Locked In

20

AINSLEY

SIX YEAR AGO

How did I get here?

Where was I?

Why was it so dark?

I shifted slightly, feeling the solid surface beneath me. The ground. I was lying on a cold, hard ground, and something rough was over my head. A sack? My heart raced as I tried to piece together what had happened.

The last thing I remembered was going outside for air. It had been late—around eleven. The room had felt stifling, and I was drenched in sweat from yet another nightmare.

The school had taken us on a short trip, and we were supposed to return tomorrow after staying for three days. The others in the room were asleep, the lights out, and I’d just needed a moment to breathe.

But then…what?

I winced, a dull ache throbbing at the back of my head. Someone had hit me. Yes. From behind. The hazy memory flashed through my mind—something heavy, sharp pain, and then the sensation of being lifted off the ground, thrown over someone’s shoulder. That was the last thing I remembered before everything went black.

Panic surged through me as the realisation hit. I’d been kidnapped.

My breathing quickened, and I jerked upright, yanking the sack off my head. Blinking against the faint light filtering through the cracks in the warehouse walls, I tried to make sense of where I was. It was a warehouse, large and damp, with the scent of rust and mildew thick in the air.

Pain throbbed through my skull, but I pushed it aside, forcing myself to stand. My legs were shaky, and I felt slightly off balance, but I managed to grab a nearby stick for support. Limping towards the metal door, I reached for the handle, praying it would open. No such luck. It had been locked from the outside.

Fear twisted in my chest. I couldn’t scream. What if the person who took me was still nearby? I couldn’t risk alerting them. Instead, I hobbled away from the door, searching the dark corners of the warehouse for another way out. Then I saw something.

Blood.

Tissues.

And…my stomach turned violently—brains. Someone’s head had been smashed. The blood was fresh. And it was everywhere.

My kidnapper had recently killed someone.

I was next.

The horror gripped me, cold and fierce. Gritting my teeth, I forced down the bile rising in my throat and stumbled back to the door. This time, I didn’t care about being quiet. I pounded on the metal furiously, desperate for someone—anyone—to hear me.

Suddenly, I heard it. The lock outside clicked. My heart hammered in my chest, and I stepped back, clutching the stick tighter, ready to defend myself.

The door creaked open, and I held my breath, expecting the worst. But it wasn’t the kidnapper.

It was Theon.

I froze, shock and confusion flooding my body. The worried look in his eyes told me he wasn’t here to hurt me, but my knees nearly gave out from relief all the same.

“Are you okay?” He was breathing heavily, genuinely concerned. How...how—

He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the warehouse, his grip tight and steady.

We ran.

The night was almost pitch black, the thick woods surrounding us making it hard to see where we were going. My mind raced. How did he find me? And why was he even here? He didn’t come on the trip with us. He’d stayed behind. So how…?

A dark thought crept into my mind, and my heart clenched. What if Theon was the killer? What if he had planned all this? Could I trust him? He’d given me no reason to. How did he find me when we’d left him at South Highland?

Before I could give the thought more attention, a voice shattered the air, sending cold terror down my spine.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The sound of footsteps thundered behind us. The real kidnapper was coming after us.

“Shit,” Theon muttered and ran faster, his grip on my wrist never flexing. He was constantly looking over his shoulder as if to check up on me, and I bit back the questions I had. Escaping was the priority. And he wouldn’t appreciate me asking questions right now either.

We must be on the hill—one of the places our year had toured earlier—because I could hear the unmistakable rush of water below, a distant roar that only made the air feel heavier. My lungs burned, my legs screamed for rest, and my heart thudded painfully against my ribcage, but I couldn’t stop. The weight of fear pressed down on me as we ran, sweat rolling down my face. I tried to focus, but the world around me was closing in.

Then, all of the sudden, I felt a force tugging at me. My foot slipped from under me, and I was pulled down without warning. The next thing I knew, I was falling, tumbling. Theon had tripped, and now he was rolling down the hill, taking me with him.

