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Bright light glares down at me. My tongue is heavy in my mouth and my head weighs more than usual as my neck struggles to hold it up.
I try to move but fail.
Alarmed, I jolt awake. Attempts at moving my hands are useless. They're tied behind me—with duct tape, maybe? The edges cut into the soft skin of my wrists. My ankles are tied to the legs of the chair.
If this is a bloody nightmare, it's freakishly feeling real. I can't possibly be kidnapped, right?
My heart pounds in my chest, a head-splitting ache tears through my brain. Hyperventilating, I frantically look around. It's a dark room. The only source of illumination is the white light bulb hanging over my head. My body trembles uncontrollably as I hold back a cry.
Memories from my childhood flash before my eyes in rapid bursts of color, heightening the terror in me.
The numerous times Mom hid me in the wardrobe, the door slightly ajar, letting a sliver of light snake inside the clustered wooden box come to the front of my mind. I struggle harder against the restraints. Squeezing my eyes shut, I force the images out of my head, refusing to allow what haunted my nightmares for decades to return.
I won't be that weak, helpless kid again.
I will not.
Please, I can't go back into that black hole.
At last, after an eternity, a door opens, snapping me out of my breakdown. Men file into the area. I can't make out their faces, they all stick to the shadows. The sound of a chair hitting the stone floor echoes and the door slams shut.
I fist my hands, even though the duct tape makes it ridiculously hard. I clench my jaw and try to straighten up. Whoever has kidnapped me won't see me break down. Never.
"You are stupid little girl... did your papa never teach you to not mess vhith us?" A woman with a heavy Russian accent speaks. My heart jumps to my throat.
I hold my head up and look in the direction of the voice. I grind my teeth to stop myself from saying something along the lines of, 'my dad also taught me cowards stay in the shadows'. But right now, I'm the one who's stuck in a chair and they are the ones holding the guns. It's not the best time to pick a fight.
She clicks her tongue and begins speaking Russian. I can't tell if the language itself seems like a stream of rapid weird sounding words or if this woman is talking quickly.
The pit of my stomach clenches. My sixth sense is hollering I'm in deep shit. But I hold my head up, and mask my fear and anxiety, even though from the inside I'm trembling.
The woman pauses, and silence grips the place. The only sound is the heavy breathing of the men circling around the room.
Again, the woman starts talking in Russian, and I don't need to know the language to tell, she sounds exasperated.
