It all started when I was answering some work emails. It was late November, the company was busy with some nice sales and the team needed me to talk to them about some new features they wanted to add to our product because of what they’ve been hearing from our customers and competitors. Surely I’d consider and look deeper into that to analyse if it made sense to our product vision and strategy.
When I finished answering the penultimate email, my landline rang. Weird, I thought. Nobody rings my landline these days, it must my grandma being nostalgic or be the bank, I guessed. I stood up from my chair to get it, quite curious to find out who was calling me. Unknown number. Weird.
“Hello?” I said, hearing nothing. “Greetings. Many emails today, huh? You weren’t this busy last night, it’s almost boring today” A weird and metallic voice answered from the other side. “What? Who’s this?” I felt confused, thinking it was a work colleague trying to mess with me. “I’m starting to pity you a bit, so I’ll give you this tiny piece of advice. You should close your windows and blinds more often while you work late at night, you know. It’s not even fun anymore to keep track of you like that. You should go back to seeing that beautiful blonde, by the way. It’s been quite some time.” “What the fu-“ The call got cut off.
I started looking around as I dropped the phone and swiftly started closing all my windows and my blinds, worrying about this bizarre call before going through my last email. The best thing I could do was take care, do my things as I needed to do and finish them and go rest. And so I did. I finished what I needed to get done and went to sleep, as I was exhausted from a long day of work and study.
As some shy and stubborn rays of sunshine flickered through the gaps in between my blinds and dimly illuminated my face, I opened my eyes, waking up. I got up to another normal day, getting ready to have breakfast while I answered a few texts, commenting about last night’s weird call to my best mate. Looking at it in retrospect, I thought it was just a kid or a nosy neighbour trying to have a laugh while messing with a random person. Idiots.
But then I heard the doorbell ring. My eyes wide-open as I gazed at the door, standing in the middle of the kitchen, I felt tense. I slowly walked, as quietly as I could, and looked through the peephole. No one, just a simple cardboard box. I waited a few seconds, which seemed like tiny eternities, before slowly opening the door as I still kept trying not to make any loud noises. I grabbed the box like my life depended on it and locked the door again, putting it on top of my kitchen table. I wondered if this was a part of the idiot’s prank and took my time to carefully open the box. It was a fairly big box, a cat would easily fit into it and use it as a bed comfortably.
As I opened the box, I found a small card with some printed text on it and what seemed to be three pictures. I picked them and felt my heart stopping and the air completely leaving my lungs. A picture of me, working in front of my computer in my bedroom wearing the exact same clothes I was wearing last night; the second one was a picture of me, still wearing the same clothes from last night, talking in the landline phone; the third and last one was me cooking breakfast in the kitchen with the exact same clothes I was wearing as I was looking at the contents of the box, in absolute shook. I dropped the pictures and rushed to get that damn card and read the message it contained.
“I told you I’d give you a tiny bit of advice yesterday. This is my last one. You should try changing your locks too, so I already did that.”
Even after I’ve already finished reading the message, I kept staring at it, feeling my body tremble. What the fuck was happening? Suddenly, I heard keys clanking as some keys landed on my table, coming from behind me, and a heavy hand landed on my right shoulder. I tried to turn quickly to punch whoever got into my house and was touching me, but all I could feel was a sharp pain as my nose and forehead got hit and everything turned black.
As I woke up again, but now with a pounding headache, I wasn’t met with shy rays sunshines. I woke up in a dimly lighted gray room, feeling the coldness of the floor against my skin since I was laying on the floor. I started getting up slowly, but stopped when I saw what looked like Harry, a blonde guy I dated for a while a few months ago before we decided to go separate ways. He had his head facing down, like he was hanging on the wall. I quickly got up and ran to him, realising he was colder than the floor I was previously lying on and not moving or responding at all. I started crying frantically, completely panicked by all that. I started screaming and hitting the walls, trying to find a door or a way out while trying to get help.
Days and what seemed to be weeks passed by and no one seemed to ever come for me. Throughout the first nights, I tried staying awake to see if my captor would come into the room so I could try to escape. But nothing. When I finally gave up and was too hopeless and knackered to care and slept, I was greeted by some food in the morning. Some stale bread and a soft plastic cup of water. I ate it carelessly, I had nothing to lose inside that damn room. And those were my days alongside what once was Harry.
Luckily, at some point, people must’ve started to miss me and worry about me and my whereabouts. The best and most relieving feeling and day of my life was the day I was woken by police officers and some other first responders, crying with joy as I got taken away from that hellhole. I still don’t know to this day who kept me there and why, but I can never live alone in piece again.