9. Sonnet Ellison
SONNET ELLISON
Iwoke up confused. For a few seconds, I didn’t know where I was or why my head felt so heavy. The ceiling above me wasn’t mine. The room smelled unfamiliar. My mouth was dry, and my limbs felt like they belonged to somebody else.
Then the memories returned all at once, and I shot upright with a gasp. But metal pulled against my ankle.
I froze. For one terrifying second, my brain refused to understand what I was seeing. Then I saw that the cuff locked around my ankle was connected to a long chain that stretched across the bed and ran toward the window.
My breathing stopped. The chain was secured to thick metal bars bolted over the window frame. My pulse slammed so hard I could feel it in my throat.
I yanked my leg, and the chain rattled loudly, but it didn’t give. Panic burned through whatever drug still lingered in my system. I scrambled backward on the bed and pulled again, harder this time, until the cuff dug into my skin.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.” The voice came from the corner.
I screamed as he came into view. He was sitting in a chair I hadn’t noticed, dressed in all black with that mask still covering his face. Only his eyes showed. He was so calm as he watched me like he had been there the entire time while I slept.
“You won’t stop fighting, so I chained you up.” I glared at him, trying to catch my breath. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “The chain is long enough for you to use the bathroom and shower. It gives you access to the bed, toilet, sink, dresser and tub.”
I looked toward the open bathroom door. “You’re insane.”
“You can’t reach the door,” he continued, ignoring me. “You can’t reach anything heavy, sharp, or throwable. You can’t reach any other object you might try to use against me.”
“You chained me up like an animal.”
“Stop acting like one.”
My breath caught.
His eyes sharpened slightly, but he didn’t take the words back.
“You’ll stay chained up until you learn how to act.”
“Learn how to act?” I repeated. “Fuck you!”
“I didn’t want to chain you up but you fought me hard enough to bruise my ribs.”
“Good.”
His head tilted slightly.
“I hope they’re cracked,” I seethed.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he stood. I pushed myself backward, dragging the chain with me until it snapped tight again.
“I’ll bring dinner soon,” he told me.
“I’m not eating shit you bring me.”
“You will eventually.”
“Fuck you.”
He looked down at me for a long second, unreadable behind that black mask. Then he walked to the door.
“Wait!”
He stopped but didn’t turn around.
“Who are you?”
His hand rested on the knob. “Nobody you need to know.”
The door opened. He stepped into the hallway, then closed it behind him.
The lock clicked. That sound broke something loose inside me.
I screamed. “Help!” My voice tore through the room and bounced back at me. “Somebody help me!”
I screamed until my throat burned. Until the words turned hoarse. Until my chest hurt and my eyes watered. I pulled at the chain between cries, rattling it as hard as I could, hoping the noise carried beyond the door, beyond the house, beyond wherever he had taken me.
“Help me!”
No one came, but I screamed anyway.
I screamed for every locked door I had ever stood behind, every adult who had ignored me, every home where nobody cared if a child cried herself sick.
By the time my voice gave out, I was sitting on the floor beside the bed with the chain pooled against my legs, throat raw, and tears running hot down my face.
Then my breathing changed. It came too fast, too shallow, each inhale catching before it could reach the bottom of my lungs. The room seemed to shrink around me. The chain felt heavier against my ankle, colder against my skin, louder every time I moved.
I pressed my free hand to my chest and tried to calm myself down, but panic had already taken over.
It was the room. The locked door. The silence after I had screamed myself hoarse and realized nobody was coming.
It was the same loneliness and helplessness I had sworn I escaped the day I turned eighteen and walked out of the system with a trash bag full of clothes.
I had spent years building a life where nobody controlled when I ate, where I slept, or whether I could leave. Now, all of that was gone.
Suddenly, I wasn’t twenty-three anymore. I was that little girl again, alone, scared, and unwanted.
Waiting for someone to come help me but knowing no one would.