim due to the heavy cloud cover, so not much light is coming through the window. What little light that is visible however, illuminates some of my more immediate surroundings. I begin to notice that I am not the only one in this particular position. There are about ten others, all looking about my age, all bound to chairs in the same manor that I was. This completely puzzled me. I hear myself asking out loud what is all of this when a small voice to my right responds.

"Pretty twisted, huh?"

I look to my left to see a boy, looking to be about seventeen or eighteen sitting about a foot away from me. He, too, is bound to the chair like myself, but he didn't even make eye contact with me as he spoke. He talked with his head hung, almost as if he was ashamed to even communicate with me. Realizing that he was attempting to form some sort of communication with me, I turn my head towards him. With a shaky voice, I reply, "Yeah. This uh, isn't really that normal. What's going on? Why am I here? Why are we all here?"

He lets out a soft, nervous chuckle and hesitates before he spoke his next train of thought. Almost as if he were making sure to use the right words so that I wouldn't be confused or so he wouldn't be misunderstood. He proceeds to tell me, "Well, simply put, I have no earthly idea why we're here. You must be the new girl that was picked up today. As you'll notice, if you haven't already, there is more than just us here. There are roughly about fifty of us in this room."

As he said that, I looked around this tiny room that couldn't be any bigger than the interior of a lawn shed, and wondered how fifty or so people could fit in such a small room. Honestly, I really didn't want to find out.

He continued, "I'm not really sure of our purpose here other than being slaves for Helga. Helga is the monster that runs this place. She does unspeakable things to each of us if she isn't satisfied with our work. Mainly we spend all day repairing this dump of a cabin. I've been here for about two years with no hope of escape. You would think that with there being so many of us and only one of her that escape would be simple. No. Not at all.

"There was a guy about a month ago, George, that tried to escape. His job that he had to do everyday was to chop wood for the fireplaces. I have no clue how long he'd been here, but he was here before I was. Sometime last month he absolutely snapped. He went crazy being here, doing the same thing everyday. One day while he was looking for wood, he tried to run away. He didn't make it very far. Apparently there are invisible electric fences surrounding the place. I have no idea how much this fence spans out or how much room we have inside this fence. Anyway, George was running when he ran head on into the fence. I unfortunately was nearby when this happened. His work area and mine were in similar areas. When he hit the fence, his body went rigid. And God, I never saw a body convulse so much in my life. I literally watched him burn to a crisp. Turned freaking black before my eyes. When he hit the fence, the current in the fence was so strong he couldn't let go and he burned to death from the high voltage. Upon him burning to a crisp, what was left of his body fell to the ground and broke into thousands of pieces.

"I reluctantly made my way to where his body once was, and to my horror saw nothing but black ashes where he once stood. The only part of him that remained in tact was his face; at least that was the only distinguishable feature left of him. I looked at his face and could tell the horrified and pained expression his face last held. To this day, I still wake up from nightmares of seeing his face staring back at me in agony of his fate. About the time I found his body, Helga came up to check on us and when she saw my horrified expression and the black ashes at my feet, she put the pieces together. She took one look at me and gave the most spine chilling laugh I ever heard and gave me a playful slap on the shoulder before turning around and leaving in the direction she came."

At this point he stopped talking and looked at me. I could barely make out his facial expression, but it looked like one of possible regret for what he told me, almost as if it was too much at once. He catches on quickly, and he must have realized how terrified I must have looked because the only thing he said after looking at me was a short apology. Looking into what I could see of his eyes, he looked as lonely and lost as I felt. Yet at the same time, I could see a glimpse of hope that he held. Whether that hope be a large or small amount, I'll never know. What I did know is that what he told me was deeply personal, at least to him. The fact that he seemed to open up to me so freely without even knowing my name meant so much to me, and all I knew is that I had to be near him.

In this short exchange we'd had, he already made me feel the safest I'd been since I was last with my family. Which by this point, I had no idea how long ago that had been. It was almost as if time stood still here. The only part of this God-forsaken place that time seemed to touch was the cabin itself, which was very much worn with age. By now, my eyes had fully adjusted to the almost pitch blackness that surrounded me, and I could better see what this cabin looked like. I looked up, to see the remnants of a tin roof. It looked like much of it had been torn off in a storm of some kind, so bits of tin pieces were missing among-st the broken rafters. The walls were falling apart. Honestly I had no idea how this place was still standing. There seemed to be no sort of support system for this cabin. Many of the boards for the walls were missing or falling down, so there was a draft coming through the holes in the walls. Luckily it was a nice summer feeling sort of night. I had no idea where I was at or how far away I was from where my family was at, but the temperature felt no differently than what I was accustomed to feeling. I took that as a positive sign that I was not too far from their whereabouts.

Attempting to take all this in, and trying to figure out what exactly my life here is like, I ask the boy, "Do you know where we are?"

He once again looked up at me and with a tone of defeat replied, "I don't. All I know is that we are still somewhere in the United States. I have no idea what state we are in, what city, what area, anything. In the two years I've been here, Helga has only let us out once. She was pleased with the hard work we had been putting in to this cabin. Though it doesn't look like we've done much. Anyway, she called us one morning one by one, and blindfolded us and led us into what I assume was a school bus. We drove for what felt like hours before we arrived in our destination. It was only at that point that she let us take off the blindfolds. To prevent us from doing that on the ride over, she bound our hands behind our backs with rope; something you'll soon notice she likes to do all the time. She likes to have control and make sure we know that she is in charge and calls the shots.

"You will be getting your assignment tomorrow morning after role call. Since no one else has been brought in since George, more than likely you will take his job. She hasn't assigned anyone else to that job to replace him. Mainly this is because it has been to warm for fires. Knowing Helga like I do, she will probably assign you to George's old job and will partner you with me. He and I were the ones that gathered wood. She likes to partner people up, so that way one can serve as the 'spy' for the other one. Why she thinks any of us would rat each other out for something, I'll never understand. Her logic in many ways is flawed. Oh, my name is Eric by the way."

He smiled with a huge grin as he told me his name, and nodded his head towards me. This seemed to be his way of attempting to shake hands, without actually shaking hands. I told him, "Nice to meet you Eric. I'm Carrie."

"Carrie. That's a nice name. My little sister's name is Carrie. I miss her." He began to drift off in thought after that last statement. I didn't think I would attempt any more conversation with him for the night. He told me quite a bit. If he was right and I did get partnered up with him, maybe we can talk more. I just know I want to be with him. First, because he is currently the only person I know. Second, though he's been here awhile, he seems to have a pretty good idea of how this place runs and can help me out; more than he already has. Third, in these moments we just shared where he was completely open, honest, and vulnerable around me, I began to feel myself start to fall for him.