Weekend Freewrite: "The Abduction"

But then the thought crept back again of her spreading apart on the floor the way she had... no matter how much Grace tried to move on and forget about one terrible event in her life. The same awful memory kept haunting her. She blamed herself for putting herself in that position. Had she gone home immediately after work, she would not have been on that floor of someone else’s apartment.

There, it was dark and all she could remember from that fateful night was the outline of a man’s body, the shape of his arms as he spread all her limbs apart and chained her wrists and her ankles on the bolted floor. She could smell a combination of sweat, cigarette and musky scent in him as his face drew near her. Something familiar, she thought. Someone that she had known intimately well.

She whimpered, “Please, let me go.” But he only muttered “Ssshhh” to her weak and anguished plea.

She could not even manage to cry so loud. Her nerves got the best of her and no matter how hard she wanted to resist his touch, she lay still helplessly. Her body was giving up on her. Her mouth and throat were dry and could not shout or scream for help. Would anyone be able to hear her anyway?

“You’re not cruel, John. Are you? I know you, please let me go,” she begged again. “Why are you doing this?”

“You think I’m John?” the man replied.

“Yes, I know it is you. I know it has been two years, but if I hurt you, I’m really sorry. Please don’t do this. Just let me go, please, and I won’t tell anyone. I can promise you that,” Grace pleaded desperately.

“I’m not John. You are wrong. Whoever that person is you’re talking about, you better hope he can come and get you because right now, you are mine,” the man said with a stern voice, mockingly.

“No, I know it is you. You’re just doing this because I don’t want to have anything to do with you. You just want to punish me because I don’t love you anymore,” Grace yelled at him.

“You know what? Why don’t you just shut up?! You’re making me lose focus. I really don’t want to hurt you. But you’re forcing me to do something that I might later regret,” said the man angrily.

Grace realised that there was no point of pleading and begging. This man, whom she certainly thought was John, was not going to listen to her. At that point, she found herself bursting into tears and crying uncontrollably. She had already resigned to the fact that whatever would happen, her life would be ultimately ruined. She thought that she might die, too. “Just kill me now. Make it quick. I don’t want to live anymore. I don’t want to live knowing for the rest of my life that you destroyed me. I hate you!!!”

Grace didn’t hear a reply. She stopped crying in an instant and tried to hear any noise amid silence and stillness of the night. The moonlight from the window helped her to see vaguely what was around her. All of a sudden, she heard footsteps approaching her.

“John, please don’t do this. Please let me go. I don’t hate you. I’m sorry I said what I said. I was just scared. I’m sure you understand that, right?” Grace said faintly, as she gasped for air in between sobs. Her voice was cracking and after trying to hold back the flood of tears, she began to cry again.

“Ssshhh… I’m here.” This time the words were from a much more familiar voice. It wasn’t the man she was talking to earlier.

A pair of cold hands touched her, wiping her tears off her face. “John, is that you?” asked Grace.

“Yes, it’s me. You’re safe now. I’m here,” John reassured her. “But we have to get out of here.”

“There was a man in here. He did this to me. Where is he?” Grace said nervously.

“Don’t worry about him. I need to get you out of here. We haven’t got time,” said John as he unlocked the chains from the bolt.

Finally, Grace was free. She felt numb around her wrists and ankles, but that was the last thing on her mind. She just wanted to leave that horrible place.

“John, I’m sorry. I thought it was you. I should’ve known it wasn’t your voice. But he smelled exactly like you.”

John helped her up and held her hands tightly, and said, “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.”

As they walked towards the door, Grace glanced back at the floor where her body was spread apart when she caught a silhouette image of a seemingly lifeless body laying on the floor three metres away from where she just was a few minutes ago. She wondered who that person was.

When they got out of that apartment, John led her to an alley where his white pick-up truck was parked. They hurriedly got inside the car and locked the doors. Grace’s heart pounded nonstop. She suddenly began to feel uneasy as John drove off at the highest speed. Both of them didn’t speak a word as they travelled on the highway leading out of the city.

Grace grew more nervous; racing thoughts flooded her mind. There were just too many questions she wanted to ask him, but the only thing she could manage to utter was, “Are we not going to the police to report that person who kidnapped me?”

John remained silent and did not even look at her. His eyes kept focused on the road ahead. He had no intention of answering that question. All Grace could think of as she turned her head to her window was whatever would happen that night, she would do everything to survive. She had to live.