Siobhan

The sun outside was warm, she knew this. But it didn’t matter, she could not feel it. All she saw was a strand of light screaming through a crack in the door. For a moment, she wondered where she was, if maybe this was just her perception of the room and it wasn’t really there at all. Where else would she be, then?

She heard children screaming in the other room. Who were they?, she wondered. Was she just making up the voices she heard?

The tall, thin man walked into the room. The light poured in.

“Hello, Siobhan.” he said. She stared at him silently. He turned on a light and closed the door. “How long has it been?” he walked over to a corner and grabbed a knife. Siobhan closed her eyes. “Don’t worry, not tonight. This is for someone else.” She opened her eyes. “So many brilliant things locked up in your head. I know, one day, you will speak to me.”

He left the room, turning off the light on his way out. Siobhan closed her eyes and tried to remember his face perfectly. He had a pale complexion, bright eyes, dark hair to his shoulders... She remembered first seeing him and thinking he was beautiful. But, no sooner had she glanced in his direction than she was in the dark room somewhere... listening to screams.

Why hadn’t he killed her yet? He seemed to be very quick about it with everyone else. And why did he say that she was so brilliant? She faintly remembered having some of her notebooks with her when he’d ‘kidnapped’ her. Had he read them?

She had stopped feeling hungry a couple days ago. She could scarcely remember what it felt like to be able to want to scream.

Again, he walked in and turned on the light.

“I forgot something, please excuse me.” he said. He walked over to the corner and knelt down.

“I won’t run.”

He turned to look at her.

“I can’t even remember how. I don’t really have anywhere to run to, anymore. I don’t even know where I am.”

He stood up and walked over to her.

“I just... want to be able to write again.”

He left the room quietly, but didn’t turn off the light or close the door.

There was screaming again. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the last human being she’d seen. It had to have been the man who had shared the room with her only 3 days ago.

‘Do you know why we’re here?’ he asked her. She shook her head. He must have thought she knew something special since she was here before him.

She would be there after him. He was killed in hardly an hour of his arriving.

She opened her eyes and he was staring at her. He had his hands behind his back. He pulled out a pen and notebook.

“What will you write?”

“I don’t know, yet. Probably some poetry.”

“I’m going to untie you.”

He put the pen and notebook on the floor next to her chair. He came up close to her and slowly untied her hands. He took her wrists and gently brought her arms forward. She looked up at him. He gave her the pen and notebook. Then he left the room.

She gripped the pen and held onto the notebook. She looked at them and started to sob.

How alive I feel
here with you
I know what they see
I know why
you find silence
in screaming
I have finally found it!
This is freedom
I know, for once,
that I am safe.
that I am real
that blood flows
not captor!
for a moment
even he who frees the caged bird
must hold it in his hands.

She leaned back and listened to him talking to someone. They were crying, mumbling the usual apologies and other things. She touched her face and felt tears there.

Why was she crying?

She wished she knew his name.

The night, or so she perceived it by the uncontrollable need for sleep, passed quickly. When morning came, she opened her eyes to light.

“Where am I?” she asked, realizing she’d been moved.

“You looked so uncomfortable” he said. “I read it.”

“Oh?”

“I love it.”

Siobhan looked over at a window. He was watching her when she looked back. Why had he untied her and let her upstairs? She’d been in the sub-basement.

Did he trust her?

“I am going to lock the door.” he said. “And I did rig the window.”

No.

Siobhan turned over and looked at the wall.

“There’s even a bathroom over there.” he said. She heard him stand up and walk to another door. He opened it and sighed. He closed that door and walked over to another. He opened it, closed it, and locked it.

Siobhan stood up and walked into the bathroom. Clothes. New clothes. Clean, anyway. And a shower, toilet, sink, mirror...

'Do not break.’

She smiled at the little note, but did not dare look into the mirror.

She stepped out of her clothes and into the shower. She turned on the water and let it fall off her skin.

She wondered if she would ever get out alive. Did it even matter? What did she have on the other side? A family she despised, a life that meant nothing to her, friends that stabbed her in the back... nothing and no one.

‘I’m pretty much dead already.’ she thought.

She got out of the shower and dried herself off. She looked at the clothes. They looked like his, they smelled like him... Except the underwear.

She smiled, imagining him looking at her bra size, or underwear tag, for that matter, and knew he only did it to make her comfortable.

She indulged herself in his scent as she walked back into the room. She ran her hands over the shirt, pulled the neck over her mouth, rubbed her cheeks with the sleeves.

She lay on the bed and looked up.

She waited.

Nothing.

She couldn’t hear a single thing from here. Not even on the first floor. Suddenly the room felt empty and uncomfortable.

She picked up the pen and notebook laying near the bed. To her surprise, there was something written there.

‘Another face
without a name.’

His handwriting was so soft and fine. She wondered what he meant by what he wrote.

Nearly three whole days passed before she saw him again.

“Hello.” he said, walking in. Siobhan looked at the wall. “I hope you understand. I just don’t keep weapons in this room.”

It was silent. Siobhan was trying to hear screams from beneath the floor.

“I don’t know if you’re hungry. I never eat, so I just never... No one lasts long enough...”

And he left the room.

Siobhan closed her eyes tightly, trying to kill the light.

He came back in quickly.

“Can you please talk? It’s a little frustrating having heard you and, now, nothing.”

She started sobbing.

“What’s the matter?”

Siobhan could barely breathe she was crying so hard.

The he touched her. She turned to him.

“Or at least write me a poem?”

At night
there are no voices
I used to hear you
I used to hear them screaming
but now I hear nothing
I think
now I hate the silence more
I used to hate
but now I cannot even think
how can I
enjoy discomfort and hunger
just to hear you
just to hear you
killing them
in my head?

She quickly added:

‘I need to know your name.’

She walked over to the door and slid the notebook and through the crack in the bottom of the door. She walked over to the bed and lay down. She looked up at the ceiling and thought.

How many people had he killed? He had been doing at least a person a day and a couple or so at night... and that was since she’d been here.

She’d been here for so long, it felt like. But a week was not truly long. She had just survived so much longer than everyone else. She wondered why. She figured it had to do with the fact that he thought she was so brilliant, that she didn’t insult or look down on him. In reality, she admired and beginning to think that she... loved him.

The notebook slid back in.

Siobhan tingled all over. She had to seriously restrain herself to keep from running over to the notebook.

She slowly picked it up and opened it.


‘Keir.’

She fell to hear knees and hugged the notebook. Tears fell quickly. She put her ear to the floor. She tried to listen hard enough so she could hear them while she cried.

Nothing... nothing... something!

He walked in with a knife.

She stared up at him with wet eyes. He knelt down to her and helped her up. He smiled at her.

“Can I keep your notebooks?”

Siobhan nodded, still clutching the one with his name in it. He reached over and touched her hair. She just watched him. She didn’t know if she should react or warm up to him.

The knife had blood on it.

“Who was it?” she asked meekly. Keir’s eyes lit up.

“It was for you. I thought you’d want to hear it.”

“Thank you.”

“Siobhan, I’m having a lot of difficulty with this. It’s not something I’m used to dealing with.”

Siobhan leaned up against his arm.

“I love you.” she said.

*

He walked out of the room, dissatisfied. He wiped his face, tears mixed with blood.

He went over to where he kept her notebooks. He opened one. He looked at it with empty eyes. He couldn’t read the words, he was actually crying... hard.

He went back into her room. He looked at her. She hadn’t screamed or cried, she let him do it.

He bent down, touched her face, and kissed her goodbye.

The end.