My Nightmare To Freedom

I walked in the dark alleyway after my shift at the bar. My friend stupidly forgot to wait for me and left to go fuck her boyfriend. I walked by the man who pisses on the corner and asks how my ass could possibly get bigger every time he sees me. I flip him off while he limps after me and tries to grab my arm. Running up the frosted steps of the train stop, I notice a man leaning on the only open seat. He is tall, with glasses covering his eyes like he is standing under the sun rather than under the covers.

“Excuse me, can I sit here?” I ask with the most bitter of tones. The man looks at me, grabs his briefcase, moves around me and leaves. I get off the train 7 stops later. My toes are frozen and my cheeks are as red as cherries. My legs numb from the rush of running down the steps.

My nerves were all over the place, I could hear someone rushing behind me, but nobody ever gets off on this stop at night. I felt like I was going to throw up. I walked slower moving towards the side of the building so they could go around me.

I am pushed onto the gravel from behind. I scream as my legs bleed from the impact. Someone sits on my back, wrapping what I believe to be a rope around my wrist. He yanks on the rope when I try to roll away from him. They are too heavy to throw off. While I was kicking and thrashing around he grabs me by my hair pulls a cloth over my nose and I fall into a bittersweet sleep.

I wake up later sitting on a chair, splintering under my thighs. The quiet pitter-patter of footsteps heard overhead. I am chained, I can feel the bruises forming on my wrists. The smell of flesh burning sweeps across the room. I can hear the whimpers coming from the far end of the wall. It is too dark to see who is making the noise.

I hear a man speak, his voice is rough, and his words come out like commands. I think he is talking to someone. A small voice responds faintly crying out a “NO”. A loud rumble of a laugh is all I hear, before a bang and a thud echoed throughout the room. Something tells me the laughter was death greeting the poor soul. The man’s voice and all the sounds have disappeared.

The cloth around my eyes shuts out any light in the room. My blindfold is removed, the room still pitch black, I feel a whisper against my skin. Hyperventilating, I know I am trapped. I try to move only to be restricted from the chains that are still wrapped around my wrists. They approach me again, I can feel them behind me.

The chains tighten then loosen. Replacing the chains are white knuckles, I can feel the grip mold into my memory. The knuckles toss me around like a rag doll. The hands throw me down to the ground. Slowly I pass a body on the floor, lifeless, blood seeping through the floorboards. This was the body, of the person who was talking back to the man. I can’t tell if it’s a female or not. They are too far to fully see in this darkness.

I lay there for what feels like an eternity, hoping that my future will not be the same as this lifeless body. Looking around I try to find some source of light and a way to escape. I never find one. I can hear water dripping from the ceiling, other than that the room is deathly silent.

The wooden floor, splintered and cracked; heaving myself up causes the floor to creak under my weight. I can’t see the man, I can feel his eyes mocking me. Seeping into my bones, every part of my skin burning as his eyes travel across my body. His footsteps echo as he gets closer. His breathing comes out harsh and rapid as he stands there.

Slowly I walk backward, my breath uneven, my heart pounding in my ears. Each step I take just brings him closer. The atmosphere gets heavy, the air turning cold, so cold that my arms get goosebumps. Hitting the wall, I can practically see the smirk on the man's face. The wall is sticky under my body, smelling of rot. A sense of nausea sweeps over me, the smell being too strong for my stomach.

I can feel the heat as the man approaches me. It burns itself into my memory. He knows I have nowhere to escape too. The room is too dark; I wouldn’t be able to tell what was lurking around waiting for me to run. My heart continues the rapid beat, I bet he could hear it. I stare out into the dark, knowing he is there. Out of reach, but close enough to make out his silhouette.

He’s tall, maybe 6’0 ft., broad shoulders, muscular. He watches as I analyze him. Like he is waiting for something, a reaction, a scream. Something in me says that we know this man. His aura so similar, the smell of cigarettes makes its way to my nose.

Deja vu washes over me, I am on the street walking past a man. He was leaning against the liquor store. The store run down, paint chipping off the walls, graffiti on the side that the man leans on. The man is the total opposite of the liquor store, he wears a gray suit. Shades covering his eyes, a briefcase on his side, this man was rich. He smirked at me as I walked by; I smiled back whispering a hello. His structure so similar to the man standing in front of me now. As this fades I am left looking at the man’s silhouette. I know why this man seems so familiar, it’s because he is.

