How long have I been in this dank hellhole? Surely long enough to miss the start of my first semester at the University of Toronto. Oh God, my life has stopped. I feel time is ticking down on me. Why is this happening?

Sniffling, she brushed at her tears, staring at her light stick, a red one this time. Its eerie glow was fading, like hope.

No, I won’t give up! I can’t give up!

Once more, Sam replayed her hazy recollection of events, hoping a scintilla of information might reveal itself to help her.

There was Kevin’s boneheaded move that got them—her—stranded, the scary headlights, Kevin returning with two creepy people and gas, then the motel. Getting drinks from the machine. Then the sad, smelly man fixing his truck. Is he the monster? He said his wife had cancer. She got under the truck to help before everything went black.

Her head throbbed.

Feeling a prick on her arm, feeling sedated. Driving, driving and driving on gravel. Where? Passing in and out of consciousness, floating in a nightmare. A door being opened. Passing in and out of consciousness. Being lifted, slung over a shoulder, carried outside. Feeling the air on her skin. Being placed in a cart or wheelbarrow, and bumping and bouncing across a country field, forever and ever. It hurt. In the middle of nowhere, a building. Being lifted and carried down a ladder, into cool darkness that reeked of earth, mildew and death.

To where I am now.

From what Sam could tell, a circular shaft, big enough to swallow a small car, rose about 20 to 30 feet above her to the surface. There was no ladder, only earthen walls slick with moisture, making them impossible to climb.

Her cell, or prison, or whatever you wanted to call it, was as large as a double-wide garage. It had six feet of headroom, with the shaft coming down into the center of it. Sam could walk around, but she was confined within the walls with no place to go.

One side of her prison was a pyramid of bowling ball-sized rocks that had spilled, sloping from the roof or an archway to a wide base on the floor. It appeared they’d been piled there to block or seal the wall, in work done long ago.

But as for her dungeon, it had been prepared for a captive.

The bottom was covered with a tarpaulin. On top of it were sheets of plywood, keeping the floor relatively dry. She had a military cot for a bed, a portable toilet, with toilet paper, powder, zip-close waste bags, deodorizer, and hand wipes.

There was a stationary bike that Sam used regularly, riding for miles to keep her muscles and heart strong. She often dreamt she was riding through Queens in New York, or through the U of T campus in Toronto.