His boots shuffle at the doorway and I freeze, clamping my eyes closed and my hand tightly covering my mouth, not even daring to breathe. The guard stays put for a moment, listening for any sound until the other one calls him back.
“There’s no one down here, let’s go, before we end up dead ourselves.”
After a moment the guard decides there’s nothing to investigate and turns away from the door, walking to meet the other guard where they both then leave out the far door. The moment I hear it close I slump against the wall and I can feel my heart plummeting into my stomach. Fear wraps around my throat like a deadly snake, squeezing all the oxygen out of me.
I can’t fail now, I need to keep going.
Taking in a calming breath, I begin to slowly pull the door open again, peeking my head through the gap to get a better look around the room, noting that it’s empty and I move, not even bothering to look back, my eyes laser focused on the far door. My legs ache with every quick step I make, fatigue threatening to crash into me but I push on, ignoring my body’s pleas to stop.
Once I reach the door, I yank it open and step straight into yet again another corridor, but this time there’s two ways to go. Snapping my head from side to side, I try to make a decision but I have no idea where I’m going or where I’ll end up if I pick the wrong path, and I know I don’t have the time to question which way, I just need to choose. Now.
Spinning on my bare feet, I turn left and head straight down until I see another door in the distance, a white light beaming around the frame. That must be my way out, it has to be. I’m left with no choice but to take my chance, I can’t turn back now. Keeping the sharp stone in my hand, I attempt to pick up speed, my body screaming at me everytime I move and I almost give into it, feeling the urge to sit down, but the door is right there.. it’s..
“And where are you going, lost pup?” The words ring into my ears as my hair is grabbed in a tight fist, yanking me backwards. The tips of my fingers barely brush the door handle, my exit inches away from me, but I don’t make it. Instead I’m pulled backwards, my back hitting the guard’s chest as he wraps his hand around my throat, squeezing tightly.
“Let.. me go!” I plead, my voice cracking from the pressure.
“Why would I do that? I’ve got you all to myself now. No one can hear you down here pup.” He groans into my ear and I can feel him beginning to harden behind me as I wriggle in histightening hold.
Keeping his hand on my throat, he pulls at the front of my dress with his other hand, roughly trying to gain access to me which sends my fight or flight instincts sky rocketing.
“Be a good girl for me pup and let me have a taste.”
His words have me biting down on the inside of my cheek until blood begins to bloom in my mouth. I won’t fucking die down here, not like this. Everything seems to blur around me, like we’re moving in slow motion, his filthy hand tearing at my dress, my legs kicking like they’ve never kicked before and my brain quickly tells me about the stone in my hand.
Use it. Use it now!
Fisting my hand around it, I swing my arm up with everything I have, using all my energy to lodge the sharpened point into the guard’s eye. In and out it goes, causing him to howl in pain but I don’t stop, even when his hands fall away from my body to cup his face, I don’t stop. I don’t stop when he falls to the floor, rolling around in agony as blood sprays from his butchered eye socket.
I land on top of him, straddling his waist between my thighs and raise my hands above my head, swiftly bringing them down onto his face. The stone splits through his hands and into his face, warm blood sprays and splatters all over the place as I continue my attack.
“You!”
Stab.
“Fucking!”
Stab.
“Bastard!”
Chunks of flesh and blood cover my hands in a thick, stickymess, splatters spraying across my face and chest as I yank the stone out of his mangled face, my chest heaving from the vicious attack. Tears quickly fill my eyes and heavy sobs wrack my aching frame as the adrenaline quickly wears off, leaving me feeling vulnerable and exhausted, allowing the poison of self doubt to creep into my mind. I don’t know how long I’m going to last, I can feel myself dying by the minute, my body slowly shutting down.
Dipping my head, I rest for a moment on the guards chest, inhaling deep and steady breaths to calm the impending panic attack I can feel coming on as blackness threatens to block my vision. In this state of stress, a woman’s voice slips into my mind, raspy with a southern twang.
“Remember sunshine, you’ll survive.”
“Da.. darlene? Is that you?” I whimper, desperately trying to hold onto the familiar voice but she never replies. But she doesn’t have to, I know it was her, even if it was just a figment of my imagination it’s enough to make me pull myself up from the guard’s butchered body and rise onto my shaky legs.
It takes me a moment to gather myself before I start towards the door again, leaving the guard behind.
Entering through the door, I find myself in what looks to be the middle of the mill and the gunfire I heard before seems to be getting closer, louder but there’s nowhere for me to go now, the space is too open and there’s no corridors for me to run down, to escape.
The guard’s bodies cover the floor, all of them shot dead, blood pooling underneath them. This whole place is like a warzone and I’m stuck right in the middle of it as gunfire approaches, the sound deafening. I try to run, I don’t know where to, but I do until I’m stopped in my tracks, my feet skidding in a puddle ofblood when a door that I didn’t see flies open, two men in masks come barreling through it, guns raised at me.
I raise my trembling hands. “Please.. don’t shoot me.”
My whole world has stopped spinning, gravity no longer existing and the oxygen inside my lungs has been violently ripped out of me.
