1 Chocolate

Chloe could hear the clambering above her head. The creatures could smell her ripe scent wafting up through the floorboards above her head. She sat in a cluttered basement, on the concrete floor. Her small, nimble hands had trouble opening the boxes of food her parents had left when they had set out to seek help.

Her curly red hair kept swinging in front of her eyes as she tore through shelf after shelf, looking for food. Her stomach growled like a lion. It seemed to be screaming "Feed Me!" With every muscle it contained. However, she could not find anything that appeared edible. She knew that there must be cereal upstairs. But she had trouble climbing the tall, cold steps, and even if she were to reach the top, she would never be able to open the security hatch, or even muster the strength to lift the metal door up.

She continued to crawl around on the floor. The shelves in the back of the room were filled with cans, so they were useless. The boxes seemed to be filled with dusty books, relics and other adult objects which Chloe knew not how to use. Her last resort would be the safe.

Two days prior, Chloe's mother had given her a special treat before departing. She had removed the safe from its hiding place behind the stairs, and allowed Chloe to eat a single M&M. Chloe didn't know much, but she did know that at that moment there was nothing she would not give for another sweet, rich, filling morsel of chocolate.

Chloe brought herself under the stairs, and pulled out the safe. It was held shut with a combination lock requiring three numbers. Chloe had never before used a combination lock and did not understand how it worked. All she knew was the piece of metal standing between her and her chocolate was the enemy.

The lock was made of three wheels,and a release latch, which needed to be pulled horizontally to signal an attempt. Chloe's first attempts to break through the lock consisted of pressing the latch into the safe's surface, which of course had no effect.

"Feed Me!" Her stomach continued to growl. "I'm hungry!" It loudly announced."

Eventually, she learned that the trick to moving the latch was to apply pressure on the side, causing it to move a few centimeters. She sat back expectantly, eyeing the lid of the safe and expecting it to pop like a jack in the box. Her eager eyes bore into the metallic surface as her mouth began to salivate. She could almost taste the smidgen of salt that was all too common in traditional sweets.

But the box remained lifeless, an unwaking dragon atop a pile of gold who refused to share any of his treasure.

Spinning the wheels was as meaningless as repeatedly pulling the latch. No matter how many times she spun each wheel the box never got any closer to opening its jaws.

Finally, after a tiresome fifteen minutes had been spent trying to solve the puzzle of the safe, Chloe had the ingenious thought to spin the wheels whilst pulling on the latch. It wasn't easy, but if she gripped the case to her chest using her thighs, she could pull the latch with one hand and spin the wheels with the other.

POP!

The lid burst open. Chloe desperately shoved her fists into the opening, and began to withdraw the contents: A single photo, a key on a silver necklace, and a brown paper bag. Within the brown paper bag lay the true treasure. Sixteen bite sized morsels of sweet chocolate candy, encased in a caramelized shell of pure bliss.

Two at a time, for this is all her mouth would allow, she placed the pieces of salvation onto her tongue and allowed them to drizzle down her throat. With a satisfactory gulp, she allowed the syrup to enter her stomach. As she finished the last of the candies, she watched the world begin to gloss over as a tear formed in her eye. On a level deeper than intuition, she knew her parents were gone. She was out of food, and out of luck.

It was at this moment that her ears perked up, not because she heard something but because she did not. For the past few months the sound of soulless creatures clamoring about in her living room had been a constant reminder that the outside was dangerous.

"As long as you can hear that bumping noise," Her mother had warned her, "You are never to leave the basement." Being only three, she barely understood what her parental figure was rambling on about. However, now that the noise was gone the world felt more eerie. Something had changed; was it good or bad?

Upstairs, Staire had finished looting Chloe's house. He had closed the zipper on his small blue hiking backpack and was about to leave the premises when he noticed a sealed basement, with a circular hatch like that on the outside of a submarine porthole. He decided to take a peep, considering he'd gone through the trouble of clearing the soulless from within the house. As he pulled open the hatch, he was met with one of the most soul crushingly haunting sights of his entire life. A young girl sat on a cold hard floor, with greasy hands and greasy hair. Her mouth was outlined with a chocolate stain, and her eyes spoke of an innocence unfathomable to a sullied mind.

And she was crying. Not tears of sadness, but of joy. The type of joy that only the abandoned can ever know, on the day that they are found again.

Staire walked down the concrete steps and into the musty darkness of the basement. The chilly air enveloped his body, his hairs standing on end. His camouflage track pants only kept him so warm, and his blue cardigan, damp with sweat, began to chill his body even further. He picked the girl up like a tiny princess, and carried her away from the only house she had ever known.

Abandoning the home in which she had grown, Chloe was carried up, and out, into the unknown.