KAR
I open my eyes and immediately roll to my stomach on the mat they’ve given me to sleep on. Using the butter knife I stashed after they brought me dinner one night, I mark another notch at the base of the stone wall.
Today it’s been one year since I’ve been living in these tunnels. One year since I was banished to this prison world and left in the care of the oh-so enjoyable Peter and Hook.
Growing up, I knew about this world and was always threatened with its existence. As a child, I was told I needed to learn my lessons, or I’d be sent here. As I got older, I had to do what I was told, or I’d be banished here. When I finally became an adult, I was threatened with being sent here no matter what I did.
Finally, I couldn’t take the verbal abuse anymore and I talked back. The one time I spoke up for myself, I was banished here.
Peter and Hook immediately captured me and brought me down here. But they must see something in me, or why would they have cared for me over the last year?
I’ve been fed, allowed to bathe, and given the occasional trip into the sunshine where I take the opportunity to soak in as many of the sun’s rays as I can because I never know when I’ll get to go back out there again.
When I first got here, I could hear the moans and screams of another person. I could tell it was a female, based on the pitch of the screams. But after hearing more people traveling through the tunnels than I ever have in the rest of the time of my being here, the moans and screams stopped. I have only heard one or two people at a time since then.
I hear the sound of footsteps, and I blow out my candle and shrink into the corner, hoping that by making myself as small as I can, they’ll leave me some food and leave me alone.
When I see the face of someone I know but have never seen in this world before, I know my luck has run out.