➼ it happened quiet

➼ Silje was only ten at the time of her taking. She was fourteen now. Her parents were out in the world wishing she was still alive, and even though she was, she had suffered enough pain and torment for several lifetimes. She spent a lot of her time all by herself and oftentimes, despite how much it would hurt her family, she wished she were dead. Oftentimes she would spend most of the day in severe dissociation. No-one should have had to go through what she was going through - especially not a child who could hardly comprehend what was happening to her. Silje could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Since her capture, she wilted like a dehydrated flower. Her hips were jagged, hard knives of bone wrapped only in a thin layer of skin and wasted muscle. She liked to imagine it hurt when he touched her, but whatever discomfort her skeleton caused him was never enough for the food to be brought to her more than once a day, hardly enough to keep her lucid, but never not enough to stop her body functioning.

There was a small window in the basement she resided in, and through the tiny window, hardly bigger than an A4 sheet of paper, she could see trees, birds, blue skies. Throughout the winter the snow would be so dense that it covered the window right up, leaving her nothing but a tiny buzz of blue light on the best of days, and in complete darkness other days. Never before had she appreciated a window so much. Not once in her fourteen years would she have shed tears over the snow being too dense to see through a basement window. She wondered if perhaps she was in this situation because she had taken things for granted. She found it hard to believe that it wasn't her fault.

If she was very lucky, Silje would be allowed to sit in front of the upstairs fire for an hour or two on the really cold nights. There were some nights she really thought she might die of hypothermia. A medical professional would be able to tell there'd been many times that the fourteen-year-old had experienced the first stages of the medical emergency. She would shiver and convulse, what little muscle she had left desperately trying to keep her body warm with the little movements. It felt as though her ribs were squeezing her lungs so tight that no air was allowed into them. Though being upstairs often meant she'd be bound so tight she couldn't move and her muscles would get painfully stiff, she didn't mind as long as she could be warm even just for a moment. The stiff aching was better than the feeling of Winter weather ripping through her muscles and bones, right down to her very core.

It was now her last Winter with The Man. She hoped so desperately that it would be one way or another, at least. Though since she had arrived, she's grown hardly an inch within her first years with him, she had noticed as of late that she was seeing things at a different eye level. She was closer to the window that she loved to gaze out of, and she supposed she'd grown some inches during the autumn months. The Man often hunted game for the two of them to share, and whenever she received a proper meal she would involuntarily cry tears of joy. Standing in the basement, looking at the window above her, she could tell she'd grown enough without even needing to measure herself. She didn't need another notch on the post to tell her that with some effort, she could now reach the window.

She waited until he dresses her. A white, lace dress, that sat too short, but still hung off of her in loose spools of fabric. He only dressed her for his games, rough hands pulling back her haphazardly cut hair to fixate on her eyes. He called her his bride in this game, ordering her to wait on the bed for him to return in a sweet voice she trembled to challenge. He had gone hunting, leaving her behind bruised and battered, as he normally did whenever she simply looked at him the wrong way. What was the right way to look at him? Blood trickled from a cut on her forehead and she wiped it with the palm of her hand as if it were nothing. Compared to other injuries he had left her with it was nothing. The snow was just starting to cover the bottom of the window and Silje knew she had to act fast. She shivered violently, from a mixture of the cold and the intense anxiety that coursed through her body. It was her only chance.

The blonde girl slid off the bed, her bare feet padding softly on the concrete. With her small, bony hands, she gripped the metal bedpost and pulled with all of her strength - so hard that she felt like her arms would be torn off if she tried any harder. The metal bed scraped on the concrete, emitting a sharp noise that was painful to her ears. With much effort she pulled and shoved the heavy bedframe to the opposite wall. She prodded at the bed with her hands and felt the firmness of the mattress she slept on night after night. There was always a wooden chair in the room - it was his chair that he would use to sit and watch her. She took the chair and placed it on the bed, scrambling on top of it as quickly as she could once she decided it was stable.

Silje was so hopeful in that moment that she felt as though she'd forgotten how to breathe. She placed her tiny hands against the freezing glass, and looked out into the world that was in front of her. This is it, she thought, this is freedom. She inhaled, flipped the latch and pushed. The fresh, cold air hit her face with an icy blast, making her feel as though it had pierced her skin and entered her very soul. Though it hurt, it was the best kind of pain she had ever felt. She kicked herself off the chair and pushed herself through the window, using her arms to shuffle her bony being through the wet snow. The aching of her body exhilarated her as she knelt out in the open for no longer than thirty seconds.

The adrenaline had made her forget how weak and sore the child's body was as she lifted herself to her feet and gazed at the beautiful pine trees that surrounded the cabin that had been her prison. It wasn't a prison anymore. Just a house. She felt frustrated with herself that she couldn't move faster than she was and she wondered where the nearest town was and when she'd find someone who could save her from the nightmare that she'd been living.

As she walked by The Man's window she felt a hard thud in her torso. Her wide, frightened blue eyes looked all around her. There was nothing that could have touched her, so why did she shake as though she'd been hit full force right in the middle of her chest? Silje exhaled slowly, and as she tried to inhale she realised something wasn't quite right. It was as though something was filling up her lungs, like there wasn't enough space for the air that she so desperately needed. She fell to the ground, and only then did she see the blood that was soaking through the fabric of her lacy white dress. She convulsed, choking and coughing and spluttering. Blood splattered onto the snow around her, dripped down her chin. The last thing she saw was The Man holding a shovel above her head. He would make sure no-one recognised her if her body was ever found.

Despite it all, everything was quiet. She looked up at the sky, looking past her captor. Silje exhaled one last time.