Invisible || h.s.

PART I: 1: Kidnapping

I've made a slight edit and this story is now divided into parts, each one consisting of 10+ chapters. Enjoy your reading.

[edited]

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PART I

I admit I've always been the kind of person who got scared of everything—that one girl in the room who unnecessarily looked behind her back at night or shivered while watching a silly horror movie that no one else found frightening. I guess at some point in time I've gotten used to it to the point of accepting it as an inherent part of my nature. There's no use fighting something that just makes you you, right?

Some say that once you get used to something, the fear should start slowly fading away—well, that's definitely not me. In my case, fear had entered my life at the young age of fifteen; slowly, but surely, beginning to consume my entire existence.

Fear became the definition of my life.

That night I had been frightened too, even though I shouldn't; after all I've walked down this alley at four in the morning so many times in the past two years that I've lost count. I knew every building, each dark corner like the back of my hand.

And yet, before I knew it, a powerful wave of anxiety was spreading through my bones, once again consuming me whole. It had my stomach in knots, knowing what could possibly happen to me, and the feeling crept up all the way up to my throat, a wave of nausea following soon after. I knew what that was instantly.

The fear of being watched.

Someone was following me in the middle of the night, with no one around to help me; and this time—this time I had something real to be scared of.

As I rounded the dark corner of the street, the already frantic thrumming of my heart intensified to the point of becoming the only thing registered by my terror-struck brain.

I heard the soft sound of footsteps behind me, as a dark silhouette turned right into the same street as I did. He was being cautious, deliberate. It wasn't a random stranger coincidentally going in the same direction as I was. This was reality, it was happening, it was no fiction.

A brief glance over my shoulder confirmed what I'd already suspected—the shadowy figure had nearly caught up to me, and it wouldn't be long until he had an opportunity to grab me. Involuntarily, I quickened my pace, even after I heard the unmistakable sound of him jogging behind me. Another wave of helplessness crashed into me, a cruel reminder of my own inability to take care of myself. No matter what the stranger's intentions were, I knew I'd be powerless to stop him. This night could only end in one scenario.

What else could he want, if not to hurt me?

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18 hours earlier

The door closed downstairs, making a loud slamming noise and forcing me out of my pitiful sleep. I blinked once, twice, then repeated the motion over and over again as if that would make the room around me less real than it actually was. Even though the truth of my situation wouldn't change no matter how much I willed it to, pretending to be in a completely different universe still worked well as a temporary distraction. Not to mention, it also made for a wonderful stalling technique.

With a deep, shuddering sigh, I rolled onto my back and stared vacantly at the pale blue shade of the bedroom ceiling. My foster mother painted it herself, going on and on about the tranquility of the colour, and how it's supposed to inspire creativity and expand your imagination. It did nothing to calm me, instead reminding me of where, why and most importantly who I was stuck with.