Faint cracks of light were all Penny saw. Dust in the air, like when her mom shook a bedsheet by a window, little sparks of light like fireflies. Something cold and damp upon which she sat in this new prison. The sweet smell of lumber mixed with other scents foreign to her and unpleasant. Sour. Tangy. The taste of metal in the cool air.
Where was she?
Her ears rang and her toes felt numb, which was to say they didn’t feel at all. She had to go potty and she was fiercely thirsty and stomach-growling hungry. Afraid of the dark, she shut her eyes against it, finding her private darkness more tolerable than the blind darkness that faced her. Silence like a sponge, soaking up any hint of life, even the sound of her own breathing.
And then, as she dared to open her eyes again, dared to face that demon of darkness that had for so long made her shut her closet door before bed, there in the swirling grays and formless blacks, a shape slowly took form. And she gasped.
She was not alone.