19

Typically, humans can’t fall asleep when they’re trying to, and the more asleep you try to be, the wider awake you feel. Fortunately, I was able to fall asleep that night without any issues.

Looking at it another way, the fact that I could fall asleep without any issues could very well be considered an issue in itself. And a big one at that, especially with my perspective a decade in the future. It was bad enough that I had fallen asleep and missed the possible opportunity to see her parents come home, but what if U had just come up and stabbed me in my sleep? Any normal person would’ve been more cautious.

I suppose I already had enough on my mind with trying to wait for her parents coming home, which was thrown awry when they didn’t… But even then, I can’t believe I was able to sleep so soundly. Maybe I should stop blaming everything on my deadened emotions and start acknowledging how blindly primitive my actions are.

Regardless, my dreams didn’t remove me from my goals, because as soon as I awoke, I shot up and pressed my face against the closet door. My first check that morning was to see if I could find the parent’s shoes.

I couldn’t.

Just the same as the night before, only U‘s sneakers adorned the entryway shoe rack. All that had changed was the light source, which told me that the sun had risen.

So my premonition had come true, and her parents had never made it home… One part of me was glad I got a full night’s sleep, but the rest of me wasn’t terribly thrilled with having made all the correct predictions in that case.

If anything, I was worse off.

My whole shtick was to wait out the first night, but now that night was over, and her parents still weren’t home. I was at a loss. What was left for me to do, call the police? If I really wanted to do that, I may as well have done it the night before.

The fact that I’d made it for that one night was kind of a sign to myself that I was prepared to wait another night, and in all honesty, I’d already mentally prepared myself to spend the entire next day in the closet anyway. It’s not worth hiding behind the claim that I had only ever intended to wait one night. I hadn’t truly believed that I could just go to sleep, wake up, and find all my problems solved.

But only one day. That was it. There was no further intention, and no ulterior motive. Exactly one day. If her parents didn’t come back, then that was it. I’d have to give up on any possibilities. My own life was beginning to hang in the balance… Even if all U did was keep me locked in that closet, staying imprisoned would only end in a mental breakdown. That was obvious.

Just then, I heard creaking noises. They were footsteps, presumably of someone coming down the stairs.

It had to be U. Of course, I didn’t know if it was around the time that U should be waking up, and I wasn’t about to check my phone to make sure, but elementary schoolers typically wake up around 7 AM or so. At least, that was what I figured. That variable could change based on their school location. Both that morning and the day before, U was wearing casual clothes, so she definitely didn’t attend a private, uniformed school like the ones that were a few train stations away. The natural conclusion was that she attended a local place in the school district.

As I tried to figure out what elementary school U might attend, switching between this place and that place, a voice suddenly came at me from outside the door.

“Good morning to you.”

I was so startled that I lost my balance. I knew that she had come down the stairs, but hadn’t noticed her walk directly in front of the closet door. Sure, the stairs and closet were fairly close, but it was still beyond my expectations.

“Good morning to you,” U repeated.

It wasn’t mechanical, but something about repeating the exact same greeting twice felt uncomfortable. And then-

“Good morning to you,” came a third time. The feeling of discomfort had somehow already vanished.

Then I came to myself, and hastily returned her greeting. Something told me that U was waiting for my reply.

“Mm.”

I heard a vocal reply that sounded like it was paired with a nod, and U walked away from the closet door. It was almost like all she wanted to do was confirm that I was alive, but at any rate, morning greetings were over and done.

I suppose it’s something of a mystery why I, the captive, felt the need to be considerate to my captor’s desires… then again, I suppose you could say that as the captive, I was in the lower position of honor, so it was my duty to be considerate.

The concepts of common sense or right and wrong had long since abandoned us in that situation. Consideration aside, it’s a separate question whether morning greetings should even be exchanged between captor and captive.

But U was still sensitive to the exchange. And perhaps, in some small way, she was thinking about me. At the very least, I hadn’t been locked up and forgotten about, which made me feel like I was in a much better position than I was.

I strained my ears, trying to glean whatever information I could from my surroundings. I might not have been able to see, but I could still figure something out. I heard the sound of a television. It was too quiet to understand the program, and I suppose it was possible that it was even radio. But I at least heard a voice that was not U‘s coming from an electronic source.

That was surprising behavior from an otherwise very well-behaved child. U didn’t seem like the kind of kid to do anything like watch TV or listen to the radio while focusing on eating breakfast.

But it was easy enough to assume she just acted differently when her parents weren’t around. I don’t necessarily let the TV play while I’m eating, but the only time I’m genuinely focused on one single action is while I write novels.

