All day went by, but Josh never came back after he locked me and Emma into that same room.
At first, I thought maybe he was pacing outside, thinking of what he was going to do. Then I thought maybe he was trying to isolate us by silence, but the longer the hours stretched, the clearer it became that he was gone.
Like, real gone.
The room started to feel smaller by the hour. As if the walls pressed in and the ceiling sagged lower.
With no window, only that thin strip of light coming from beneath the door. So on that glow also started to fade off second by second.
Slowly, the yellow line shrank and darkened, swallowing the corners of the room. Shadows spread like rot until the whole space was filled with soft yet hungry dark, indicating the day was slowly coming to its end.
Emma’s small figure was the only warmth I had in that space. She stayed close most of the time, acting like an innocent flame trying to warm me up.
She played with her doll, sang little broken songs she half-remembered from her old home, and did kid stuff.
She pretended everything was normal, but watching her in such a situation made my chest ache.
A while went by when she stopped playing. Carrying her doll in one hand, she came up to me and pressed her hand to her belly.
Though I already knew what she was trying to indicate, saying the words in her low, trembling voice made my heart sink, "Hungry, Mommy."
The sound shattered something inside me as panic and realization hit me like a knife. Josh had neither left food nor even water for us. Also, the room was locked, so finding food or water in the kitchen was out of the question.
I did not know what he wanted. Did he expect us to wait? To starve to death quietly until he chose otherwise?
My throat went dry as my mind played a wild imagination of Emma crying, curling into a ball from hunger, her lips cracking from thirst.
No, I cannot just sit here and wait for him to appear whenever he plans to come back.
I tried to get up from the floor.
The chain snapped against my ankle like a vicious reminder, but I dragged myself anyway and checked the door three times like an idiot.
Pressed my ear to it. Noting any noise.
Footsteps, voices. Anything but the whole area was dead silent.
The darkness started to feel like a monster with his big mouth wide open, waiting to eat us.
I tried to think, but thoughts came and went by, clashing against each other like glass shards. Nothing made sense.
We needed a plan. Waiting meant starving to death. I could survive from hunger and thirst, but Emma.
She was still a little kid and could not stand such extreme conditions.
We had to do something. I looked around the room, but there was nothing useful. Just the thin mattress, the threadbare blanket, the metal chair with a missing leg, and the chain.
Always the chain. The iron bit into my skin as its other end welded to a bolt in the floor. I had tried before, but it didn’t budge.
Every pull burned and cut. The metal had already gnawed through to my skin.
Emma sat cross-legged near the wall, her doll in one hand, and I told her to play a little longer. She nodded her head without uttering a single complaint and went into one corner.
She was making the mouse "dig" in the dust by the base of the wall, narrating in a tiny whisper.
That’s when she found the stone.
At first, I did not notice. She was just tapping the wall, humming, but then her little gasp caught my ear.
It was a rough piece, about the size of her fist, wedged low in the wall where the plaster met the floor. At first glance, it looked solid, part of the foundation, but up close, you could see it was not.
The edges were not smooth, but were more like mortared in, like someone had stuffed it there years ago and forgotten it. A hairline of black sat where it met the wall.
"Mommy," she whispered, tugging my sleeve. "A hole. Doll said there’s a mouse." She stared at me with those wide eyes of hers.
I dragged myself across the floor, the chain rasping like teeth behind me. Up close, I saw and knew that she was right. The stone was different. Not some plaster or concrete. A filler piece.
And then, as if to prove her right, a little gray mouse nose poked out of the seam. Whiskers, eyes, a flash of tiny paws. The mouse darted in, then out again. When it vanished, a puff of dust fell, revealing more of the seam.
My heart thudded so loud it shook my ribs.
Possibility.
Emma’s small hand in mine sparked like fire. "We move it?" she whispered. Her eyes begged me for a yes.
I did not want to raise her hope, but something inside me had already started planning. "We can try," I whispered back. "Quietly, but you must be brave. If Josh comes, we stop. Understand?"
She nodded hard, lips pressed thin.
We crouched together.
The first push was useless. The stone did not budge a bit. My shoulder slammed against it, the chain jerking so hard it cut deeper into my ankle.
The pain seared up my leg, hot, making me hiss in pain. The metal shrieked against the floor. I bit the inside of my cheek until blood filled my mouth.
"Push, Mommy," Emma whispered, her tiny palms pressed to the stone, as if her little strength could shift centuries.
We worked like that...push, brace, hold, shift. Over and over.
My palms blistered badly as dust filled my hair and nose. Each time I leaned, the chain kept cackling against the floor, making its metallic sound echo in the room.
The seam gave, a breath, a fraction. Just enough to keep hope alive. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ NoveIꜰire.net
Once, I froze. I thought I heard a creak on the stairs. A footstep. We stopped to breathe. My arms stayed there, and my chest heaved from shallow breathing.