When I wake
I am alone in a strange place. I
wonder
how much time
has passed. I
woke up crying,
which is
strange because I’ve never had a dream scare me so much
that I’ve woken up crying before. I realize that my nightmare
is real. Why is
this happening? My body
feels tight and it
hurts. My mind wants
to leave and be somewhere else. I
struggle to gain a sitting position, but the handcuffs make
it
difficult. I finally
manage awkwardly. Maybe I should just
try
to go back to sleep. My mind is worrying about all the
things
I was supposed
to do that
day. What happened when I
didn’t show up at school? Will I get in trouble? Does anyone
know what happened?
Where is my mom? Is
she still at
work? Is she looking
for me? Did Carl see this
man take
me? Is he
sending someone to get
me? When can I go
home? Will this
stranger take me
home? All these
questions go through my mind. My head still feels
fuzzy. I
don’t know what to
do. I
want to get up and see if
the first
door will open so
I can see what’s in the
other room. But
every time I try to
sit up I fall back down. I am so tired. I turn
so I am now
lying on my back more, which is
a little more
comfortable.
This room is
small. My bed
back at home
would not fit
in this room.
There is a
window above my
makeshift bed. There
is a towel
and blinds covering
the
window, so I
can only see
a little bit
of light. I t
looks like
moonlight. I wish
I could see the moon. My mom and I used
to love to sit out
front of my grandma’s house and
look at
the moon. We would debate about which moon was better,
the crescent or
the full. I
always voted for the
full and she
liked the crescent.
I wonder what
kind of moon
is out
tonight. I t feels like I
have been here forever. Has it been an
hour or more? I have
no way of telling. There are tall, heavy-
looking tables in
two corners of the
tiny room I ’m in. The
legs are covered
in carpet. There
is also some
strange-
looking
equipment on tables.
I can’t really
see the tops
because the handcuffs
prevent me from getting up all the
way. They are big and from what I can see from this angle
have sliding dials
on them. There
is also a
big pane of
glass in the wall that separates this room from the next.
The
walls are made of some kind of wood. I t looks like a lot of
different woods all
mixed together to
create a panel
that
has many colors. I
think it is called particleboard, but I ’m not
sure. I want
to feel it but
instead scrape my knuckle along
the side of it. I t is very rough and I think I
got a splinter in my
knuckle. I wonder
what will happen
to me. I
can’t get
comfortable. I move
from side to side. I want to get up and
walk around. My
legs feel like
they are falling asleep and
are getting cramps. I
lay back down and fall asleep quickly.
The towel on the window shows that
the sun is up. This
room is getting hot when I
wake the next morning; at least I
think it is morning. There is really no way to know for
sure. I
feel like I
can’t breathe, it’s so hot. I am
so thirsty and I ’m
starting to sweat. How much time has passed? I close my
eyes thinking, Will I
ever want to open them again? Maybe
if I go to sleep,
then when I wake up I will be in my own bed
and this will be just a bad dream. I close my eyes and give
in to oblivion once again.
Reflection
He did come in that day to check on me. He brought me
fast food and
a soda. It’s
hard to remember
day-to-day
things after this point. I
think he came in at least once a day
to bring me something
to drink and
eat. I became
totally
dependent on him
for everything. He
would take off
the
handcuffs while he was there so I could eat. He brought in a
bucket for me to use as a toilet. I hated when he would put
the cuffs back
on when he
left, so eventually
I looked
forward to seeing
him and getting
them off. Even though
they were covered in soft fur, they still bit into my wrists
and
made my skin raw. I t was hot in that room and I would sweat
buckets all day. He said he was working on getting a cooler
for the room and
that would make it cooler for me.
In the
meantime he brought
in a fan, which helped a lot.
I would
ask him every day when he was going to let me go home. I
guess I can kind of
figure out the answer to
that even if I
don’t remember his exact words.
He would try to make me smile with all these silly voices
he would make. He had an English accent, a Texan accent,
and an Australian accent. I
feel this was all part of his plan
to manipulate me into
being compliant with him. He used
his powers of persuasion to gain my trust. He became my
entire world. I depended on him for
food, water, my toilet.
He was my
only source of
amusement. I craved
human
contact so much by
then that I
actually looked forward
to
him coming to see me; it felt like he was bestowing a gift
to
me … his presence. He was all I knew for months. I slept a
lot during this
time. There was
nothing else to
do and
sleeping helped
to shut off my broken heart. I
didn’t have
any more nightmares like that first one about being taken; I
guess I was
living the ultimate
nightmare so my
mind
couldn’t think of
anything worse. When
I dreamed, I
dreamed I could
fly. When I would wake,
I would have no
concept of time. A little light leaked through the towel on
the
window, but other
than that not
much light. I
learned to
gauge the time by Phillip’s visits.
I knew it must be night
when Phillip would bring my dinner. He didn’t touch me after
that first day in the
bathroom until one day about a week
later …
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