Whisper of the Woods

•13•

Blake

4 weeks/28 days/1 month

I sat in my closet with my legs crossed staring at the various marks on the wall. It's been a month since I was taken to live in this dump. I've grown used to the same lonesome feeling everyday. I missed my family so much. Yes, we have a lot of turmoil and issues but that was a sense of normality for me.

I've spent my days locked in this hot and sticky room. I've lost count on how many times I've looked through that photo album. It's just filled with a few photos of Jace as a child. Nothing interesting. I've even talked to myself just to break the silence.

My wound eventually closed up, but was still visible to the eye and disgusting to look at. I haven't tried to escape my room since Jace stabbed me either.

However, last night I came up with a somewhat tactful way to get out. Spending hours upon hours, days upon days, I was bound to think of something. Before Jace closed and locked the door, I slipped in a folded photo from the album between the latch and strike plate. The door never closed all the way. I was petrified he would know, but luckily he didn't even notice.

This was my chance.

I walk out of my room skeptically. Jace would be back in a few hours as to it's already after noon. I still have no clue what he does while he's gone, on the other hand I wasn't complaining. I encounter the first room near mine.

Locked.

All of them, locked, with the exception of the bathroom. How could I think this was going to be easy? I walked down the second hallway next to the living room with no hope in mind. But to my surprise, Jace forgot to lock one of the rooms. The knob twisted open and I smiled to myself.

The room was a little tinier than mine, it was like a matchbox really. The same exact wired old sheet-less bed. Except the bed was tucked away in the corner near the window. I saw two sliding doors, one overlapped over the other when I look to the left.

When I slid the door open, I saw a horizontal pole extending from one end to another. Nothing weighed down on the shelf above. The closet was completely empty with nothing intriguing for me to discover. In the motion of sliding the door closed, I stopped immediately when something caught my eye on the floor in the corner.

A journal.

A pocket sized brown leather journal with an intricate design etched in. A string wrapped around it, securing it closed.

I grabbed it with sparked curiosity, brushing off the excess dustings. I unwrapped the string from around it carefully, the seams of the journal were weak.

A name was revealed on the inside cover. Property of Anna P.

When I looked to the other side, there was an entree, written in pencil. The handwriting was inconsistent. Neat at the very beginning and almost scribbled as it progressed.

October 2010

My name is Annalise, Anna for short. I was taken away from my family 6 weeks ago. I don't know what I did to deserve this. I had a great family, a great life, my brother and I had a close relationship. I miss them so much. I've hardly eaten. I'm terrified of what Jace will do to me if I don't listen to what he tells me to do. He's slapped me, punched me and even spit on me. I'll never see my friends and family again. I'm lonely and cold at night. There's nobody who I can talk to but the blank walls. If you ask me, this shouldn't be what a normal 12 year girl should have to go through. Whoever is reading this should know that.

- Anna P.

I kept rereading it trying to process what I just read. He abducted a twelve year old girl five years before me. It was crazy to think that a little girl once went what I'm going through now. Questions swarmed in my head like wild wasps. I paged through the rest of the notebook. Some entrees were long as an essay, some only a few sentences long.