I have no food. No drink. Nothing.
The worst part is I have devoured every morsel there is to eat, but my stomach still feels completely empty. There’s a dull ache in the center of my chest. I feel like I don’t have the energy to move, much less go back to hammering at the trap door.
But it’s my only hope.
Well, that’s not true. The police might find me. As I lie in one corner of my cell, trying to ignore the ache of emptiness in my belly, I imagine what it will be like when the police storm in here. They’ll find me and bring me back to my family. And best of all, they’ll punish him. My parents will never give up on me. They’ll keep looking until they find me. I know it.
I don’t know what time it is when I hear the footsteps. I’ve lost all track of time, but that slice of light is gone, which means it must be dark out. I know in my heart that it’s probably him, but just in case it’s not, I scream out, “Help! Help me please! I’m down here!”
It happens just the way it did last time. I hear the locks turning and the flashlight blinding me. It occurs to me that if I had spent my time building the mound higher instead of pounding on the lock, I might have been able to be ready to jump at him when he opened the trap door.
Damn. It’s too late now.
“Olivia,” he says. “How are you doing?”
“Awful,” I spit at him. “I’m starving. I need food. And water.”
“Yes,” he says patiently. “People need water to live. Did you know that a person can survive only three to five days without water? Without water, your organs will eventually start to fail and your brain will swell up. But people can survive longer without food. Weeks. Your body will break down excess fat, and when that’s gone, it will break down muscle. Your body will effectively consume itself.”
I blink up at him, trying to ignore the shooting headache that resulted from the flashlight in my eyes. There’s a look of fascination on his face as he recites these facts. Like I’m some sort of rat in a science experiment.
“How does it feel, Olivia?”
My hunger and thirst evolve into anger. I am not a science experiment. I am a human being. And I’m not going to play his perverted game. “Fuck you.”
My anger only seems to amuse him though, just as my threats did. “Just tell me. How does it feel to be starving to death?”
“Go to hell.”
He reaches into a paper bag next to him. I hear crackling of paper, and then his hand emerges from the bag. At first I think he’s going to point a gun at me. But it’s not a gun. It’s a piece of bread.
He grins at me. “Tell me how you feel and I’ll give you this bread.”
I want that bread so badly. Like it’s a decadent piece of chocolate cake. I stare at it, wanting to tell him to go to hell again, but wanting that bread even more. After all, the bread means survival. If I die, nobody can tell the police what he’s done.
“I feel like something is clawing away at my insides,” I say. “And I feel dizzy. A little nauseous.”
Is that enough? Is that enough for you, you bastard?
I suppose it is, because he tosses the bread into the hole. I make a halfhearted attempt to catch it, but it falls past my fingers into the dirt. I don’t care. I’m close to literally eating dirt. He also tosses in another plastic water bottle, but this one is only half of the size of the others. And there’s only one.
“If you cooperate, you’ll live longer,” he says. He nods at the bones in the corner. Under the light of his flashlight, I can see them clearly for the first time. The outline of ribs and a pelvis. What used to be arms and legs. “She didn’t cooperate.”
I wonder what’s happening on the outside. I’ve been gone for days—people must be starting to assume I’m dead. How long will he let me live down here? It feels like eternity, but I know it can’t go on forever. If he keeps feeding me so little, I’ll die in a month or two. But I have a feeling he won’t drag it out that long. As he said, people can only survive three to five days without water.
And if he does somehow get arrested, but he doesn’t tell the police where I am, that will be it. I’ll die of dehydration in days.
“I’ll try to come back in a few days,” he says.
“A few days?” My panic escalates at the realization that all I have is one piece of bread and barely a pint of water. “But…”
“And don’t waste your energy trying to escape,” he says. “The wood is sturdy and so is the lock. You won’t get out of here.”