Brendon?

Who is Brendon? He had been talking to him while I’d been blindfolded and it was only now that I hear him say it again that I notice.

I had previously assumed that he was talking to someone over the phone, but now that I can see, I notice that he doesn’t have one. A phone I mean. Nor does he have a headset.

I watch him as he speaks to Brendon again.

“No, we still don’t yet need to do that. There’s time.” I assume he is answering a question that Brendon asked. As he speaks his gaze becomes unfocused, as if he is staring at something in the distance. I watch as he tilts his head slightly to the side, as if listening to someone whispering something into his ear. He nods his head in agreement and continues listening.

It could’ve been a totally normal response, if not for the fact that no one was there. I felt my eyes widen in response as I realised what I was witnessing.

Brendon was a figment of my captor’s imagination.

He wasn’t real.

I tried not to let the fact that I noticed show. I pretended to stare at the floor, focusing on the splash pattern my vomit made on the floor. It’s then that I realise I didn’t look around the room. I lift my head up and let my gaze skim across the room. It seems like we’re in some kind of basement studio.

The walls are a bare grey cement that continues onto the floor. It looks like what I imagine a prison cell would. There isn’t single window in the room, and in the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights, I can see that there is only one exit. There is a short staircase on the other side of the room that leads to a solid wood door.

I try to listen to see if I can hear anyone walking around upstairs. There might be someone up there that could help me. He had gagged me, meaning that there might be people around to hear me. I listen and slowly am disappointed as I hear nothing at all. Not a single sound of life outside.

Does that mean this room is soundproofed?

No, I’m used to practicing in sound proofed rooms, and they have a subtle way of absorbing sounds that I can’t pick up in here. That means that someone will be able to hear me, if I cry out loud enough.

As tempted as I am to just scream out right now, I know I need to wait until he is distracted. I don’t know just what his mental sickness is, but I know enough to know that if I provoke him he might become violent. I decide to bide my time and wait for the perfect moment to try and make a break for it.

I’d been so consumed in my own thoughts that I hadn’t noticed that my captor had fallen silent.

He is staring off into the distance again, completely oblivious to my presence. Something had been bothering me from the moment he removed my blindfold, and was only now that I realised what it was.

His face was completely expressionless, so devoid of emotion as to be completely lifeless. A feeling of cold dread washed over me as it finally sunk in that I might die here.

It’s strange, as soon as I made that realisation it wasn’t fear that filled me, but rather determination.

No.

He couldn’t.

He didn’t have the right to take my life. I wouldn’t let him.

I haven’t graduated yet. I still need to be my brother’s best man at his wedding. I still need to fall in love. I need to get my heart broken by a F* boy and take my revenge out on his expensive sports car. I need to become a world renowned pianist.

I need to get married to the man of my dreams and have children who’ll love the piano as much as I do. I need to watch them grow up, and go through all the firsts that I never shared with my own parents. I need to still grow old and retire to a beachside cottage.

There is no way I’d let him stop me from doing any of that.

No way.

It’s my life.

He can’t take it.