I can see his hand disappear into his pocket. Pulling out an unknown object, I heard a click. Looking up I see a single flame. His hand approaches his face, the flame so close. But, I still can’t see his face. He finally starts to walk closer, he stops an inch away from me. The flame no longer in existence, the lighter falls from his fingers. It smacks the floor, causing an echo of ringing throughout the room.

Falling backwards, a wall nowhere to be seen. I am chained once again, I lay there on a bed too big for just one person. It’s soft and warm. The coldness of the room long forgotten. A smell of cigarettes once again floats towards my nose. A shockwave of pain shoots up my arm. It feels like a needle is being stabbed into my vein. I scream, only to be muffled by a cloth. The cloth smelling sour, my eyes start to flutter closed. The last thing I see is green eyes, as a sense of realization engulfs me. This man is more than just familiar.

I woke up with cigarette marks all along my arms. My skin burnt and crisp like an over-cooked steak. I could smell the cigarettes burning in the distance. I watched as the lights were turned on one-by-one, illuminating the once pitch black abyss. I watched in amazement as the small room grew 10 times bigger than when it was in the dark.

He approached me, slowly at first, and with each step, his pace escalated. My brain begged for my eyes to close, so we wouldn’t see what was happening next. My eyes not listening to my brain, my heart beating so fast I thought it was going to explode.

His hands latched onto my legs, his fingertips scraping the skin. My legs burning red, the tears starting to build up in the back of my eyes. His hands continue to make his way up my legs.

I black out, his hands never leaving my legs. I can still feel them continuing their voyage up towards my neck. He looks down at me. The tension of not knowing what he is going to do next rolls off of my body and falls to a pile on the floor.

Finally, he speaks, not to me directly but to the open room. His voice deep, rough but angelic. This man is not an angel, he is every woman's nightmare, the man you pray to stay out of your life.

“You are beautiful”

He reaches to my left, grabs something from the floor, I can feel the cold metal move across my arm to the side of my neck, pulling my chin up. He puts his finger on the trigger, I can’t move. He repeats himself “You are beautiful” His finger tightens, the gun goes off and I wake up with a headache. My breath coming out heavy and my forehead covered in sweat. “It was just a dream,” I whispered to no one.

Suddenly hands are pulling me off the mattress towards the floor. I scream, sticking my nails into the side of the mattress. He continues to drag me towards the chains, I can feel the wood scrapping my legs and back. The smell of blood starts to flow throughout the room, I screamed as my back gets scrapped by a nail sticking out of the floorboards. He finally makes it to the chains, his shoulders droop and his legs give out from under him. He falls face first, for the first time I am sorry for him. He quickly pulls himself off the ground, pulls a cigarette out of his pocket, lights it and walks away.

He leaves me to wonder why I thought I was in a dream. Why I allowed myself to put into an imaginary scenario. Before I could even answer a new person is thrown into the room. He grabs the person, pulls them towards me and straps them to the wall. The person is small, thin and has little to no clothes on. He walks out once again slamming the door, the lock echoes around us.

I can see the small person shake and whimper for their mother. They roll over and I can finally see who this person is. It’s a little boy no older than 12, his hair a charcoal black, his eyes filled with fear. He watches me with those sad blue eyes, as he scoots away, ripping his shorts on the floorboards.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” I say, making a promise I know I can not keep. The boy will just be another bone pile to count. I know he won't last, he will break within the first week. But, I don’t tell him these things. I need him to trust me if he is to make it through any of this.

“Ok. But, how do you know he will let you though?” his eyes still hold little hope, the dimples on his cheeks tell me otherwise.

“I don’t know. I’ll just have to try really hard.”

My conversation with the little boy replays in my head once again. He made it two weeks before the man sold him to someone else. I can still hear his cries when the room is quiet. I couldn’t protect him and the man knew it, he knew I failed to protect the boy and just threw that in my face.

It's been months and I still haven’t seen his face, I only heard his voice the time he called me beautiful. He started wearing a mask around me, he hasn’t tortured me in days.

I think he might actually let me go. I sit with my arms over my head, the chains have ripped through my skin and the blood dried up a long time ago. His footsteps make their way in front of me. I see him grab the same gun from before. He removes his mask, coughs and says “Sorry my beautiful but I can no longer watch you grow. You must leave me now.”

He lifts the gun to my forehead. I don’t scream for mercy, I don’t beg him to not kill me. I close my eyes, whisper “I’m sorry” and breathe out. He pulls the trigger and for the first time I felt my heart stop. The sounds screeching and the lights blinding me. Blood rushes down my face as he shoots another bullet into my heart.

I am free.