༻𝑇𝐻𝑅𝐼𝐿𝐿 𝑂𝐹 𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐻𝑈𝑁𝑇༺

sɪx

          It's been at least three days since The Grabber took me and Vance.

I felt like I was on the verge of death. I've had no food. No water. I'm weak as hell. My whole fucking body aches. I'm freezing my ass off. And what has The Grabber been doing to us in the meantime? Nothing. Nothing but toying with us.

That son of a bitch will come in and out, teasing us with crap like, "I'm thinking about letting you go." or, "If you two behave then maybe I'll consider letting you live." Just a bunch of bullshit.

I don't even know if Vance is able to tolerate me anymore. He's beyond weak too, but he still acts strong. We've definitely bonded, and it's safe to say we're friends. I mean, yeah, of course we are. We've fucking bled together.

The two of us were sitting on one of the mattresses, facing each other while we played Rock-Paper-Scissors. Vance absolutely sucked at this game. I don't know how someone can be so terrible at a game based on pure luck, but Vance somehow was.

"Know what, fuck this. I'm done." he said, frustrated as I won for the fifth time in a row.

I laughed, watching him turn away from me angrily. "You're such a sore loser."

"No, you just keep fucking cheating!" he glared, leaning back on the wall.

"Uh-huh." I smirked.

The two of us turned as the door opened. I scooted farther back towards the wall as The Grabber entered, wearing that stupid mask of his.  Vance glared, looking like he wanted to strangle the absolute life out of him.

"Good morning, kiddos." he greeted, ignoring Vance's evil look. "You two have been good lately, so I think you deserve this."

As much as I hated The Grabber, seeing him walk in today was the most relieving feeling in the world. Because he had food. He was holding two trays with soda and eggs.

I made sure to keep my mouth sealed as he laid them down by the door. I needed a damn meal, and if that meant dealing with his shit for a few minutes, then fine.

"So.." he began, looking from me to Vance. "What are your names?"

"Y/N." I said quickly. "Y/N L/N." I knew not to lie. I bet he already knew anyways, our names were probably all over the headlines of the paper days ago. He was testing us.

"Why do you care? It won't matter soon, because we'll be fucking dead anyways." Vance sneered.

I nudged him. "Just tell him.. do you want that food or not?"

He sighed, rolling his eyes in annoyance. "Vance mother-fucking Hopper."

The Grabber gave us a satisfied nod. "Good. I'll see you two later. Vance and Y/N." Something about the way he said our names made shivers crawl down my spine. And with that, he left.

Leaving the door unlocked.

Something didn't feel right. No way he did that by accident. No fucking way. Vance and I are his fourth victims, so he's obviously experienced. Experienced enough to not make mistakes like leaving the door unlocked.

Vance immediately went for it, standing up the minute he left and speeding over to the door.

He grabbed the handle, slightly pulling it open.

"Don't you dare." I spat, making Vance look at me like I was a complete idiot.

"What the hell, Y/N? This is our damn ticket out of here." he scoffed, still gripping onto the handle.

I walked over to him. "It's obviously a trap, Vance. There's no way he'd be this irresponsible. If we were his first victims, sure, I'd fall for it. But he has gotten away with three fucking murders, so he knows good and well what he's doing."

I could tell Vance wasn't buying it. He glared down at me, slightly opening the door more. "And what if you're wrong? What if this dumbass really did leave it unlocked unknowingly, and you're just being a pussy about it? This could be our damn chance."

I pushed his hand away from the handle, closing the door. "Alright, fine. I'll tell you what. Let's wait a minute, eat this fucking food, and then we'll sneak up there and see if anything's up. If he's not up there waiting to slaughter us, then we can make a run for it."

Vance nodded. We both sat down by our trays, and began to devour the food.

God I was so hungry. The eggs tasted like shit, but I didn't care one bit, I was just so happy to be eating some real food. I took a sip from the soda, savoring every drop. Finally. Finally some food.

Once we finished, Vance immediately went for the door. I looked at him before we went up the narrow stairway. "You better be as quiet as possible. Don't make a sound."

He nodded, and the two of us began to slink up the stairs. We made sure to avoids any creaks as we went, being as quiet as we could. Eventually we reached another door, the one that I assumed lead us into the house and out of the basement.

I gave Vance a nod, and he slowly opened it. The two of us peaked out from the doorway, and what I saw absolutely horrified me.

There was The Grabber. Sitting in a chair that was facing us, and gripping onto a belt. He was dozing off, so he didn't see us. I knew it. If we had tried to make a run for it, he would've beat our asses with that belt.

I took Vance's wrist and pulled him back down into the basement, closing the door behind us. He looked at me, astonished.

"How the fuck did you know that?!" he shouted, pointing to the door.

"Stop yelling, I could just tell it was a trap!" I loudly snapped back, flopping down onto the mattress.

"Great," he muttered angrily, "Now how the hell are we gonna escape."

I sat up, sighing. "So you didn't find a single thing that first night you spend looking around?"

"No." Vance shrugged, taking a sip from his soda. "I mean, unless you count some useless ass numbers on the wall."

I stood up instantly. "What?!"

He nodded, slightly taken aback by my reaction. "Uh, yeah? Over there, 23317."

I ran over to where he pointed, dusting off some
dirt from the wall to reveal the numbers carved messily into the concrete. I whipped around, shooting Vance a look.

"And you didn't think of fucking telling me about this?!"

"It's just a bunch of random ass numbers, Y/N! That shit is useless." he argued, walking over to me.

"God, can you stop being so stubborn for one second and use your damn brain? There has to be reason this is here. One of his last victims could've put this here. Or who knows, maybe it's another trap. Whatever it is, it isn't useless." I explained, looking back at the numbers.

"Notice how many there are." I said, "23, 31, 7. 23, 3, 17. 2, 33, 17. It's a code for something."

"Holy shit." Vance gasped. "You're right. Theres not a lock anywhere in here, or on the door upstairs.."

I nodded. "There has to be a lock on the front door or something. And this is our combination."

"But what if it's another trap?" Vance asked.

I sighed, shaking my head. "I don't know, but all we can do is try. Let's wait until late tonight, The Grabber should be asleep by then. In the meantime we can look and see if there's anything else to help us escape."

So, the two of us began looking.

I really hoped this was our chance out.