Danielle is jolted from her light sleep at the sound of the hatch unlocking. She squints as the light clicks back to life and burns her retinas. The man lowers himself down to the concrete floor through Danielle’s spotty vision. Her heartbeat jumps in her chest, the pulsation rising to her ears. Danielle sucks in a deep breath only to cough on the scent of freshly smoked cigarette.

~

Victim 4: Dorothy ‘Dot’

Dot shrinks back into her corner as the man approaches her. She curls in her legs and squeezes them with her arms. Tears begin to pool in her eyes and she chokes on a cry. The man stops a step from her, keeping her trapped in the corner.  

The man towers over her but makes no move to grab her.

“Have you used the bucket?”

Dot squeezes her legs tighter to stop the shaking in her hands.

“Y-yes, sir.”

The man looks over his shoulder at the bucket in the corner. With a slight humph to himself he turns back to Dot and reaches out his hand. Dot throws her head into her lap and covers it with her arms. The man speaks above her.

“Water.”

Dot looks under her arm to find a plastic cup in the man’s hand. She straightens her arms and legs and sits upright just as her mother always said to for drinking. Dot’s hands shake as she reaches out and grabs the cup between both her hands.

“T-thank you, sir.”

Dot doesn’t take a sip until the man turns around and walks to the bucket across the room, taking the smell of smoke with him.

~

Victim 5: Jackson

Jackson takes a deep breath. He basically inhaled the water, not leaving a second for him to breathe.

The man across the room hoists the bucket up into the hole in the ceiling, but Jackson can tell he’s acutely aware of Jackson’s every move. Once the bucket is secure in its location above the ceiling, the man walks back to Jackson and extends his hand. As soon as Jackson surrenders the cup the man backs up towards the hatch.

Jackson stands. The man’s muscles all tense up. Jackson relinquishes a step, his back hitting the wall.

“You’re the Minoan Murderer, aren’t you?”

The man’s steps pause.

“Indeed, I am… Pray tell, how’d you come to that conclusion?”

Jackson feels the cold of the wall behind him as the man stares him down, but he holds his position.

“I watch crime shows with my best friend. We watched an episode on you late last year. I remember your M.O. because I thought the cypher was genius, since unlike the Zodiac none of yours have been solved. Anyway, I knew Silverbrook was within your hunting grounds, and since you took the time to drug my straw and not my drink, I knew you couldn’t be a common criminal. So, it was more of an educated guess.”

The man scans Jackson top to bottom. He grins.

“Well, you guessed correctly. We’re not going to have any trouble now, are we?”

Jackson pinches his lips together to keep panic from leaking onto his face. Of course, knowing this man is the Minoan Murderer also means Jackson knows about the time limit.

“No, I thoroughly understand how screwed I am. But I was hoping you might be willing to oblige a question I have.”

The man snickers.

“You have only one question?”

Jackson nods his head. The man grins.

“Go on then, I’ll decide if it’s worth answering once I hear it.”

Jackson focuses on his words and tries to ignore the heart racing in his chest.

“I know you’d never tell me how your cypher works, but I’ve been wondering about your inspiration. They never taught us about the Minoan civilization in history class, and I kept forgetting to look it up since work keeps me pretty busy. So would you mind telling me about it?”  

Jackson can barely hear his own voice over his heartbeat.

The man’s grin grows a bit wider.

“Is that all?”

The man’s chuckles allow Jackson to take a deep breath. Once the man stifles his laughter, he straightens his back and smooths out his remaining hair.  

“The Minoans lived on Crete and had a tumultuous relationship with the Greeks. This is the island referred to in the minotaur myth. Long after the death of their civilization, scientists uncovered tablets carved with the Minoan language, referred to as Linear A. No one out there has been able to decipher the hieroglyphs meaning, not even a single word has been identified. I wanted a challenge, so I started working on deciphering it. Within weeks I figured out a word, and then the whole alphabet. Of course, I was going from Minoan to Greek to English so the grammar is slanted, but the cows don’t lie. So, I figured the world only deserves to catch me if they can prove they aren’t as dumb as they appear to be, so I used the hieroglyphs as my cypher.”

Jackson plants an awestruck gasp on his face.

“Wow, you translated a lost language?! You deserve an award for that.”

The man scratches the smile lines on his cheek.

“I agree. Thus, my contest.” The man’s smile fades. “Unfortunately, you’ll have to remain a casualty for me to reap my reward.”

The man takes a step back and grips the top of the hole in the ceiling. Jackson takes a step forward, scuffing his shoes to draw the man’s attention.

“If you’d ever want, I’d like it if you came back down and taught me some more stuff. If I only have less than a week left on this earth, I’d like to know as much about it as I can before I leave.”

The man hesitates but says nothing before retreating through the ceiling and sealing the hatch.

~

Victim 6: Mackenzie

Mackenzie glares after the man beyond the hatch. She hadn’t gotten the chance to really look him over when she first got here, but she didn’t waste this chance.

He’s maybe in his late thirties or early forties, which places him just beyond his physical peak. Yet even accounting for his height advantage he still pulls himself up through the hatch with ease, so he must have a decent amount of upper body strength. It makes sense why he chose her. She’s light and easily corralable.

Mackenzie walks over to the hatch and reaches up. The pads of her fingers stick to the wood, but even on her tippy-toes she can’t get her whole palm flat to the door. She thinks of the bucket that was just taken from the corner, but it seemed to barely hold any weight when it was being used, let alone if she tried to stand on it.

If she picks a fight with the man, hits him in the crotch or breaks his nose, she’ll need to get out this hatch by pulling herself up by only her fingers, maybe her whole palm if she jumps high enough. Even if she was freshly fed, climbing up would take her a full minute or two if she could even get up at all. Much too long for a nut-shot or snapped cartilage to stop him from yanking her back down.

To have a chance at getting through this hatch, she would need to fully incapacitate him, maybe even for good.

~

Danielle steps back from the hatch and tries to shake the thought from her head. No, she doesn’t want that to be plan B, not even plan Z. But- there aren’t enough plans to fill out the whole alphabet.

The man seemed to start taking the bait on the ‘how to befriend a serial killer’ attempt, so she’ll stick with that plan A for now. As for actual plan B…

Danielle walks over to the boarded up window and stares at it. There must be a reason he boarded it up. Either, she actually can fit through the opening behind it, or there are people around who might see her through it. Plan B and plan C.

Danielle feels along the caulk line. If she could remove the sealant, the gap might be wide enough to give her some leverage to rip the wood off the wall, or at the very least stick some evidence up through.

When she reaches the underside, right above where she harvests her water, a hitch in the smooth caulk catches her fingertip. Danielle rubs her finger back over the caulk, smiling at the slight roughness. She digs her finger up, the caulk receding with the pressure, but when she rubs at it, her nail-less fingers glide over. Another downfall of clipping them into nonexistence.

Danielle reaches into her faux pocket and pulls out the drug tester she shoved in there days ago. She folds the strip over and over again until it makes a sort of oblong diamond shape.  She pinches the shorter end and presses up into the caulk with the longer one. Flicking her wrist, a small crumb of caulk comes loose. Danielle picks it up off the floor and inspects it. It’s barely the size of the crumb that the grinch left the mouse to eat.

She sighs and drops it back to the floor. Leaning against the wall, she digs into the rubbery substance with her paper tool once again. She manages to get another few crumbs before her tool starts to blunt and bend. Danielle straightens it out and keeps chipping.

Yet with how this caulk is breaking, even with five days, she’s either going to need her nails to grow in very quickly or find a way to get ahold of something tough, and preferably sharp.