Suicide

Chapter 1

Amanda sat motionless in a corner of the room. She didn't move, she didn't talk, she didn't breathe. She was busy; counting the seconds passing by on the silver hands of her coat watch. She was trying to make up for lost time. Afterall, she had just lost an hour of her day.

An hour ago, Amanda had been walking home from school. Her pink backpack hung effortlessly over her shoulder, her navy blue skirt, which she had double-checked to make sure it was the necessary length, rustled gently in the cool afternoon breeze. Everything about Amanda was clean and organized. Everything from the laces on her shoes to the ribbons in her hair were clean, well kept, and perfectly symmetrical. She kept her blonde hair braided and tied back in pink ribbons. The braids hung limp over her shoulders and grazed her chin with every step she made. She hated this. She hated the way it tickled her neck and grazed her back when she moved. She hated the frizz, and the color, and the constant brushing and combing. She had thought several times about cutting it all off but she never had and probably never would. Because Amanda held beauty and looks above all other things she would never cut it off. She was too scared to see how she might look without it.

An hour ago Amanda had been walking home from school and now she was here. In the dim, dark basement of an unfamiliar house. She had not a clue as to how she got here nor did it really matter to her. She was more upset by the lost time and the dirt on her skirt and coat than she was with being kidnapped and brught here. And that was what this was, right? A kidnapping? She definitely didn't walk here on her own. Despite all this, Amanda wasn't scared.

After an hour had passed, Amanda picked herself up off the dusty concrete floor and examined her surroundings. The room was wide and spacious; to her right was an old oak desk with a missing chair and a pile of disorganized papers and files stacked in the center. To her left two large bookshelves with a wide assortment of items of varying sizes rested on the wall. Each shelf was coated in a thick layer of dust and grime. On the far wall in front of her there was a door and next to the door was a staircase going up and turning left onto the ground floor. The basement room had no lights. The only light entering the room came from two six inch tall windows on the top of the wall behind her.

Amanda was drawn to the windows. They were way too small to squeeze but perhaps they would offer some clue as to where she was. The window was too high up to see through, she needed something as leverage. Scanning the room, her eyes fixed on the old wooden desk, she walked over and put her hand on its splintered surface, leaning in she pushed down on the desk using as much of her body weight as possible to test its endurance. The desk creaked slightly but gave no intention of falling apart or giving way so Amanda deemed it safe. She was surprised by how easy it was to move. At first glance the desk seemed heavy and solid but in reality it was quite light. With a single push it slid across the concrete floor with ease. She positioned it under the windows before steadily climbing up. The window wasn't so high up that she would have to stand so she kneeled. The window was made out of a type of security glass, the kind with wire mesh embedded in the thick glass pane. The view from the right window was blocked by a bush but she was able to see partially out of the one to her left. The windows lay at ground level so outside she could see a lot of overgrown grass and bushes. The only landmark she could make out was a fountain maybe sixty feet in front of her. It was a big fountain, maybe even majestic if it had been in the right repair however the monument was currently falling apart. The foundation was old and fracked and the white tiles that covered its exterior were discolored and chipping away. Amanda took note of her surroundings before climbing down from the desk.

It didn't take long for Amanda to exhaust all of her options. She had spent nearly three hours downstairs searching the basement. She had looked through all the desk drawers and examined all the papers, most of them were meaningless nonsense while others seemed to be pages torn from old textbooks like the ones in her school library. She had dug through the laundry basket in the corner of the room and had found nothing but dirty rags. Eventually there was nothing left to look through and she was left with a single option. It was time to go upstairs. Up until this point Amanda had avoided venturing up the basement stairs. She had good reason not to, after all if this was a kid napping then there was a pretty good chance that whoever orchestrated the crime would be up there. Amanda was neither strong nor fast so she knew that if she did come across the criminal she had no chance of getting away. For awhile she thought that perhaps he would be coming down to get her, so she hid behind the stairs in the hopes that she would be able to run past him but no one ever came. She then thought that perhaps she could arm herself with a weapon of some kind for self defense but there was nothing notably heavy or sharp enough to cause damage lying around. There was no other way around it. The sun was going down and pretty soon it would be pitch black down there and she didn't want to be stuck here in the dark. Slowly she ascended the staircase. As she climbed she kept a tight grip on the the handrail and her eyes were kept fixed on the upper landing. When she reached the top step she peered around the corner and was not at all surprised to see a door there. She thought it must be locked, but it wasn't. Gripping the handle, the knob turned with ease and the door swung open.