My breath hitched as he let go of my hand just before we reached the edge of the steep drop. My hands flew to my mouth, muffling the scream that nearly escaped as he flew over the end of the hill. My heart pounded in my throat as I skidded to a stop. Slowly and carefully, I crawled towards the edge and peered down, dread knotting in my stomach.

Theon was hanging on by a jagged rock, his fingers desperately gripping it. He looked up at me, and I saw the strain in his arms, the determination in his eyes, and the strength he was pouring as he grunted. He was too far down for me to reach without help.

I wanted to scream, to call for help, but my voice failed me. I couldn’t make a sound, too terrified of alerting the kidnapper. And what could I even say? My throat was dry, words trapped inside me. Every second felt agonising, my pulse deafening in my ears as I stared at him, praying he wouldn’t fall. But I had to run. I had to distract the kidnapper. If I stayed, we were both doomed.

Without a word, I scrambled to my feet, heart in my throat, and took off running, tears blurring my vision as I prayed with every step. Please, don’t fall. Please, don’t fall. The kidnapper was chasing after me, not Theon. He didn’t even seem to notice Theon clinging to the cliff. I had to keep him away, give Theon a chance.

I ran until my legs were on fire. Then suddenly, my foot caught on something—a log or maybe a branch—and I fell flat, the wind knocked out of me. A huff of pain escaped my lips, but I quickly pushed myself up. I spotted something metallic beside me. An iron rod.

Shaking, I picked it up, heart racing as I stumbled to hide behind a nearby tree, knowing he was too close for me to run. My breath came in shallow bursts as I waited, straining my ears for the kidnapper’s footsteps. My heart pounded so loudly I feared he would hear it, but I tuned everything out and focused.

The footsteps grew closer. I held my breath, gripping the iron rod tightly, the weight of it making my arms tremble. And then, he was right in front of me.

Without thinking, I lunged from behind the tree and swung the iron rod with all the strength I had left. It connected with his head, the sickening thud echoing through the woods. He staggered, and I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I hit him again, screaming. And again. Until he was on the ground, unmoving. Until the threat was gone.

Panting, I dropped the rod, my body shaking uncontrollably. But I couldn’t stop to think about what I had just done. Theon. I needed to get back to him.

Grabbing the iron rod, I sprinted back towards the edge, praying the rod would be enough to help him climb up. My heart raced faster with each step, the weight of my fear growing heavier. I reached the cliff and peered down.

But he wasn’t there.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

The world tilted. My heart plummeted into a dark, empty void as I stared at the spot where he had been hanging just moments ago. I dropped the rod, my knees buckling as I collapsed, hands trembling violently. He was gone. I was too late.

Because of me.

The truth crushed me, a scream ripping from my chest as my world shattered. I clutched the edge, not scared of falling.

“Theon!!!”

Theon had fallen. He had fallen because of me. My fault. All of it. Tears streamed down my face, my body shaking with the sobs I had been holding back.

For several long moments, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. My mind refused to accept the reality that Theon—who had risked his life to save me—was gone.

But I had to move. I had to get back. Get help. I wiped the tears from my face, forcing myself to stand. My legs were weak, barely able to hold me, but I stumbled forward, trying to find my way back. I needed to report this to someone—anyone.

The teachers. Who led the trip? Was it the homeroom teacher? It didn’t matter. Someone had to know. Someone had to find Theon.

After a while of circling the woods, I saw a light and followed it, knowing I wasn’t far from where we were staying.

I ran as fast as I could, still shaking, and dashed into the teachers’ quarter that was adjacent to the students’.

I banged on the doors, screaming for help, and the three teachers who had come with us came out. I explained everything that happened to them. From where I came out for air, got taken, saw blood and tissues and small bits of brain, Theon saving me, him falling off the cliff—they sighed when I mentioned Theon.

“I’m serious. Theon is dead! He fell while trying to save me. I’m not joking.”

