Survive

[WARNING: This chapter contains brutal scenes of murder and abusive language. Please read at your own risk.]

I clasped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

'Someone is dead.'

'Daddy... daddy... help.'

'I... I have to get up.'

I slid down to the floor and crawled to the door, unable to be on my feet.

'If I open this door... I wil-'

*thud*

'I can't open the door.'

'I can't die.'

I pressed my ear against the door and waited for more sounds.

'Dad must be awake, right?'

My fingers tried to grasp the knob.

'Phone.'

'Call 911.'

I stopped myself from doing anything.

'He's awake... his footsteps. I know his footsteps.'

"You little bitch!" she heard a female voice. "I told you to fucking stop and you dared to come after me!" I shrunk back in fear. Of course, I heard the slight creaking of the wood in the hallways, as if someone was shifting from one foot to another, trying to find a suitable position to stand in.

"I've already called the police. They are on their way," Dad's voice was firm. "You can't kill me."

"Charlie, stop it!" I heard my mom groan.

'Pain? Was she in pain?'

The scenario flashed in front of my eye... Dad was trying to control and calm her. He must have had his hands raised in front of his body, an image of surrender, yet it was also to calm the perpetrator. The situation and the words that he was saying reminded me of a conversation I had with him years ago, sitting on the patio after he had returned from the police station.

'Remember what dad said, Evie.'

"It is necessary to gauge the mental situation of the person you are handling. If you must make a deal with someone who is posing a threat to you, then it should be with the person who has lost connection with reality. Under no circumstance should you engage in a deal with a criminal holding someone hostage. It will always end badly."

Hostage.

'She has Mom hostage.'

"Alice, you need to calm down and listen to me."

"I am calm you little shit. I hate that you act all high and mighty, thinking you can find me. You think I am taking your wife hostage?" She laughed.

*thud*

A softer one. Just the sound of a body gently falling over.

'I have to go out...'

Dad was wrong. He hadn't understood the killer like he thought he did. Alice was something else. I remember opening the door and witnessing her lunging at my dad.

That time, I screamed. I hoped the neighbors would wake up. I hoped the police would come.

My grandparents were nowhere in sight, yet I was pretty sure that she had thrown them around somewhere. Mom lay on the floor, the source of all the blood on the floor unknown.

I mustered up the little strength that I had left in my leg and sprinted back into the bathroom and locked behind me.

"Your daughter looks delicious, Detective Lewis." Her punctured breathing gutted me. It was as if she was using great force at even intervals.

Knife.

"I'm going to eat her as compensation, you little bitch... thinking you can take me on." I heard her kicking someone... Dad?

How could she have overtaken my father who was a six-foot-three-inch man with musculature not for show? Even if there was a little chance that I could have saved my whole family by unlocking that door and helping them take down that rabid killer—my humanity... my evil nature stopped me from helping.

In that situation, even though my body ached to do something, to engage in some kind of action, my mind compelled it to stall, to keep me down on the ground. It had calculated the chances of survival and my chances were bleak.

One: I could unlock the door and try to help my father. The resulting would be that despite trying my best, there was a ninety percent chance that the killer would shred my body to ribbons.

Two: I could keep myself locked up inside the room and hope that the police arrived before the rabid killer found her way inside and shred my body to ribbons. In this scenario, I had a forty percent chance of survival.

Even though my chances were small, and there was little to no doubt that my father had not had the time to call 911 in either his confidence or the abrupt nature of the situation, I chose the second option.

'Survive.'

I curled into myself and leaned against the door, hoping that it couldn't be broken down.

The kicking continued for quite some time, mingling with the lack of response and the curses spewed by the evil woman, I was sure that I was the sole survivor of this horror show. When it ended, I felt a rush of hope: maybe... I would be spared. I had not seen her face, maybe there was a chance to survive?

The dash of hope extinguished as rapidly as it had ignited in my heart. I heard the lights go on in the hallway; the glow of it entered the bathroom from the crack under the door.

In a moment of perversity, I imagined peering out from the crack to see if there was a chance that I could escape. Yet, the image of black eyes looking right back at me froze me to my core. I crawled away from the door, knowing that there was no use. I couldn't hide. Yet, I could lengthen the time I had to survive, even if it was by a few seconds.

'Daddy can't save me now...'

"Are you still leaning against that door, pretty girl?" she giggled right outside. "Should I stab your ass from under the door?" she clapped, delighted by the plot that she was forming in her head. "What a delightful picture!"

The door rattled. As the seconds passed the rattling gave way to violent shaking.

I screamed. The laughter from outside followed.

'She... enjoys... my fear.'

But I didn't stop. I couldn't.

Something in me broke in that moment. The desperation to safeguard my body had resulted in a crushing sense of guilt. I had committed the crime of forsaking my family, in exchange for what? Death.

When the door came down, my consciousness went with it. I had finally been freed of my humanity; the fear I felt that day stripped away every value that my parents had inculcated in me. I was reduced to a subhuman being, incapable of making ethical judgments.

I was sixteen when I was kidnapped by Alicia Williams, nicknamed Elegant Butcher by the FBI.

I was found seven months later, trying to escape her dungeon with three other survivors, skin sliced up, taut over my bones, malnourished and unable to communicate.

Alicia Williams was caught. Out of the four survivors, only two managed to recover despite the odds and survive.

I was one of them.

I took the GED. I graduated from college. Entered University.

I am alive.

The story of my captivity is for another day.

Then... shall I ask you? Who do you think I am?

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