When I opened my eyes, everything was a blur. I struggled to bring my hands to my face; something tugged at my wrists. I closed my eyes again, realizing I was chained. I breathed heavily, but only a string of panicked no’s escaped my lips. My head felt foggy; I crawled back in fear.

  Streaks of light pierced through what seemed like a crate, offering me a partial view of my surroundings. As I picked myself up, I felt cold metal walls around me. Exhaling loudly, my fingers traced the chains once more. My mind raced, and I began to pull at them. When that failed, I slumped to the floor, searching for the anchor point of the chains. My hands met only sand. Finally locating the end of the chains, I gripped it tightly and anchored myself to the ground. Yanking with all my might, I held my breath.

  “AH!” I slammed the chain to the ground, then picked it up again, pulling even harder. I even braced my feet against the metal wall, attempting to leverage it. It was futile.

  “If I were you, I would shut up. It won’t work,” a woman’s voice said from the pitch-black corner.

  My voice trembled. “Who’s there?”

  “The bolts of the chains are buried deep in concrete. There’s no point in wasting your strength,” she advised. “You’re gonna need it for later.”

  “What is this place?” I finally discerned the woman’s silhouette.

  “A place you never escape from.”

  “You’re lying,” I retorted.

  In another corner, a groan emanated. I recognized that voice. It was Abby’s. Thank God.

  “Abby. Abby, wake up. Wake up.”

  “Gah, Maddy, I’m tired. Let me sleep,” she mumbled, shifting against the floor.

  “Abby, wake up now!”

  “Hey!” the woman’s voice raised over mine. “Do you not understand what ‘shut up’ means?”

  Ignoring her, I continued to try to wake Abby. “Please, Abby. Whatever game of excitement this is for you, I’m done. If you wanted an adrenaline rush from me, I’m officially afraid.”

  Abby groaned in response. “What are you talking about, Maddy? Go back to sleep.”

  I shook my head, realizing that the gravity of our situation hadn’t hit her yet. I inched my hands across the floor again, searching for anything larger than a grain of sand. I needed her to wake up. Suddenly, my hand found a sharp rock. As I felt the sting of it breaking my skin, I didn’t care. I picked it up and tossed it gently in the direction of the corner where I assumed she was.

  The rock thudded against her, and she sat up. “Maddy, I’m trying to?” She stopped talking, and I heard her chains clink against the floor. “W-where are we?” She hesitated in fearful confusion, then I heard her breathe. She cried out a stream of words. “Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Where are we? Maddy, Maddy. I promise you I had no idea.” She started to sob and yank her chains like I did.

  “Shut up!” the woman’s voice rose again. “If they hear you, you won’t like what happens.”

  “What?” Abby whined. “Who are you? What is happening?” I heard Abby get up, and she began to push on the metal. “Please! Somebody, help us!” With her hand she pounded the metal wall, the sound reverberating. “Please!”

  I immediately walked up to the crack and peered around at what little I could see. Big shipping crates were stacked on top of each other, and we seemed to be suspended above the ground. Looking down, I saw a man approaching.

  “Look, a man. He’s coming. Abby, let’s make as much noise as we can. Hopefully he’ll hear us.” We started to pound the walls and scream for help. Suddenly, mere moments in, the lock of the crate emitted a screeching groan, and the door slid open. The blinding sun beamed through, and two men entered. In their hands were rags and some tape.

  I fell to the ground and backed myself into the corner as much as I could. “Please, let us go,” I pleaded. “We won’t tell...” He lunged at me and grabbed the back of my hair with a hard tug.

  “Shut your pretty little mouth, or we will make you.”

  He yanked my hair again with such force, I couldn’t help but make some sort of sound. My tears rolled down my cheek as Abby cried and pleaded just as much as I was. She got to her feet. Out of nowhere, the second man sucker-punched her in the gut, and she fell to the ground in agony.

  “NO!” I began to hit the man in front of me. “Get off of me!” I struck him as hard as I could. He stepped back and touched his lip with his hand.

  “You stupid little...”

  Before he could finish that sentence, my eyes rolled back, and I passed out.

  “DUETORNAMY 31:6,” the teacher yelled out. “For the LORD, your God goes with you. He will never leave you, nor forsake you.” He paused, then asked, “What do you think that means, Maddy?”

  My eyes flew open, and I tried to scream, remembering what had happened before. It felt like a nightmare, the memory tormenting me. Reality seemed to slip away, and the earlier panic welled up inside me until I passed out again.

