10 years

September, 2005

"Let me out! Please, let me out! Let me out! Please!" A 12 year-old girl in a dark room cried out for as long and as high as her voice let her, banging on the metal door. The floor was cold, and she was only wearing her pajamas. She was freezing.

Everything happened so fast that night.

She had been sleeping on her warm bed in her house in London. She had had an amazing day, with her parents telling her her CD had a great reception from many renown musicians.

Then, the door abruptly opened as various masked men entered her room to seize her. She tried to resist and yell, calling for her parents. A heavy fist fell on her stomach, silencing and leaving her gasping for air. Another hit left her unconscious.

When she opened her eyes, an acute pain pierced her stomach, product of the previous punch, and making her stand up with great difficulty. The room she was in smelled horrible. The stench of blood, putrefaction and sewer made her throw up and fall feebly on her knees.

After she emptied her stomach, she attempted to stand up again. If she was kidnapped for money, then she wanted to talk with them. After probing the walls of the place due to the null sight, she noticed she was in a minuscule room. A cell. She found the door. and immediately began to bang on it.

"Someone! Let me out!" She banged that door and screamed for hours until her voice turned coarse. The silence of her captors made her so tensed, she felt as if she was going to lose her mind at any minute.

Hours later, there was no sound anymore, just a weak knocking on the door and a girl laying on the floor. She wasn't sure how long she had been there, but she was hungry. And, although she had gotten used to the stench of the place, she knew that if she was given some food, she wouldn't hold it.

Time flew. Minutes turned into hours, hours into days. The cell became quiet; as if the whole ruckus had been a hearing illusion.

However, inside that little cell, a skeletal girl laid on the floor, with rats roaming around her. She was still weakly breathing. Her eyes were dim, her clothes extremely dirty, her hair all messy and without luster. Her face portrayed the meaning of death itself.

When she was about to close her eyes to fall asleep once again, hoping that it was all a dream and she was still on her warm bed, the door finally opened. She recoiled and closed her eyes due to the bright light. Someone picked her up and took her to another place.

She was so weak that she immediately fainted before being abruptly woken up with freezing water. She opened her heavy eyelids, but they immediately closed as her eyes were still not used to the light. She squinted, trying to figure out where she was. If she was finally saved.

Her hopes dwindled when she found herself in yet another dark room. The only difference was the light on her. She was on a stretcher with a catheter on her hand connected to a pack of serum. She tried to move, yet her strength failed her. She also tried to speak, but her vocal chords were so damaged that no sound came out from her mouth.

"Well, well, it seems you woke up." A voice belonging to a man said. He was dressed in black, wearing a mask and a cap, so she couldn't see who he was. "You will remain here, resting, until you can move." He announced before exiting the room and leaving her there alone.

She looked up to the actually dim light, and quietly cried the few tears she still had.

Days later, no food was given to her, barely making her survive with the serum. That's why, by the time the man returned, she still had skeletal, on the verge of death, look. He dragged her out of the room – literally dragged her as she couldn't walk – and put her inside another one, which was bigger and had lines of beds in it.

He threw her on one of the beds, and then went out.

She looked around the place and felt tiny before the huge space she found herself in, already used to limited space of her previous rooms. Her eyes still examined the place. It was a white room with old beds and two doors in the extremes. One from where she entered, and as for the other one...

She gingerly put her feet on the floor and tried standing. She fell. It hurt so badly she remained there for some time. When the pain subsided, she didn't try to stand and decided to crawl. She wondered if that door held her ticket to freedom.

The room behind the door was like one of those public baths she saw on TV what felt like ages ago. There were toilets on one side and showers on the other. There were no windows, though. Her hopes crushed once again, she crawled back to the bed she was seemingly assigned to.

She found a little mirror resting on a table next to the bed, and looked at herself. She regretted it. Her appearance was really dreadful. Bones stood out on her face, outlining her skull; her hair was so hard to the touch, it didn't feel real; and her lips were so cracked blood came out when she moved them.

The door opened again, scaring her. She hurriedly put the mirror back in its place, almost breaking it.

A rough lady entered, pushing a trolley. There was a horrible scar going from her right ear to her chin, which made her look even more terrifying. Glancing at the girl, she muttered a short 'eat' before leaving. On the trolley, there was a bowl of soup and a piece of bread.

The moment she saw the food, she instantly started devouring it, not caring about the pain in her throat. She had to slow down when her stomach rebelled and warned her it was going to return the food. With the food gone, her stomach still upset, she just remained sitting on the bed.

Minutes later, the same woman entered to take away the trolley.

The following days were more of the same. She was locked in that room with the same lady giving her three meals a day. She was also given a change of clothes and she finally had the joy of taking a shower. The grime she washed off of herself almost made her puke.

When days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, she lost all hope.