Every day, the light inside of me dims.
And when I am finally certain that it has extinguished forever, something happens. Something that changes everything.
Javi comes to retrieve me from the cage. There is no explanation. No apology. No words. He simply leads me back through the house, along the same corridor in which we came. This time, he makes me walk.
My feet are bare, and the floor is cold, and Javi is not dragging me along by the arm. It gives me time to take in my surroundings. It gives me the opportunity to notice things I never have before. That's when I see them.
The trap doors in the floor.
I count three on the way back to the conservatory.
A renewed sense of determination blooms inside of me like Spring. When Javi turns to me, I wonder if he can see it. If I have given myself away.
"Tonight," he says.
"What?"
"Tonight, I have something I want from you."
I swallow and nod, playing the words on repeat in my mind. This is it. My chance.
Javi leads me into the bathroom and points to the tub.
"Wash up," he demands.
I don't want to.
I want him to leave so I can look for the door. But he doesn't. He stands there, and I go about the process of bathing, hardly noticing him at all as my mind considers the possibilities. When my hair is washed, and my skin is clean, he tells me to get out.
I do.
And then he is gone.
Leaving me to my thoughts. To my plan.
I am unnaturally still while I wait for the sound of the lock to engage on the door outside. I know Javi will deliver my lunch soon, which means I only have a short window of time.
The moment the lock slides into place, I dart out of the bathroom and begin searching the floor frantically. My heart beats erratically in my chest, and my fingers prickle with anticipation. But after three complete passes of the conservatory, I still have not found a door.
My eyes burn with unshed tears, and I can't accept it. I'm not willing to give up. I check every maladjusted tile. Beneath the columns of roses. The bookcases. And then, finally, the chairs.
I move them one by one. They are heavy and awkward, and I'm terrified that I'm making too much noise or that he could check the camera at any moment.
I have gone through them all. All but one.
The solitary chair that rests on a small area rug in the corner. It looks out of place there, and I have never noticed it before. But I notice it now.
My feet slap against the floor as I run towards it and yank the corner of the rug back.
I want to scream out my triumph. There is a trap door beneath.
The latch is secured with a small padlock, but the hinges are old and rusted. I glance up at the cameras, and for a split second, I am paralyzed. I never thought of what would come next. There are so many unknown variables with this plan. Javi could catch me. He could catch me, and this time, he would certainly kill me.
But I realize that it doesn't matter. I have no choice. I need to take this opportunity while I can.
My fingers scan the bookshelves for a hardcover. The hardest cover I can find. And though it is totally sacrilege, I use this as my tool of choice, striking the blunt edge against the lock.
On the third time, I have success.
I yank open the door and stare into the blackness, uncertain what waits for me below. It is dark and musty and old. I can't bring myself to move. I can't breathe. Fear threatens to steal my joy and keep me locked in place.
What if it's worse? What if I get lost, or …
I stop myself.
It doesn't matter. Nothing can be worse than what he's already done. I can only focus on one word right now.
Freedom.
I lower myself into the hole and shut the lid over me, obscuring myself in the blackness. The space is too small, too cramped, and it smells damp like the earth... and something more sinister that I can't identify. My hand moves along the passageway, guiding me.
I come to several crossroads throughout the path and use my best guess to find my direction. I don't know exactly which part of the house the conservatory is in. But if my sense of direction is correct, I believe it is in the East Wing which means I need to move west.
I move through the darkness for what feels like an eternity. It's taking too long. Javi will have discovered my empty room by now. He will be furious. And he will be looking for me.
The close confines are getting to me. I'm running now. Breathing too shallow. I trip and land on something hard and sharp. My knees burn, and the threat of tears is real, but when I look up, there is a tiny sliver of light peeking through another doorway.
I have no idea where I am beneath the house. It could be anywhere. It could be Javi's bedroom for all I know. But at this point, I have no choice but to chance it. I will get out of the house much faster than I will this passageway in the dark.
I push up on the door and meet no resistance. There is a small step ladder leaning against the wall, and I use it to climb up into the room. A room that looks like something straight out of a horror movie.
It is all tile. The color of light sea foam. It is cold and sterile, and in the center of the room is a surgical table with straps.
Straps stained with blood.
A wave of dizziness threatens to topple me over. Instinct tells me that this is the room. This is where it happened.
There is a drain in the floor beneath the table. A drain that is also stained with crimson.
I lock my knees, so they don't give out on me. I count to three and try to push through the nausea roiling around my stomach. My eyes move over the space, taking it all in.
The workbench on the opposite wall is filled with vials of different colored liquids. Morbid curiosity drives me to examine them. They are sedatives. Children's cough syrups. And in the pill bottles, prescriptions for Zara Castillo.
My legs feel like jelly as I continue my investigation. There are surgical tools scattered everywhere. Scalpels, forceps, scissors. Alcohol wipes and bandages.
I need to leave this room. I need to run away and forget whatever horrors happened here. But I am overwhelmed with questions.
Why did Javi kill his mother? Was he bad from the start? I have an insatiable need to know more. To understand him.
I can't explain it.
And I know that I am risking my only chance at freedom. But I also know I can't leave here without answers to these questions. I need to know what really happened to Zara. What horrors might await me if I don't escape.
On the wall, there is a projector. And beneath it, reels and reels of old tapes. It is a foolish thing for me to wonder what is on them. It is a foolish thing of me not to run as fast and far as I can.
I try to talk myself into leaving. But my eye is on the reel already in the projector. Just this one. I will see what's on this one tape, and then I will go.
I reach down and turn it on. It is old, but with a sputter, it comes to life, projecting the video onto the opposite wall. At first, what I see does not look like the horror movie I had imagined.
It is a woman. A woman that I recognize from the media headlines as Zara. And in her arms, a young boy. He must have only been eight or nine here. She is cradling him in her arms, singing to him. Encouraging him to drink the liquid while she hums a soothing melody.
He protests, but in the end, she wins by forcing the cup to his lips. After a time, he grows sleepy. When his body is limp, she moves him to the table and straps him down, kissing his hair and smoothing it away from his face.
"I'm going to remove the implants," she whispers. "I'm going to get them all this time, Javi. I won't let them control us."
On the screen, Zara retrieves a tray of surgical tools, and I swallow.
She sets them beside the table and lifts Javi's shirt. His body is so little here. The body of a child. And already, it is riddled with scars. Old and new. Deep and shallow. It is obvious that whatever this practice is between them, it has been happening already for some time.
As the film goes on, it becomes apparent that Zara was living in another dimension altogether. She proceeds to document her findings in a series of unintelligible words and gestures. Sometimes walking directly to the camera to speak, or alternately scribbling into a notepad.
A notepad already covered in black ink.
When she is done, she rattles off some information about Javi. His age and gender and a few other clinical details that seem to separate her from the reality of the situation, at least briefly. She sobs over him and then hits herself in the head, yanking on her own hair. Crying out that she doesn't want to do this. That she doesn't understand how they keep implanting him.
She berates herself for failing to protect him yet again. Then she whispers that they are listening. She must get the device out now. Her personality does another one-eighty when she reaches for a scalpel.