Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
My stomach rumbles at the mere thought of eating. “OK.” And that’s it. That’s all the fight I have at the moment. And the moment I say that word, the disgusting rag is shoved back into my mouth.
And this is it for me. I give in and stick my feet down into the trapdoor, then scoot down the steps on my butt.
He waits until I’m all the way down before whispering, “Nighty night,” closing the door above me.
There’s no way to keep track of time, but there’s also no way that this is still the same day when I wake up. It’s raining outside, water is pelting against the boarded-up windows, and I’m thirsty again. It could be three in the morning, it could be the next day, I just can’t tell.
He doesn’t come back.
And as the hours tick off and the day goes on, and on, and on I realize—he’s never coming back. That’s why he said those things about dying of thirst and hunger. I can go three days without water and weeks without food.
He only needs two days now. By the time I’m dying of thirst, he’ll be gone.
Just as I think that, the door above my head creaks open and the lights flip on.
Immediately I start struggling and trying to scream. Not because I think it’s someone here to help me, because I am pissed.
“Hold on, hold on.” He says these words like I’m some child in the middle of asking for something unreasonable.
His boots thud down the wooden stairs, and then he grabs my arms and stands me up as I struggle under his grip. The rag comes out and with it my anger. “You asshole! I thought you left for good! You’re trying to kill me of thirst, aren’t you? You’re evil. You have no heart, or feelings, or—”
“Calm down, for fuck’s sake.”
“Calm down? You leave me down here for days, scared and helpless, and I’m supposed to calm down!”
He laughs.
“Oh, I’m so glad you think me dying a slow death is funny.”
“It’s only been three hours, Clover. Pull yourself together.”
“Three hours!” I scoff. “Three hours? You’re lying. It’s been like two days! I fell asleep six times.”
“You’re crazy. Look.” Then he eases the t-shirt blindfold up just enough for me so see and thrusts his wrist underneath it. “It’s nine-thirty. You haven’t even been in here a whole day.” Then he laughs again.
I study the watch on his wrist, first noticing that it’s very military-looking, and then reading the numbers. Twenty-one hundred hours. I do a quick military-time calculation and sure enough, it’s nine-thirty at night. “But… that’s not possible. I have been down here for days.”
“Yeah, well, the darkness does that to you.”
“Does what?”
He withdraws his wrist from my view and readjusts my blindfold so my eyes are covered again. “Fucks with your head like that. You don’t realize how much humans depend on light to keep track of things like time until you have no light. You lose all sense of reality.”
“What are you, some kind of time expert? How would you know?”
He leans in to me now, his face right up against my neck. So close his words tickle the little hairs there and send a shiver through my whole body. “Because I spent six long years in the dark, Clover. That’s how I know. And that’s why I cannot fuck up this job. Because if I do anything wrong up here, they’ll send me back down there.”
“Send you back down… where?” I’m so confused.
“Never mind. It’s not important. Are ya hungry, or aren’t ya? Because I’m starved and I’ll be more than happy to eat that MRE myself.”
“I am,” I say quickly. “But I don’t believe you about the time. It’s probably nine-thirty the next day.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Whatever. Come on, let’s go.” Then he releases the belt from my wrists, roughly turns me around, and gives me a push. “Go up.”
I carefully climb the stairs, then wait at the top as he follows.
He leads me into the hallway and stops at the bathroom I used last night. “Need to go?”
“Yes.” Then I shrug off his grip and feel my way in. “Can I close the door this time?”
“No. But I’ll turn around. Just be quick.”
His feet shuffle like he’s turning, but whether he really does it or not, I can’t tell. I can’t do anything about it, either. So I put it out of my mind and relieve myself, then wash my hands and dry them using the rag from last night. It leaves a turpentine smell behind, but at this point, I don’t care anymore.
And he’s lying about the time. Maybe it is nine-thirty PM, as his watch said, but it’s certainly not the same day. I’ve been down in that dungeon for more than twenty-four hours, that’s for sure.