Cerebral Captivity

She sat in her bedroom waiting for the clock to strike 6:30 pm. She sat and watched her ceiling fan turn around and around and around. Something was calming about the way it rotated. She watched the shadows move against the White Heron ceilings. She liked the shadows. After the shadows circled in her eyes a few more times she turned over in her bed and encased herself in her cold, gray comforter. She could hear laughter from the rooms next to hers. They were always full of life. She grabbed her phone again and let the blue light from the screen pierce into her eyes at full brightness. It was now 5:56 pm. 34 more minutes. She could wait that long couldn’t she? She hoped she could. 

Each day at 6:30 pm, no sooner, no later, she left her house to go visit a special place and read or write or just listen to the normalcy. It was 6:07 pm and she was losing patience. She needed the tree in the park that had a branch that looked like it was curved just for her. She needed the hum from the road which separated the houses full of life from the park. She wanted to leave right now, but if she left even one second too soon the order would be interrupted. She was not the type to compromise order. 

It was now 6:19 pm. She felt her stomach growl so she rolled over onto the other side of her bed and grabbed her water bottle for a quick drink. 11 minutes. She sat up again and stared down at her stomach and lap and sighed. 8 minutes left now. She decided to get up and drag her feet across the wood paned floors to her closet and grab her chocolate brown hoodie. 3 minutes. She sat down on her desk chair and turned her phone on again. She opened Safari and typed in “Time.is” into the search bar. She reached the website and counted down every second of those last 3 minutes. Finally the last 10 seconds. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Finally. 

She rushed and grabbed her black tote bag and shoved a 99 cent book, some Vaseline lip balm because it was cold outside, and a white notebook that was barely hanging on by a thread and a black Bic pen inside and ran out to the front door. She aggressively slipped on her dirt-stained and creased vans and hurried out the door. Finally. 

She arrived at the tree around 6:42 pm. Before she sat down on the grass in front of the curved branch she always leaned on, she noticed the grass was pushed down slightly and there was something gold shining on a leaf next to the tree. It looked like paint. That’s weird...whatever. She brushed the leaves away and sat down. She read about 12 pages of her book and then realized she forgot what happened so she moved the bookmark back and decided she’d go back to it later. She took out the Vaseline, lathered her lips, and then took out the notebook. She wasn’t sure what she was going to write today but she knew she needed to. She needed to purge her brain. This is fucking exhausting. What she wrote down didn’t make much sense but that didn’t matter. She just wanted to get it out. 

After writing for a bit she began to hear a faint noise in the distance. It sounded like an old beat-up car that needed a new muffler. Or it was just someone being obnoxious with their car and compensating for something. The noise got louder and louder. But it wasn’t peaceful like the hum of the cars she was used to. She listened carefully as it accelerated down the road until it was no longer audible. She let out a sigh of relief that she hadn’t even realized she was holding in. She counted her heartbeats. 

She flipped the page in her notebook and began to write down some more words and phrases that didn’t make sense just to get them out. Before she could finish she heard a leaf crinkle behind her and quickly turned her head; there was nothing there. It was probably just a squirrel or something. She turned her head back and saw a man. He looked as if he was around her age, but he towered over her. Maybe it was just because she was sitting down? No, he was definitely huge. He approached the tree and she felt a bolt of fear run through her veins. He was tall and dressed in all black. His skin was rid of blemishes. The only mark he had was a tattoo of a golden triangle with a black circle inside right below his clavicle. When she looked at the tattoo something strange happened to her; she began to shake rapidly and uncontrollably. She couldn’t stop. The raggedy notebook fell out of her hand and she fell onto her side. As she fell she saw the man’s shoes get closer and closer to her face as if he was walking in slow motion. 

When she woke up, it felt as if two weeks had passed, but it had only been twenty minutes. She was inside something, no, not something, somewhere. The room had all-white walls and seemed bright. Her vision was blurred, but she made out the shape of a single door about fifteen feet away from the table on which she was lying. She thought that maybe the door would lead her back to her tree. Her tree, where was it? Where was she? Her body and muscles felt numb and she was barely able to move. She used all the strength she had and stood up to approach the door, but was immediately thrown back down onto the table. She looked around to see three men standing above her. How did she not notice them before? They wore what the man in the park wore and they all had the same tattoo right below their clavicle. Each man had the same piercing blue eyes. They looked like carbon copies of each other. 