I then chastised myself that I shouldn’t butt in on the way other people raised their children. Quite the assuming topic to think about, given that I knew absolutely zilch about her upbringing.

Suddenly, it struck me. Breakfast? Food?

I hadn’t eaten anything in my overnight span, but given the overall emergency situation, I hadn’t given any thought to the fact that I hadn’t eaten a single thing since the day before. I hadn’t even had anything to drink. I thought about the last time I could’ve eaten, and realized it was lunch at the university cafeteria, pasta if my memory was to be trusted. I might’ve bought some vending machine coffee on the walk home while pushing my bike. I didn’t eat or drink during the three hour wait in the park, I only read my book. I hadn’t consumed anything in over 12 hours, and my last meal had been over 20 hours prior.

I hadn’t been putting any thought into it until then, but the moment I registered those facts, all my hunger struck me at once. My throat suddenly felt dry as a desert. Granted, in the moment I think it was more my imagination than anything else, sort of a future fear panging at my desire for food and drink beyond my actual need.

But starving to death in captivity was more than possible. Now that suffocation was out of the question, the next threat was starvation. That should have been obvious, and I was careless not to think about it any sooner.

Having a cell phone to call for help at any time had really put my guard down. I didn’t know what to do. Was it worth another day of fasting? The food was one thing, but not even any liquids?

I wasn’t even sure if a human could survive a full day without water. Maybe I wouldn’t die unless I was in a desert, but I had heard that even while sleeping a person could sweat several cups of water. Dehydration seemed closer at hand than ever before.

Just as the rising anxiety threatened to crush me, I heard more movement. I hadn’t even noticed the radio/TV turn off.

U walked up to the closet door and stopped.

“I am leaving now.”

Leaving? What was that supposed to mean? I peeked through the gap in the closet door to find U standing there with her backpack on. It was almost like she was planning to go to school… The announcement really cemented the impression that she was going, too.

“I am leaving now,” U repeated, as if waiting for my reply.

…No, no matter how much it looked like it, she couldn’t possibly have been planning to actually leave to go to school. That would have been utterly ridiculous. I hadn’t even considered the possibility. Sure, I had more or less figured that U went to a local elementary school, and put together that the current time had to be around 7 AM, but that was only assuming that she was waking up according to her typical circadian rhythm. I had assumed she was up and awake out of habit, not because she was going to keep to all her rhythms and actually leave for school.

She understood that she was imprisoning a human being in her home, right? What possible reason could she have to leave for school? No “I’m leaving”, no nothing. She just shouldn’t go. Anywhere. I couldn’t understand how she could afford to go to school in that circumstance… All of a sudden, U was looking a lot less like a foolish child and a lot more like an incomprehensible monster.

I suppose the sliver of a gap that I could see of her didn’t offer me any more perspective than that.

It’s easy to look back from the world 10 years in the future and understand. It wasn’t that she could afford to go to school, but rather that she couldn’t afford not to. Not like knowing that now that helped me out a decade ago.

All I could do was sit there in abject confusion as U announced her intentions to leave for the third time. But U‘s own confusion was beginning to spread across her face from what I could see through the gap in the closet, and it was clear I couldn’t just sit there in silence forever. She was starting to get suspicious from my lack of reply. Or rather, my lack of response was almost causing her to panic. It was like she couldn’t understand why I would respond to her first announcement but not to the second.

It’s always been in my nature to avoid conflict. I’m the kind of person who will throw together a temporary solution to make peace rather than plan long-term. The idea of U crying again like the day before was too much to bear. I just tossed aside all my opinions and told myself that if she wanted to go to school, then she should, and it wasn’t like it was gonna make any difference to me either way.

But at the same time, I didn’t like the idea of giving U a standard reply like, “See you when you get back,” so as my own minor form of rebellion, I responded with something about being hungry and asking for food, though not aggressively enough to provoke her.

U blinked. From what I could tell, my response surprised her. She still seemed quite relieved that I replied, though.

“…”

She said something, but I couldn’t hear it. Before I could ask her to repeat herself, she turned on her heel and headed to the shoe rack, leaving me staring at a backpack. I had no time to stop her as she threw on her shoes, unlocked the bolt, knob and chain locks, went outside, locked the knob and bolt, and left, presumably to school.

She really left for school while having a man imprisoned in her house.

I actually said “see you when you get back” at that point, coming in fantastically late. Not like there was any chance my voice would reach U as it echoed through the closet and empty hallway.

I was overwhelmed by my incredible stubbornness and incapability to respond to her polite announcements in kind, and I felt about an inch tall as a wave of self-loathing washed over me.