Unable to lean against the cold wall, I curled into a seated ball, my arms hugging my legs to my chest as best as I could without the zip ties cutting off circulation to my hands. The room was eerily silent once my frantic thoughts finally calmed. Maybe it was good that I couldn’t hear a compressor pumping in more cold air, but it was hard to see any bright side to my situation. If watching a pot until water boiled slowed time, sitting trapped in a meat locker made it positively endless. It was just me and each of my frozen breaths puffing out in little white clouds.

Okay, Sofia, not helping.

I shook myself mentally and struggled to my feet before hopping over to the door to verify the lunatic had indeed locked me in. The heavy metal wouldn’t budge. Though it had been a long shot, it was worth checking. Trying not to be discouraged, I reminded myself to keep moving. My dad would find me, and I needed to be alive when he did.

I hopped for a bit, but the zip ties began to cut painfully into my ankles, so I resorted to closed-leg squats and yoga sun salutations. I alternated sessions, doing fifty of one exercise, then resting for a bit. When my teeth began to chatter again, I’d get up and do fifty of the other movement.

Over and over.

For what had to be hours.

Sal never came back, and the room never got any warmer.

It was impossible not to let the shred of hope I’d been cultivating slip through my frozen fingers. Fear was insidious—like a cockroach, it was impossible to kill and thrived in the worst conditions. The what-ifs played endlessly on shuffle in my head, a twisted soundtrack of questions and doubt.

The stabbing pangs of hunger were the final straw. I hadn’t cried since I’d been there—I’d teared up, but never allowed myself to fully let go. After doing hundreds, if not thousands, of exercises and sitting through yet another round of painful shivering just to add hunger to the mix, I finally broke.

I lay my head down on my arms, legs pulled to my chin, and I sobbed.

I cried until my ribs ached and my throat burned from the heaving sobs. As the tears began to dry on my numb cheeks, a bone-deep exhaustion crept over me like I’d pulled an all-nighter studying or taken a slug of cough syrup. It was probably a bad idea to sit still for long, but I was so incredibly tired.

If I just rest my eyes for a few minutes, maybe the time will pass faster. Maybe by the time I wake up, Daddy will be here to rescue me.

It was just too tempting. The discomfort and fear were such a drain, and the promise of sleep’s oblivion too enticing to ignore.