[ OT ] Sunday Free Write : Leave A Story , Leave A Comment - The Dark Gift Edition !

Broken, defeated, I feel all of these as I lay on the cool wood floor, what is left of my innocence mangled just like my torn clothing and still tied tennis shoes. It is dark – at least the closet is dark and no light is coming forth from under the door in which my captor had locked. I'm not sure how much time has passed since I came to be in this house, but the hours have long since turned into days. I do n't hold out a glimmer of hope of being rescued, because there is n't anyone to look for me, no one but a social worker to wonder what happened to me when my file becomes unburied on her desk after months of being put aside. Maybe, by that time, I will be dead. 
 
 I know there is only myself to count on, and I am hopeless. I am worthless child that nobody wanted in the beginning, and that no one is going to remember in the end. This man might be the first person that has ever wanted me in my life, even if his wants are anything but loving and caring. I roll onto my side and wince, the bruises still fresh and tender, but the pain mounting in my back will no longer be ignored. My hands feel along the hardwood, my finger tips skimming over the smooth pieces of wood as I search out the heavy wool blanket that was the first peace offering he gave me to stop screaming. 
 
 It itches and irritating where it meets my bare skin but I pull it over me anyways, lavishing in the unrealistic feeling of being less exposed and close my eyes. I will my thoughts to cease and for sleep to wash over me, to fall into a dream of anything other than my reality, but the floor creaks above me as his heavy footsteps descend the stairs. I know he is coming for me and my body starts to shake. The pain ebbs away as fear washes over me, my mind consumed with it when I hear the flick of the light and brightness from under the door illuminates me. 
 
 The click of the bolt that keeps me in here being unlocked brings my breath to a quiet gasping. When the door is pulled open a silent scream tears through my throat. It's so fast as he pulls me off the ground and whirls me around like a rag doll. I feel lifeless when he touches me, and when his large hand releases my arm I sag to the floor like a girl without bones and he stares at me with those light colored eyes that seemed so friendly and inviting when I first met him. He could be my father, with his sandy colored hair so much like my own, and his smooth pale complexion. 
 
 He's so ordinary. He could be a doctor, or a teacher, or a father, but what he could be does n't matter. To me he is the person that holds my life within the palm of his hand, just like the gun he is pointing down at me. What do I do? Do I beg with him, like I begged him to stop? It never worked before, why would it work now? Do I try to fight him, to somehow overpower him, when I never could before? My mind starts racing in so many different directions. I do n't want to die, I do n't want this man to be the last person who see's me alive. I am so focused on the gun in front of me I notice it shakes. A small sliver, back and forth, and my view widens, and I see that his hand is shaking. I realize maybe, just maybe, I can shake him enough to save myself. 
 
 “ I do n't deserve to die. ” I say it calmly from the ground in front of him, “ I'm naive from believing in a stranger, but you're the person that committed the crime, you're the person that deserves to be punished. ” I struggle to get up as his eyes pierce into mine. I'm afraid if I break contact the weapon will go off and that I will die and it will simply be over. He will place my body where it might or might not be found, but that wo n't matter. Once I am dead, nothing will matter. 
 
 Sitting in front of him, my arm outstretched, I hold my hand out. I will him with my eyes to give me the gun, to see my side of the coin he has tossed. “ We can stop this, right now, right here. You can leave here never hurting another person again, and I can leave here and get a chance to grow up and never be what you are. You are a monster, and in time, you will find someone else and you will hurt them and you will take from them what you took from me, or we can stop all of this now and save all the other girls you will take and you will hurt. ” 
 
 His breathing is labored and heavy and I wonder what he is thinking. We stare at each other as the minutes tick on, and I am certain that he is going to pull the trigger just as the gun falls into my open palm. His eyes widen and his mouth opens and I as I pull the trigger I think maybe he did n't consciously mean to give me the gun, but that does n't matter because as he falls to the ground I rush to me feet. My mind is blank and I am blank and I stand over him in shock. Time passes in a blur, but the chiming of the clock upstairs breaks me free from my stupor. 
 
 The gun hit's the floor the same moment my feet came unglued from the ground, and I whirled around, fleeing the scene of my crime; the scene of my demise. There was no going back now; there was no home, no waiting family, and no loved ones to run to for shelter. All that awaited me was the pavement beneath my tennis shoes and the distant glimmer of city lights that would embrace me and protect me from the darkness of my past. 
 
 Could these lights, perhaps, offer me a path far brighter than the one I had left behind in the white, weather beaten house at the end of a winding, dead end road?
