Jessica Finch was in a state of semi-consciousness, blood dripping from her wrists where the shackles dug into her skin. Moving her head to the right, she stared at the black hole at the end of the hollow chamber. There was no doubt in her mind that she was below ground. She wondered how he – or was it they? – had managed to get her down here, why they’d taken her and how long they planned to leave her there alone.
Jessica shivered as a ghost walked over her skin. In these extremely cold conditions she knew she could only survive for a few days without liquid. She moistened her lips, driven crazy by the sight of water running down the opposite wall.
Dehydration: the silent killer.
As a med student, she’d seen both sides of the medical debate: those that thought that death by dehydration was serene, that it could, and should be, used in a voluntary capacity to end a life; others who thought the process unimaginably painful and cruel. The awareness of what would happen to her body if she were to remain in captivity without sustenance made Jessica cry tears she could ill afford to waste. In a fight for survival she would suffer extreme thirst, dizziness, severe stomach cramps, hallucinations, shut-down of the circulatory system as the body pushed blood to vital organs in order to keep her alive.
Coma.
Death.
Serene?
She didn’t feel serene.
Her mouth was parched, her saliva thick, her head pounding. How long before she couldn’t speak? Couldn’t cry because her tears had dried up? She urged her captors to return and yet feared what they might do to her. The sound in the chamber was torturous. Constant and hollow, enough to drive a sane person mad.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Quicker now?
Water rising?
It was raining outside – SHIT!
The bulb in the miner’s lamp flickered . . .
And went out.