Call me Luna

1 - Escape

I wake up feeling dreadful and moan softly. Maybe I should go back to sleep and then wake up again. Maybe I will feel better the second time. I keep my eyes closed, my head is pounding, and sunshine will make it only worse. My body aches and feels stiff. The taste in my mouth reminds me of death. What in the hell did I do last night to feel this dreadful? Did I go to a party that got out of hand?

I want to put my fingers on my temples to apply some pressure, but I cannot move.

Wait, what?! I cannot move! Why can I not move? I open my eyes, but it is pitch black all around me. Where is the sunshine? Why isn’t the sun shining? Panic flushes my system and frantically I start squirming, trying to free my hands from whatever is restraining them.

I start to call out for help, but nothing but muffled sounds fill the air around me. Where is my voice?

Calm down! I reprimand myself, taking deep breaths through my nose. It is obvious that my situation is dire, to say the least, but panicking will not help me. It will only cloud my judgment.

I close my eyes again, concentrating on my other senses. I wiggle my arms. My wrists are tied together behind my back, and by the numbing pain in my shoulders, I have already been tied up for a while. I move my legs. My ankles are also tied together and I'm not wearing any shoes. And my mouth is taped close.

Okay, now would be an appropriate time to panic. No feel-good story has ever started with being gagged and tied up. This means one thing, I am at a place where I most likely do not want to be and someone, that I most likely will not like, wants me to be here. I am not here out of my own free will, that is obvious.

My breathing starts getting shallow and rapid again as panic surfaces, but I fight it. I must fight it. Look on the bright side, I encourage myself. At least all body parts are accounted for, and they all still function … if I can get myself untied.

I open my eyes and peer into the darkness, desperate for something, anything that would help me. I blink a couple of times, but it does not help much. It is too dark. Maybe there is no window. Maybe I am in a basement or something. Hell, I hope it is not a basement. Escaping from a basement is going to be nearly impossible.

Maybe I should try and sit up. But I feel weak and sick and without my arms and hands as support to push myself into a sitting position, it is painfully difficult. I lay on my back and bend my knees slightly. I take a deep breath through my nose and with the help of my shoulders, I try to do a sit-up. With tremendous difficulty, I eventually manages to get into an upright position. I feel weak. Immediately I must support my head on my bend knees as nausea threatens to overcome me. For a few seconds, I just sit like that, concentrating on breathing through my nose until my nausea goes away. With my feet, I drag and scoot myself forward on my butt. Inch by inch. A muffled scream escapes my lungs as I glide over something sharp, and it cuts into my behind. I fumble with my fingers on the floor to find the source of pain and am disappointed when it is only a piece of wood and not something that I could use to free myself.

I shift my butt away from the piece of wood and continue my journey forward as a worm. My feet touch something and I give it a slight kick. It does not move and sounds like hollow wood. What is hollow and does not move? Either a crate of some sort or a wall.

I kick it again, harder this time. Same results. Great, all this drama to get up just to go lay down again. As slow as I can, I lay back down but my already throbbing head makes hard contact with the floor. I winch in pain and take a few seconds, just breathing, in hopes that the pain would ease just enough so that I can focus on the task at hand. When I am sure I will not pass out or throw up from the pain, I press my feet against whatever I was kicking at. I slide my feet upwards against the object. My feet go up and up without feeling an end of some sort. It must be a wall.

Desperate that my suspicion is right, I start kicking with all my might. Pain radiates through my bare feet up my legs, but I push through it. Again, and again until I hear a creaking noise. I keep going until a slither of moonshine breaks through.

Tears start streaming down my face. Mixed tears of fear and panic, but also a relief for the little bit of light.

With my feet, I turn my body around. I ignore the headache that is about to split my mind in two and look around. It seems that I am in some kind of wooden shed. There is a variety of tools everywhere. In the bad lighting, I frantically search for something to help me.

I notice an electric wood saw against the wall in the dim light. Still laying on my back, I pull myself forward with my feet. Using my painful shoulders as support. It feels like an eternity before I reach the wall with the saw. I kick at it until it finally unhooks and crashes to the floor.

I lay motionless, holding my breath and peaking my ears to hear if anyone is coming to investigate the noise. When I am positive that no one is coming, I slide on my back towards the saw. With my body, I push the saw until it is against the wall. When I am certain it is completely supported, I position myself with my back to the saw.

Cautiously I move my hands until it touches the blade. Slowly I move my wrists up and down against the saw’s teeth. It is incredibly difficult to execute the up and down movement with my hands behind my back. My shoulders want to break out of their sockets. Silently I start to cry, but I do not stop. Up and down, up and down I move my wrists. I scream into the tape against my lips as I cut myself when I am moving faster.

Without warning, my hands are loose and the pressure in my shoulders instantly eases. I want to lie down and cry out of relief, but I do not take the chance. I have no idea where I am and if I am alone. At any given time, someone can come through the door and undo all my effort.

With fumbling fingers, I pick up the saw and start scraping it against the ties by my feet and within seconds I am free. I rip the tape off my mouth and must grind on my teeth not to scream. Holy mother, that was painful.

Now finally free, I desperately start feeling against the walls for a light switch. Then I stop, that would be a dumb move. If someone sees the light, they will know something is up and will come to look and spoil my escape.

Quickly I scan over the tools the best I can in the limited lightning. I grab a rag and turn it around my hand to stop the bleeding where I cut it. I look around for some kind of weapon or object that could be used as one.

There are various objects to choose from, but it is long and heavy. Carrying it is not going to be easy. Besides, I still feel weak. There is no way I will be able to defend myself with a shovel. It is already a tremendous amount of effort to stay upright. I decide on pruning shears. It is sharp and small enough to carry with me. It will most likely not save my life, but at least I can try to defend myself.

In the distance, I hear a vehicle approaching and my breath hitches in my throat. I would love to spend more time and look for a torch, but I do not want to risk it. There is no way of telling if that vehicle is even coming this way, but I did not just put in all this effort to untie myself just to be tied again.

Without wasting one more second, I grab the shears and shove them into my jeans' back pocket. I rush to the door, but it is locked.

“You fool,” I yell at myself. Naturally, it would be closed. If you are going through all the trouble to tie someone up, you will do the minimum and lock the door. Anxiously I run and pick up the saw where I left it.

With all my might, I start smashing the saw against the wall where I kicked it. With little effort, the hole gets bigger and bigger until I can squeeze through.

Bright moonlight greets me when I am finally outside, and I'm eternally grateful for it. But before I can celebrate, I must get to safety. It seems I have escaped through the back of the shed. All I can see is the dark woods.

Cautiously, with my body against the shed, I move to the side. There is a heap of wood and an axe stuck into a log. I move to the front. There is a house about sixty yards from the shed and I freeze. Lights are on inside the house, but I cannot tell for sure if someone’s home. There is no way I am going closer. Whoever lives there, put me in his shed, or at the very least knows about me.

So, I do the only thing that seems natural to me. I turn around and run in the opposite direction, straight into the woods.