“Stay,” they said in unison. 

“No. Wait..uh..who? Where am I?” she asked, trying to stand again. 

“We are your family, and you are to obey us. We are here to protect you. The world is doomed, and so were you, but we have taken you in. You are ours now,” one of the men said. She recognized him as the one that walked toward her as she wrote underneath the tree. He had curly charcoal-colored hair and the same piercing blue eyes as the rest of the men. “Give me your hand,” the man demanded.

Suddenly she felt the urge to listen. What does she have to lose? What else was left for her? Her tree was gone, her notebook was gone, and she didn’t hear the rooms full of life anymore. She was lost, but she didn’t feel like it. She was no longer afraid. One man trapped her wrists tightly with white rope and the other men slowly walked out of the room. “Don’t fear us. We are here to protect you,” 

His voice was not frightening ‒ it was calming. He caressed her face with warm hands and she was not afraid; she felt safe. She breathed in the scent of him; it was serene like the tree. She felt connected. After a moment of silence and comfort, he grabbed her hair and pulled her close, ruining the calm. 

Later, when it was all over and the man left, a different man entered. The cycle repeated itself. Please stop. Please stop. No just lay stiff. Just don’t speak. 

Each night they brought her a tray with a glass of milk, white rice, and slightly undercooked chicken. “Drink and eat,” they demanded. She ate slowly while the men stood in front of her. It hurt but it had an order. Her special place became a small, plain room. She no longer had to purge her thoughts onto the pages of a white notebook or try to read a book underneath a tree. All she needed to know was obedience. 

Every second stretched out into hours and she began to lose track of time. At first, she had scratched tally marks into the table to keep track of the days, but she stopped doing that around day 37. Every day was orderly. Every day she knew what would come next. The men were not hurting her, they were protecting her. They were giving her structure. They gave her love and attention. They gave her a purpose.

Light entered the small rectangular window that sat above the cold table she used as her resting place. The frigid room led her to coil herself inside a light blue blanket they gave her when she first arrived. The light prompted her to awaken and she found herself to be unusually tired that morning. She laid motionless on the table and patiently waited for someone to come and wake her up. As she laid down half-asleep, she was startled by a loud, sharp cry. The cry she heard was somewhat inaudible but she could make out a few words: 

“No…please…I’m sorry.” 

Feelings of curiosity and concern boiled inside her. She attempted to sit up, but her limbs felt numb. She carefully rolled off of the table onto the ground and began to crawl. Her vision was weak in the same way it was when she was first brought into the room. Her head pounded with dizziness as she painfully drudged her way towards the door. She finally reached it and could still hear the screaming. She slowly lifted her arm and threw it on top of the handle, using the small amount of strength she had left in her body to open the door. The door swung open revealing a long dark hallway with doors identical to hers. She continued to crawl along the floor towards the noise until she noticed one door that was slightly cracked open. 

She peered inside and saw a girl just like her, lying on the ground. The girl’s body was covered in patches of black and blue, and a look of pure fear and hatred occupied her visage. An avalanche of tears flowed down the girl’s cheeks as the group of men towered above her frail figure. One man began to yell at the girl. She couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying, but she knew he was not pleased. She probably didn’t learn the order. She looked up and saw one of the men reach behind his back and pull out a dagger. The symbol each man had tattooed below their clavicle was engraved on the hilt. Two other men grabbed the girl by her sides, lifting her into the air as she flailed and begged for them to put her down. They placed her on top of a table and held her down as she wept for their forgiveness. The blade met flesh, tearing apart her soft body again, and again, and again. Crimson red liquid cascaded out of hundreds of wounds the men inflicted. She laid in the doorway and watched intently as the girl continued to weep, watching her once crying eyes become completely and utterly lifeless. 

Just stay still. Wait, is she dead? She could not believe what she had just witnessed. She began to mourn the loss of the girl; however, she was unsure why she mourned. She did not know the girl - she didn’t even know there were other people in the same building. As she continued to lie in mourning, one man looked over and saw her in the doorway and shot an instantaneous look of rage. The men marched towards her. Although she had very little strength left in her, she used all that she had to stand up and rush back to her room. She slammed the door shut, fell onto her table, and felt comforted once again, briefly. 

