Not A Single Word

Chapter 4

All she could feel was a searing pain in the back of her skull. Her eyelids felt heavy and she was disoriented. Before opening her eyes she tried to remember what had happened but all that she managed to recall was waking up this morning elated and saying goodbye to her parents as she took off on her little adventure with Leila.

She was lying on what seemed like a hospital bed. She could feel the agonizing pain in her strained muscles and the lower part of her back and she opened her eyes with a gasp her head rising then falling back down onto the leather like material underneath.

Instead of being greeted with a blinding light the darkness opened its arms to encircle her. Finally understanding the reason for her temporary blindness, she felt what looked like a black scarf tied around her eyes. Trying to remove it to regain her sight she attempted raising first one hand then the other but she discovered to her horror that both her hands were pinned to her sides with what seemed like leather cuffs.

As panic started to seep in, her breathing got heavier and her chest rose and fell with the pressure of air. What had happened to her? Where is she? Please, please she had to remember.

Jill.

Yes, Jill.

Jill had failed her, she blew up a tire.

No. She almost screamed when an image of a stranger that gave her the creeps flashed through her mind. She knew it then. She was kidnapped.

And as realization dawned, her second thought was of Leila. Oh no! Is Leila hurt? Is she d... no she stopped the thought in its tracks. No it couldn't be!

Maybe Leila was tied up next to her too. And the thought scared her even more than the previous.

What was going to happen to her? To them? She wanted to speak and call out to Leila but she couldn't risk speaking yet. She needed to have a feel of her surroundings first.

She calmed her crazy breathing and her frantic heart for a while. Water was dripping somewhere in the background one drop at a time in a persistent rhythm like a synchronized watch ticking the seconds. A dripping faucet she deduced.

Over her head on another floor in a room she heard the faint creak of a spring hinged door, the faint thuds of muffled footsteps over a carpet. In the room she was in however, all she could hear from a living creature was her own breathing and heartbeat.

She could smell the overwhelming odor of detergents, maybe medicine, even alcohol. The smell seemed familiar, like the one she often smelled at the dentist's.

"Leila," she finally whispered knowing that she was alone. Leila, she thought again, but she couldn't dwell on her friend for long. Her survivor instincts were kicking in and she had to start thinking about herself for a change. Leila, whatever might have happened to her, couldn't be helped - that's if she can be helped at all - with Faith lying on a bed all tied up.

First, she had to get out of these leather cuffs and then...

Then all thoughts fled as she heard the volt like door to the room she was in being unlocked, followed by the shrieking of it being opened. Her heart stopped for a few beats and went back to work again with frantic swiftness. Trying to seem unconscious still in an effort to delay the inevitable she tried to control her breathing and her frantic heart. She could hear faint footsteps and the protesting shriek of wooden stairs getting closer.

She tried to think of her everyday life, her family, her father, her mother... But all what she saw was fear. Although her breathing wasn't loud anymore but her chest rising and falling with abnormal rhythm was sure to betray her. She wanted to whimper with the sobs she was holding back but she decided that if she was going to die she wasn't going to beg for her life. She wasn't going to die a beggar.