Over the years there was a particular man that always seemed to be around, she didn't have a name for him but she didn’t have a reason for one. He was always across the street in his car, a black SUV with tinted windows. He had never bothered Aria but she knew more about his car then she did about the man himself. Every morning Aria would head out to work and the car was always gone, always. This specific morning it was still there, feeling more confident in daylight walked straight up to the car. She was nervous but the same line kept running through her head, “If he wanted to hurt me, he would have done it already”. She got to the window of the car and could finally see through the tinted windows, her eyes were wide were curiosity and fear. Both seats empty, she continued to the rear window and she could see someone to what seemed to be a woman sleeping in the back seats of the car. Aria gasped as she realized what it really was, in the same breath taken in a rag was forced over her mouth. Everything collapsed and the only thing Aria was dramatizing over was that woman. She wasn’t sleeping, she was a victim of whoever had just taken Aria. 

Hours later she awoke tied to a chair confused and fuzzy feeling. She had no shoes on and was under the one light that lit up one part of the room. She was bleeding and badly from the bottoms of her feet, which was weird and weird place for someone to cut. There was a table on her left with a pocket knife and a cell phone. She reached for the pocket knife with anticipation, not to tip the chair over and fall over completely. The chair got wiggly and fell into the table, the pocket knife fell behind seconds after Aria and the knife fell directly into her back. She grasped it with her hands and ripped it out of her back. Agony ripping through the flesh around the wound, the expression on her face was pure agony.  She tried to cut herself out of the ropes and fumbled with the knife several times but at some point cut through what she needed. She stood up and now had a cell phone and a pocket knife, a way to communicate and a weapon to defend herself; most of the time these things weren’t given to a victim like herself. Everything seemed too easy, was it a test?

She saw a door, a red one that looked newly painted. She reached for the door knob but something stopped her, the phone. It was ringing with an old song as the ring tone, Aria returned her hand to her pocket. She was now shaking, she doesn’t know who’s phone this is and who would be calling if she did know who’s it was. She took the phone out of her pocket and saw the name for a number, it was simply put as him. She answered and got an immediate answer from the caller, “Hi, Aria; I hate to put you in these conditions but you’ve put me in a situation. You saw my well, partner in my car and I just can’t have that”. The man’s voice was deep and gravel like, he sounded  calm as if everything was exactly as placed; he sounded sincere and apologetic. Aria’s lip quivered from the thought of hearing his voice, she didn’t have a response to his explanation. The man that had been watching her for so long was far more dangerous than she had ever expected and if she had just stayed in her regular routine she wouldn’t be talking to a killer. His voice returned “I need you to do a couple of things for me, I need you to open that red door and do it very carefully, you have 10 minutes to run to my marked destination. If not a deadly gas will be sent through the halls until the marked entry. It’s pretty simple, the one rule is that you cannot try to escape”. The phone hung up and Aria just kept nodding, rerunning the specific instructions given through her head. “Open the door carefully” she muttered to herself, carefully? Slow, gentle, and quiet. She grasped the handle and twisted the knob slowly trying not to make a noise, she peeked her head in through the crack of the door. The area seemed like an endless hallway of darkness, she stepped through the door way and closed the red door behind her. She started to breath heavily and her heart rate up from the exhaustion of waiting so long for something she was unsure of. 

The room was quiet, Aria couldn’t tell which direction was open for walking. Her feet still bleeding squished with every step to the tile, she cringed every step knowing she was to stick to the instructions of quiet and destination. She stepped on something after what felt like several minutes of walking through a swamp. Light appeared faintly below her, glow sticks? She pick one up and studied it, a neon yellow color what would be the reason to set out glow sticks after purposely darkening a room? Nothing was making sense, she had communication, a weapon, and now she was given sight. She could call the police for help, it seemed so simple. She glanced down at the phone, she had service but would this be considered escaping? She had one last thought “if I try to escape, would I die?”. She was dealing with a killer so if she really thought about what future hours she had left, her death ended in the same way. This man needed control, it’s why he gave Aria specific instructions and told her what she couldn’t do before beginning her first task. Run, Aria could run and find her way out of the maze she was about to find her way out of. She started walking in the general direction she was facing, another object under her foot; pink. A trail? Aria continued to find glow sticks until the path ended, there was a giant glowing “X”. The marked destination, unable to tell time Aria didn’t know if she had time to explore before the deadly gas was spread. She could attack, if she wasn’t at the destination then he would assume she was lost. 

 Her feet were bleeding, he could track her. “I’ll run in several directions to confuse the him”. Aria started to run through the halls as fast as she could considering her wide gash wound in her back and her cut up feet. After several minutes she was exhausted and positioned herself in a corner next to the destination she was assigned. Her knife was ready, an alarm sounded and she closed her eyes tightly. What she was ready to do would change her forever and she was ready for change. A door swung open next to her and a man stepped out in a gas mask and a rubber apron, it was him. He stepped out into the darkness and shut the door behind him, he had a syringe full of an unknown substance. Aria could hear his footsteps, rubber boots was an odd choice to be sneaking around in. Aria cleared her throat and opened her eyes, she threw the glow sticks she had collected in his general area. Confused he took a step closer and Aria took her chance, she lunged at him with her knife; plunged the knife into his back almost in the same place she was stabbed. He cried out in frustration and swung her off his back, he ripped the knife from the deep stab wound and swung in every direction. Aria was bruised from hitting the concrete wall but knew she would do everything in her power to get out of there. She crawled towards the man knowing he'd be slashing a knife around his chest height, She ran across something. It had been jammed into her arm, the syringe 1/4 empty; he had injected her while she stabbed him. She felt a rush of weakness wash over her arms and legs, she crawled as close as she could with the syringe in her fingers. She felt his rubber boot and shot what was left in the syringe into the mans thigh, he fell almost instantly. She wanted to sleep but sleeping in here the rest of her life would be restless. She stood up unbalanced and walked along the wall until she met the door handle, she opened the door to daylight. Walked with a hand to her back for pressure and the other with the phone. “911, whats your emergency?”. “I, Ive been abducted by a man in what seems like an old shut down factory, please send help”.

Aria awoke in a hospital dazed from the last 24 hours in a hospital bed smiling because she had won the war, she got to the destination she wanted to be in. She wasn’t afraid anymore, she was empowered. Still exhausted a doctor came into the room and informed her of her condition. “You’ve been in an induced coma for several weeks from a poison administered to your arm, you’re going to be okay now that you have come out of the coma”. “What about the man?” Aria asked. “No one was found at the scene except yourself ma’m”. Confused Aria sat up with wide eyes, the doctor told her to sit back and stay calm. “You may not have followed the instructions but you made it to your final destination, a mental hospital”.