I wake up in a fright. My heart pounds against my chest and in my ears as I dart out of bed, flipping the blankets off me when the footsteps get louder and closer to my bedroom door. Out of instinct, I hide under my bed and pray to the God everyone suddenly believes in when life gets too hard. When the sounds of their feet become distant to my ears, I exhale the breath I was holding but stay where I'm at so I don't risk making a sound.
But I worry for my parents. Uncertainty washes through my mind. What if they didn't hear the glass break and the men who spoke amongst themselves? They will show no remorse for any life that struggles against them. They will kill us.
I suddenly hear a scream, my mother's scream, and my dad begging for them not to harm his family. Feet stomp, and things hit the floor, no, not just anything but bodies. They're going to hurt my family or worse. My chest suddenly feels tight when anxiety overwhelms me in a full blow, and I start to panic. I can't breathe.
God, I can't breathe.
In a hurry, I drag myself out from under the bed, holding my hand to my chest, and feel my heart beat scarcely against it. My mother's sobs and pleas ring in my ears, begging for them to stop, and then I hear it. A gun fires not once but twice, and the sound of lifeless bodies hits the floor, and silence washes over all the sounds that played in my ears just moments ago
No. No, no, no, no!
I open my mouth to let a scream tear through my throat and fall to my knees, but nothing comes out.
They can't be. God, they can't be. You were supposed to protect us; that's what I asked you to do, but you let my parents die!
My anxiety is quickly overcome with anger. Anger towards the God who calls Himself love. The God who said He will never leave me, but where is He? Because for the first time, I feel like He was never there for me.
God isn't real.
Something breaks in the distance, reminding me I'm not yet alone, and a shiver runs down my spine in fear they'll kill me, too. I don't want to die like this. I'm too young to die. My parents were too young to die. So I do the only thing I can do. Run and hope someone hears me scream for help because what other choice do I have when no one will hear me in the house?
I stand on my feet, reach out my arm, and watch my handshake with nerves before placing it on the door nob, and I listen for any movement outside my bedroom. Nothing. Clear of danger, I count down from three in my head.
Three, two, one.
I open the door a crack and peek through it to be extra cautious, and looking from one side to the other, I open it wider, just enough for me to fit through. It suddenly feels too quiet throughout the house, like the guys are no longer here, but that is far from the truth, which means they can find me, and I won't know until it's too late.
Quietly, I tiptoe through the house, making sure I don't hit any of the creaks in the hard floor under my weight. I just need to get to the front door without being caught, run to the police station, and turn in the crime committed at my house. Pressing my back flat against the wall, the front door in my sight, I lean over the edge to ensure no one snoops around on the other side. Someone is there, a man dressed in black with dark brown boots and a black ski mask to hide his identity. I hurry and whip my head back around, putting a hand over my mouth to muffle out any sounds my body suddenly wants to make.
I don't know what to do. He'll hear me if I try to escape now. So I wait for him to leave for the dining room and hope he doesn't walk my way. The floor creaks under his feet, letting me know he's moving somewhere else, and when a couple of minutes pass, it stops.
He's gone.
Exhaling a sigh of relief, I then hear another creak in the floor at the right of me down the hallway coming towards me. I can't waste any more time in this place when he's getting closer with each step.
You can do this, Sophie, just pass this wall and run through the door so you can find the police.
I breathe in one final breath and turn around the corner, then almost freeze when I'm standing face to face with the man I thought had left the living room, but luckily, he was too stunned to see me that he stumbled back a bit, and I dart out the front door.
I run as fast and hard as my legs can handle down the street, hoping I'm going the right way to the police station. I might have lived in this neighborhood my whole life, but I don't know it like the back of my hand.
Taking a quick glance behind me, I see the guy from earlier in the living room chasing me down with a furious look in his eyes behind his mask and a gun in his grip. He can't kill me, not at least with a gun. Not here in the street, surrounded by homes filled with families. So I turn my focus back on what's in front of me and run faster and harder till my legs burn, begging for a break.
This is it. I take my opportunity and scream at the top of my lungs, begging for anyone to hear me. The man is getting closer. I can hear his boots hit the pavement more clearly than before. Then I scream. "Help me! Someone help me. He's going to kill me!" A sob tries to break out, but I stay strong. I have to. No, I need to. I scream once again, trying to make my voice louder this time. "Help! Help me! I'm going to die. Someone, please help. He has a-"
Before I could finish my plea, my hair was suddenly grabbed from behind, and I was yanked to the ground, hitting my head on the hard pavement road. The guy tells me something, but I don't understand anything he's saying. My head feels too dizzy and in excruciating pain for me to even care. Then I black out.
When I wake up, I lie in a dark room on something soft like a bed. My head feels fizzy and hurts just lying here. Then I suddenly remember the men in my house, the murder of my parents, and being chased down the street. I jolt out of bed only to be yanked back from the tight rope that's tied my hands together. Tying me to the bed.
He didn't kill me. They didn't kill me when given an opportunity, but they killed my parents, so why not me too? I'm already good as dead if it means I'm trapped in this dark room alone, nowhere to be found by anybody but by those who put me here.
I begin to cry into my knees, knowing that no one will ever find me until my corpse is tossed away in a lake, never to be discovered until many years later when I'm long forgotten. That's how it always is in the real horror stories of men and women or boys and girls, and now it's going to happen to me.
Time passes. My eyes are swollen from crying, my back aches from lying in the same position for hours, and I'm hungry and thirsty. I wish I were home. I wish none of this happened, and it was just a terrible nightmare. I'll wake up and see my mom in the kitchen cooking breakfast and my dad sitting at the table reading the morning paper.
The door clicks, and I'm suddenly back in this dark room. The door opens, and five silhouettes of men stand behind the frame, watching me before stepping their heavy boots inside. I quickly huddle in the corner of my bed to protect myself as much as possible, but I know it's useless even against one.
One of the guys picks up a candle that must have been on the shelf next to the door, lights it with a lighter, and walks around to burn others around the room until it's bright enough to see each other's faces. My face. Their masks. My chest heaves with every breath, watching them watch me while bad things flood through my head.
They're going to kill me or worse.
"Please let me go," I beg, looking into each of their masked faces. "I won't tell anyone of this, I promise. Just let me go."
The one closest to me widens his stance and crosses his bare arms over his chest. Thinking he's going to say something, but he doesn't. Someone else does, and I don't know who. "We can't do that. You've caused us too much trouble already when you ran away from my buddy here and screamed for help." The man who spoke put a hand on the guy's shoulder, and I recognized him from the living room. He's still wearing the same black clothes, which can only mean I was out for only an hour or so before waking up inside here.
The men suddenly turn towards each other, whispering things I can not understand being at this distance while they occasionally steal glances at me.
I have a horrible feeling about this. All of this. Without any notice, tears stream down my cheeks in hiccuping sobs. I don't want to die like this. This is a girl's worst nightmare. So I beg and beg over and over that they don't hurt me. I beg them just to kill me now. It would be quick and sufferless. But they don't listen to me. I kick and scream until something is shoved down my throat, silencing my voice box, and my legs are pulled out from beneath me and pinned down to the mattress.
I scream and scream until my throat burns, shaking and pulling my hands, trying to break free from the rope around them, and it only gets worse the more I try, but I don't give up not until a man grabs my wrists and another pins my shoulders down to the bed.
At that moment, I really knew that God wasn't going to save me. He was going to let these men take away my innocence and let me die here.
God isn't going to save me. God doesn't love me. God's not real.