  “It means that no matter what situation you find yourself in,” the teacher explained, “call out to the LORD! Pray your way out, because even if you do not feel Him, He is there.” He paused again, then asked, “But you might wonder, teacher, how can I know He is there if I don’t feel Him?” He tisked his tongue. “No, my friend. Faith is believing in the words God speaks even when you don’t feel Him. It is trusting that His word is good, that His word is your foundation! Ground your situation with His word, and then you will say to me, ‘Teacher, I do not need to feel it because I trust in what the Lord says.’ That is faith.” He laughed joyfully and asked, “Do you trust in the Lord, Maddy?”

  I awoke again and managed to mumble a faint “Yes,” although it was muffled by the fabric covering my mouth. It became evident that the man had gagged me while I was unconscious. He’d also shifted my hands behind me, the chains still firmly in place, preventing me from removing the rag.

  “I told you that you wouldn’t like what was going to happen,” the woman said, her voice soft with sympathy, although I didn’t appreciate her condescending tone. “Your friend, Abby, she’s okay. They knocked her out pretty good.”

  I tried to ask about this place again, needing more than just the knowledge that escape was impossible, but my voice came out mumbled once more.

  “This place,” she explained, “is just a pit stop on our way to wherever they’re taking us. It’s where they hide the people they’re stealing.” She rose and I caught a glimpse of her features in the limited light. She had brown shoulder-length hair, brown eyes, and a sore on her cupid’s bow. “The next thing they’re going to do is inject you with a drug.” I whimpered as she said, “They do it to ensure a smooth transition from point A to point B, without a struggle. You and everyone they put in here are what they call a ‘hustle.’”

  I attempted to pose another question, but I couldn’t because of the gag.

  “Here,” she said noticing my struggle, she reached her hands out, “let’s see if our chains can reach each other. I’ll pull the rag off, but you must stay quiet.”

  I nodded and stood up as best I could. We moved toward each other, and she reached for my mouth. I closed my eyes and held my breath. Without warning, she ripped the tape off and yanked out the rag.

  “Thank you.” I took a step back, noticing the busted sore on her lip. “You did the same thing we did, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “I’ve been here for at least three nights.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Pauline,” she said before stepping back and sliding down the metal frame to sit. “I want to get back to my family just as much as you and Abby do. It’s best to ride this out and seize an opportunity to escape when it arises.”

  My breath shuddered, my heart still pounding like a drum. “How will we know that?”

  “Trust me, when you’re this afraid, you just know.” She paused, then said, “But you can’t think stupid or the enemy wins.”

  I inched my body down and sat on my legs. Stricken by her silence. “How can you be this calm?”

  “You think this is calm?” she scoffed. “I guess I just hide my emotions well — perhaps this was what my childhood was preparing me for — self-control with my emotions.”

  “Your story?”

  “Yeah. This — being here — just puts the icing on the cake.”

  “W-well, if you don’t mind.” I shrugged a shoulder. “We have time, right?”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “What makes you think I want to tell you my story?”

  “I don’t know.” I hesitated. “M-maybe because, I-I can pray for you?”

  She started to laugh. “Pray for me?” She chuckled some more. “How hard did you hit your head?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head as I felt goosebumps crawl up my arms. “But I know God is with me.”

  She scoffed at me again. “He isn’t. Not in a place like this — His eyes are turned away. Heck, I’ve begun to think — He deafens His ears.”

  “That isn’t true,” I said. “Please don’t tell me you believe that?”

  “You think you are special, huh?” She mockingly laughed. “Trust me, He left me a long time ago, but that’s okay. I don’t want your God. You can keep Him.”

  I scowled at her. I could sense her deep anger toward Him. I could sense her lack of understanding of Him, and it stung my heart. Of course, I could understand why she’d think that way. Bad things had happened to her and continued. That would harden anyone’s heart. However, no matter how many times I wanted to doubt my God, something within me kept telling me to pray.

  I went back to my corner and as the air was still and no noise was made, I fell to my knees and placed my forehead on the ground. I closed my eyes and began to pray:

  “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we have forgiven our trespassers. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.”

  I paused and took a breath. With trust, I proceeded to pray. “Lord, please forgive me for doing what I shouldn’t have done. You see what is happening, you know what happens next. In whatever may come, let me live. Please, let us live. In Jesus’s name. Amen.”

  I sat up straight and began to feel tired. The sun had just begun to set, so the layers of light dimmed. Soon, we wouldn’t be able to see our hands in front of our faces even if we wanted to. My eyes started to hurt, and parts of my face stung to the touch from my salty tears. I moved my head forward and tucked my knees into me.

  “Please God, please, hear your servant. Press on my mom’s heart. Show her where I am. Please don’t let me go through this.” After minutes of being in my head, I felt a tingle on the top of my head, and a clear peace enveloped me. I wiped my tears with my knees and did what I never thought I would do in a situation like this. His peace somehow cradled me, coaxing me into lying down, and within moments of feeling His presence surrounding me, I fell asleep.

