House of Cards: Ground Floor

She had been prisoner for over eighty-six days now but she was unaware of the actual time that had passed by. The man that had abducted her kept all the windows boarded up and only allowed her to have a small, dim lamp for light.

She didn't know if she'd ever be going home again or if this was the last place on Earth she would ever see before she died. She missed her family and missed the freedom and privileges she grew up with and took for granted. The saying "Other people have it worse than you." was now becoming a Mantra in her head and opening her mind to all the horrific atrocities there are in the world.

She slept on the floor with only a light blanket to cover herself up. A bucket in the corner of the room with a jug of water and some toilet paper was the fanciest accomodations she had been getting for a restroom.

She knew she was being held in a basement and some place close to train tracks because she heard a train go by several times a day and night and she also knew she wasn't that far from home because ot only took twenty minutes to arrive from the time he had kidnapped her until the time he had walked her into the dilapidated building.

At first she was very aggressive and combative with him but the punishments for not complying or behaving kept getting worse so she decided to be more of a quiet observer and pretend to be warming up to the idea of being submissive for him.

He kept the door to the basement locked up like Fort Knox and would bring her food on a tray twice a day. If she was good he would bring her ice tea or something sweet to drink to reward her. A few weeks ago he had brought her a deck of cards so she had something to do when he didn't have his hands all over her or she wasn't crying in the darl all alone.

She spent hours with the cards playing every solitaire game you could imagine and even playing games that took two players. She was slowly losing hope of ever returning to a normal life again and knew that if she didn't take matters into her own hands to devise a plan to escape she was never going to make it out of there alive.

She knew she needed to be smart and calculated about any choices or moves she made when it came to putting her plan into affect and decided to start building a complete House of Cards out of the deck her captor had given her to practice and execute patience, persistence, determination, and triumph.

And, so day one of constructing a complete House of Cards had begun. Her goal was to plan, prepare and be ready to escape by the time she mastered the skills to build a House of Cards.