The men charged into the room with one man still stiffly holding the blade in his hand. They marched over to the table where she laid. 

“We told you not to come out of your room unless we allowed it.”. 

“I’m sorry, It’s just…I heard…I…” She was unable to finish before she started to cry. “Calm down. It’s ok,” another man said while stroking her hair. “She did not live by the order. She refused to accept our protection; it was what was best for her.” His voice was sincere and it made her feel safe. She believed him. 

This day started with the order like the rest. An order she admired. She saw the men and they were sweet to her like they had always been. But toward the end of the day, she felt an unsettling silence. 

“Hello? Are you ok?” she yelled.

“Who’s there?” an unfamiliar voice asked. 

This voice was strong, unlike the kind and gentle voice of the men that loved her. She began to tremble and no longer felt safe. Panic consumed her body. 

“This is the FBI. Who’s there?” 

FBI? No this can’t be real. 

At that moment the door crashed open and two men rushed into the room, guns pointed directly at her. These strange men took away her sense of safety; they took away the order. She began to cry. One of the FBI Agents put his gun away and rushed to her side, picking her up by her cold hands, and attempting to comfort her. 

He explained to her that someone driving by the park saw her walk to the tree. After her roommates reported her missing they found her tote bag and belongings hidden in a bush 30 feet away. All three of the men had been there when she was taken, but she only saw the one. They had taken eight girls in total. She sat with a look of confusion and fear across her face. How was I gone for five and a half years? 

She woke up to the violent buzzing of the alarm clock around 7:00 am. She had been awake since 4:00 am, but she told herself she was asleep. Sunlight seeped in through the black curtains, yelling at her and telling her to get out of bed. She looked up to the ceiling and saw the fan rotating slowly in circles providing cold air to the room she was stuck in. She watched the shadows again. 

There’s not much to do in her room. She has conversations with people sometimes but they’re not always with her. She laid on her bed and counted the rotations of the fan in her head until she heard a quiet knock on the door. A tall man wearing a gentle blue shirt and pressed slacks entered the room and placed a Dixie Cup of pills on a table on the other side of the room.

His booming, authoritative voice spoke, “I’ll be back later to give you the rest.” This wasn’t anything new, it happened 3 times a day. Once at 7:15 am, again at 1:15 pm, and finally at 7:15 pm, only to start all over again the next day. She sat on the rock-solid bed, staring at the wall, with thoughts frantically running around her head. She wasn’t paying too much attention to her surroundings, but the next thing she knew the tall man was back. “It’s 7:15 pm, take these and then get to bed.” 

She doesn't remember much of what happened from this morning to the tall man stopping by for the last time of the day, all she knew was that it was time for yet another day to come to an end. She laid down on the bed and began to fall asleep, but her mind decided it wasn’t time. The panic appeared out of nowhere, smacking her in the face. It left a sharp, cold sensation rushing through her veins. It spoke to her, it screamed at her. She ran out of bed and pushed herself up against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut with all the strength she had. She tried to tell herself it would all be alright. 

It’s okay. Everything will be okay. 

The darkness worsened, devouring every part of her, and leaving her gasping for air. Her mind kept telling her that the creatures were just outside the door, waiting to sink their sharp claws into her head, further intensifying the pain the darkness had thrust upon her. She struggled to breathe. Her lungs were on fire, each breath shorter than the last. The clasp of the darkness tightened around her neck. The faint moonlight in the windows vanished. The room went pitch black and her mind told her the light was never going to come back. She let out a fearful scream. Slowly, the panicking transformed into dry hiccups and light tears fell down her cheeks. She walked back to the bed and laid down on her side, coiling her limbs around her body.

About the Author

Emily Wingfield is a rising senior at Arcadia pursuing a B.A. in History. Although History is her primary passion, Emily has an immense love for creative writing as well. Emily uses writing as a means to express herself and share her thoughts regarding a variety of issues important to her such as race, gender, mental health, and more. At the end of May 2021, Emily will be releasing her debut poetry chapbook, "barely there, surviving." Follow Emily on Instagram @_emilywingfield to stay up to date about her chapbook and learn more about her!