She breathes in. Through the nose. Sharp air meets her throat. It threatens to cut the breath short, like being punched in the stomach. But she’s practiced. And she’s stubborn. So she holds it even though it burns.
She breathes out. Slowly. Through pursed lips. A warm fog drifts against the inside of the glass.
I don’t know how he knows that, but he says it with confidence.
She opens her eyes. Ten seconds ago, she forced herself to do it. One breath. Slow the heart. Fight the panicked instincts. That’s good. Do that. It won’t help. But it makes it unusual. Interesting. Fun to watch.
For the next minute or so, she will weigh her options. Maybe she’s letting the obvious questions play out in her mind. Well. Question.
What was that thing?
But I’d like to think she’s not. We pick the players with care. I’d like to think she’s playing different scenarios in her mind. I’d like to imagine that she’s asking herself how fast it ran, because then she’ll know she can’t outrun it.
I’d like to imagine that she’s thinking about what it can use to kill her. Did it have claws? Teeth? She would be struggling to think it over. It’s hard to fight the panic. But I hope she’s trying.
Most importantly, I hope she’s asking if those claws can break into the car. I hope she’s asking if she’s safe in there.
How much time does she have before the creature makes its move? If she calls, how long will it take the police, or anyone, to get there, in a storm like that?
In one minute and thirty-two seconds, she will make the decision to open the car door. She’s smart, like I said. She knows she’s not safe. She knows the police wont make it. And her fingers are getting cold. If she waits much longer, she won’t be able to hold any kind of weapon well enough to attack with it. The car won’t start, so she can’t drive. She can’t heat herself up. And there’s too much snow. She can’t see out the glass.
I was looking at the man now. I wondered why he was showing me this. That irritated him.
“Watch the screen. Watch. Learn. It’s no fun if you die right away.”
The woman opens the car door. She’s holding something in her hands. He laughs. Her back is up against the car. She’s holding her makeshift weapon in front of her. Her head turns left and right.
Seven seconds later, she sees something. It’s off camera. But whatever it was convinces her that what she has in her hands is useless. It falls into the snow. She runs just far enough to be off camera. A shadow flashes across the snow. A limp hand falls back into frame, and the snow turns red.
The man clicked the space bar on the keyboard.
“I’m not going to take your phone. Use it, if you think it’ll help.”
I looked up at him. He was standing, shrugging his coat onto his shoulders. He saw something in my face. He sighed and bent down to my level. He pulled a key out of his pocket and shoved it in the keyhole of the handcuffs holding me to the chair.
“You’re asking the obvious questions. How did you get here? Where are you? Who am I? Why did I show that to you? But what you should be asking,” he says, stalling a moment to look me in the eye, “is how you’re going to survive.”
The handcuffs clicked and dropped to the floor. He stood and pulled a gun out of his pocket. He backed himself towards a heavy steel door with no handle and tapped twice.
“You can win. I promise. It’ll be difficult, but it can die. Use the computer. Watch the others. Learn. Then leave,” he said, pointing at the door behind me. “Or don’t. It’s coming either way.”
The door opened behind him.
“We’re all rooting for you.”
That was an hour ago. I watched all the videos. None survived. I studied. And I wrote this.
There’s something outside