Ezekiel’s eyes flicked open.

Darkness abounded all around him and the silence was filled by the steady cadence of his breathing. The sheets had dragged low to his hips, snagged around his ankles.

His eyes slid to the nightstand, staring at the bright red numbers.

1:05 AM

It was not chance that woke him, he realized, but the indiscreet clack clack noises echoing down the hallway and the quiet exhale of air, almost pained, as movement followed.

She was awake.

And moving on the ball of her good foot as though she were stealing across a place she did not belong.

Her attempts were skillful, he had to give her that. Every placement of the crutches foot happened to be where the floorboard was solid. Only once did she lean onto a loose board that creaked, and she fell silent. So quiet he would have thought she had disappeared.

But then she began to move again when his bedroom door remained shut.

Ezekiel stared at the dark ceiling.

She was on the staircase now breathing low. He could almost visualize the line of her body trembling from using the crutches to carry her weight. The way her fingers nervously twisted the handles which he whittled away and smoothed out in fine ridges that her fingers could curl around and grasp.

It took her at least fifteen minutes to reach the bottom of the staircase.

He had been staring at the clock.

Once she was at the bottom, Ezekiel rose like a shadow peeling from the darkness.

The room was warm on his bare skin as he walked towards the window and pulled the curtain away, staring out into the absolute night.

He stared for a long time at the woods, waiting.

And, like clockwork, he heard the faint fumbling of keys– too loud, too careless – as she tried to figure out which key fit into the main door.

“Four days.” He concluded.

It had taken her exactly four days after receiving the crutches, to finally test the fantasy of escape. Bold of her but also very daring to even consider crutches a means of help in disabled escape.

He had to give it to her though– most people would have waited until their full recovery to even consider running.

Leyla on the other hand had chosen to steal away in the night on crutches with a partially healed arm.

In the dead of winter.

Ezekiel’s gaze turned downwards as the door creaked then pried open on loud hinges.

Creeeeeeeeaaaaaaaa—

A sudden silence befell the household.

The corner of Ezekiel’s mouth curled upwards.

Leyla was right to have remembered where the floorboards were loose and creaking, but the adrenaline rush at having reached the final threshold that stood before her and freedom – the door – obscured all caution concerning the hinges on the door.

They were looser than rotting teeth.

The silence drew itself out. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned onto the cold window pane, staring.

…eeeeeeaaa—

More silence and fumbling.

Suddenly she gave it a last tug, as if realizing that the prolonged opening would only wake him.

There was a pause like a held breath.

And then she was moving again.

Clack clack clack–

The crown of her head came to view below as she leaned over the patio railing and stared long at the white ground before her. It had snowed over the past few days, enough to reach his ankles then tapered off to a light drift.

Ezekiel stared at the pale curve of her shoulder where the collar of his shirt had slipped down. Goosebumps had formed from the chill but she remained steadfast on the patio, as if bracing herself against the cold.

A sudden dull curiosity flickered within him like a match struck. His gaze flicked between the forest and the woman who remained unmoving and staring at no particular spot.

Why aren’t you moving, he began to think then paused as he realized this was her first time outside the home.

Ezekiel watched as her head craned about in a slow circle, taking it all in. The small clouds of exhales which misted before her mouth. She craned her neck back and squinted up at the sky just as he took a tentative step back and away from her view.

There, shadowed by the darkness, he looked on as the woman stared at the world like a caged animal finally set free.

Amidst the unease which clouded her expression there was a sliver of relief that cut through. A glimpse of awe in the shape of her mouth which parted slightly, at the roundness of her eyes which widened in an attempt at taking the world in.

The taste of freedom which had been briefly obscured by her injuries, was slowly but surely returning.

Ezekiel watched as Leyla gripped the crutches resolutely and hobbled forward. He could see her clearly now that she had moved from beneath the roof.

And his eyes fell on the bare sole of her foot pink like the underbelly of a lizard.

“Fool.” He muttered.

She limped down the front steps with tense shoulders and the moment her foot stepped onto the snow, Ezekiel watched her freeze then recoil as if stung. Her feet jerked up and hovered there, suspended over the snow by the abrupt strength of her arms on the crutches.

Right before she listed backwards onto the steps.

The fall was muted by the door which banged on the wall, still swinging back and forth.

Watching her sprawled on his front steps like a tossed ragdoll, he considered going downstairs and ending her fantasies of escape. Yet when he saw the way she stared at the looming dark woods before her, the same thought which cut through him with such clarity while overhauling the car, whispered back in a chilling breath.

If I were a woman in a world full of animals…

I would have nowhere to go.

And so he remained impassive and watchful as fear of remaining locked up pushed her back onto her feet and into the snow.

She moved slowly. Pausing every now and then to lift her bare foot and hover it in the air, where the cold wind only tightened her muscles and made them ache.

By the time she had reached the treeline her shoulders had sagged forward heavily, and the confident set of her chin drooped low enough to brush her chest.

The despondent form of a prisoner only realizing their cage expanded beyond the limits of their eyes.

Only then did he turn away from the pitiful sight and return to bed, curling under the sheets.

Sleep took its time creeping across his limbs like a weighted blanket. He succumbed to the darkness slowly, lulled ever more by the sound of the front door creaking shut.

Clack Clack Clack

The crutches swung in a slow, resigned motion across the floorboards.

And up the staircase.

Across the hallway.

And into the bedroom where the door shut quietly.