“Look,” the only female teacher came forward, adjusting her robe. “Theon didn’t come along. We have sixty-seven students here and Theon is not one of them. Why don’t you change and go back to bed.”

I staggered back, dumbfounded. “I saw Theon. He was there. Look at my clothes. I was...I was in the woods. We were running.”

The male teacher sighed. “Fine. We’ll report this to the police tomorrow. You might have seen someone else, but given your clothes, we’ll contact—”

“No,” I argued. “It was Theon. It was his cologne, his voice, his face. I’m not confused. He was the one.” I was panting harshly, on the brink of passing out.

“Okay. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Go back inside and lock your door. The police will be here tomorrow.”

Truth to their words, the police arrived the next day, just two hours before we were supposed to leave for South Highland. Gossip spread like wildfire through the students, each version of the story wilder than the last. Some said I was blinded by love, others claimed I’d been sleepwalking and rolled myself in the mud. Theon hadn't been seen anywhere, and since everyone knew how interested he was in me, it was all too easy for them to twist the narrative.

Two officers approached me, asking in low, sceptical voices to show them where everything had happened. It was hard to recall in the daylight—everything felt like a fever dream—but I told the teachers, who still believed me half-heartedly, that Theon had fallen not far from the path we took to the hills on the second day of our school trip.

The first stop was where I’d said I hit the kidnapper. I could still feel the impact of the iron rod in my hands, making me shiver. But when we got there, he wasn’t there. Nobody. No blood. No trace of anything. The police exchanged glances, their doubt apparent. It was as though, all of a sudden, I had lost my mind, as though none of it had happened.

Next, I took them to the steep hill where Theon had fallen. I could barely hold it together, my heart pounding in my chest, praying to see something—anything—that would prove I wasn’t crazy. But the hill looked undisturbed. There were no marks, no prints, nothing to suggest we had struggled here. The leaves covered the ground in such a thick blanket, it seemed like they hadn’t been touched in years. The officers began to look tired of me, and I could sense their growing disbelief.

Finally, we made it to the warehouse. The moment I stepped inside, my head took a dive. The warehouse wasn’t the same. The mess, the blood, the brain matter—it was all gone. The hammer, the wood, the sack, all the evidence that had been so real to me—gone. Instead, the room looked arranged, unnervingly clean. I ran to the spot where I had seen the blood and remains, frantically searching, but there was nothing. Not a single trace.

“Ainsley, we should probably start going,” one of the teachers said softly, as if trying not to agitate me further. I spun around uncontrollably, breathing heavily, my mind spiralling. The police looked like they had been tricked, as if they believed I was hallucinating.

My vision blurred, the room spinning as panic overwhelmed me. My legs buckled beneath me, and I fainted.

When I woke up, I was on the bus. My head was pressed against the window, and my friends sat beside me, their faces full of worry. I blinked, disoriented, before bursting into tears on their shoulders. Everything felt rushed, the world spinning too fast for me to understand. Though he was only a classmate, he was a classmate that I liked. Among the boys in my school, he was the one who cared about me, if the stares he gave me was anything to go by. And somehow, I’d began to feel something for him.

Did he die? Was it really a hallucination?

Maybe it was all in my head. Maybe none of it had really happened. I clung to that thought, hoping that it would ease the crushing guilt. But it never left me.

Theon never came back to school. Not during exams, not for graduation. The school tried to reach out, but they found out he had submitted false information upon enrollment. They couldn’t track him down, and they ruled it out as him dropping out. He’d never been one to follow the rules anyway, always skipping classes, so the school didn’t consider it their responsibility to investigate further. And since he wasn’t on the list of students who went on the trip, they let the matter drop.

It was a nightmare I didn’t want to remember. So, I pushed it to the back of my mind, pretending everything was fine.

Over time, I started to forget about him. I convinced myself that what the teachers said was true—that it was all just a misunderstanding, a bad dream. The more I believed it, the less guilty I felt.

But deep down, a part of me always knew that something wasn’t right. Something about Theon’s disappearance, about that night, would never leave me completely.