PRESENT
Pains cramp my stomach. I stop walking, knead it with my hands. I haven’t had anything to eat since the bread and cheese the night before my escape attempt, and that was ages ago. If I could sleep, it would take my mind off my hunger. But with the cramps and the cold, it’s impossible.
I go to the bathroom, fill my empty stomach with water, so much of it that I vomit it up. I can’t stop shivering as I score another line on the wall, because another day must have gone past by now. Eleven days; why has nobody come for us?
I return to the main room, manage to doze a little. At one point, a noise wakes me and I raise my head and look hopefully in the direction of the door. But no one comes walking across the room toward me and suddenly I’m furious, furious that they think they can starve me.
I push myself from the mattress, make my way blindly to the door.
“I’m hungry!” I yell. “I need food!” I find the handle, rattle it. “Did you hear me?” I thump on the door with my fists. “I’m hungry!”
I stop, put my ear to the door, hoping to hear someone approaching. But there’s nothing. I thump on the door again. “Did you hear me? I need food!”
“Shut up!”
The high-pitched scream transcends the sound of my thumping. I stop, my fist halfway to the wall, paralyzed by the violence in the scream. For a moment, I think it’s the man who caught me when I tried to escape, that he’s in the hallway outside, yelling at me to stop. Then, I realize—it came from below. Ned. He’s heard me hammering on the door.
I sink to the ground, my eyes smarting with tears of frustration and my leg knocks against something. I reach out, it’s a tray. Relief floods through me; they must have brought it while I was asleep. I grope clumsily for food, find a sandwich, and begin to eat, searching at the same time for the bar of chocolate. But there’s nothing else, not even a piece of fruit.
I finish my sandwich, sit with my back against the wall, thinking about the tray left just inside the door. No more chocolate or fruit. No more human contact. That is going to be the hardest to bear. And what about Ned? He knows where I am now, he knows I’m being kept in a room somewhere above him. Which means he can invade my space whenever he wants.
Better for me to be quiet.