  “What do we do in situations that force us to cry out to the Lord?” The teacher asked. “Well, we do what David did. We praise Him in our weakness, and we praise Him in our strength, for we know that it is not our strength that gets us through troubled times, but it is the Lord’s.” The teacher clapped, then said, “David said, ‘The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer…’” He paused. “Deliverer, Maddy. What does it mean?” He asked. “It means, open your mind now… ‘One who sets free or saves another from a difficult situation’.”

  He raised his voice with joy. “MY GOD, my rock where I seek refuge. My shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold, my refuge, and my savior, you save me from VIOLENCE. I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I was saved from my enemies’…” I jolted awake, but I was still tired. Knowing that it was dark now and all was still silent, my eyelids closed, and I went back to sleep. “For the waves of death engulfed me. The ropes of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me…”

  The screeching of the door’s lock jolted me awake, and I raised my head in panic. I quickly remembered my mouth wasn’t taped anymore, and if they saw me, they’d know that Pauline helped me. I couldn’t bear to think about what they might do to her. So, I turned around and faced the metal wall, making sure to keep my hands behind my back, hoping they’d assume my tape was still in place over my mouth. All I could do was listen.

  People entered the crate, and I heard them walk to my left. Fear pulsed through my entire body, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I heard the shuffling of more chains and the sound of a body hitting the ground. Was it another poor soul they’d snatched? I started to breathe heavily when the footsteps I heard seemed to be moving further away. After what felt like an eternity facing the wall, the door closed, and the lock clicked into place. I let out a trembling gasp and turned back around, feeling the chain coil around my leg.

  “Pauline,” I whispered, “did you see what happened?”

  “Yes,” she whispered back. “It’s a guy.”

  I frowned, feeling torn inside. Another soul taken. Another person stripped of their free will. I walked toward her as if I was walking on eggshells. “Please, put the tape back on.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  She placed the rag inside my mouth and secured it with the worn tape. I then sat back down and waited for Abby and the guy to wake up. In my waiting, I remembered a verse and shook my head. It was one that is very well known among all believers in Christ. “Psalm 23:4. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” I exhaled, thinking that the worst thing that could happen to me had already happened. Even death sounded better than this. I shifted my body into a somewhat comfortable position and asked God a question. It was as if He was standing before me, and I poured my thoughts out to Him.

  Why am I here? What reason have I given for you to let this happen to me? I just don’t understand. Please tell me. I exhaled, feeling myself getting agitated with my God the more I thought about being in this dreadful place. Your Word said you would protect me, and yet here I am. Please, just tell me why.

  I was becoming more frustrated with the unanswered question festering in my heart, I thought sarcastically, Ah, whatever. What’s the point in asking something I’m not going to get the answer to? That’s what you do, God. You don’t answer. My mind started to doubt. Hearing that guy’s body just flop to the ground meant no one, and I mean no one knew we were here. Which meant one thing: Pauline was right. There was no escape.

  The sun was rising, and I heard Abigail groan. I turned to my side and then it hit me. I remembered; I had the knife from David. Oh my gosh.

  I breathed heavier. Oh my gosh. With my hands still chained behind my back, I scrambled to my feet. I walked toward Pauline and through my tape as much as I could, I hinted for it to be ripped off again. She didn’t hesitate. She ripped that thing off so fast, my eyes started to water. “Abby, Abby. Wake up.” I called out in a loud whisper. “Pauline, see if you can wake her.”

  “I’ll try,” she replied. A moment later, with her shoe, she thrust the dust into the air toward Abby.

  Abby sat up, with another groan leaving her lips. Immediately she started breathing fast, and within her mumble begged for the tape to be ripped. I heard Pauline’s chains rustle toward her, and with a quick pull, it was off.

  Abby pushed out a deep breath. “I can barely move, guys. I am in so much pain. I think he broke a rib.”

  “Are you having trouble breathing?” Pauline asked.

  “No. But it hurts like a sore throat with every swallow.”

  I spoke. “It may be bruised, just lay down as comfortably as you can.” Then hesitantly, I offered my suggestion, I thought about all night. “I think I might have an idea.” I stood up. “I can’t believe I didn’t remember this. Maybe because I was in so much fear, but I have a switchblade.”

  “What!” Abigail yelled.

  “Shh!” I charged. “Before you get mad, I wasn’t thinking of what happened beforehand, Abby. I was a little preoccupied getting my hair pulled out.”

  She sighed. “Go on.”

  “When the sun sets high and the light comes in the most, everyone, check your chains for any sign of weakness. Every link. If it is rusty, I’ll throw the knife to you.”

  “Good idea,” the guy to my left chimed.

  I whipped my head to get a glimpse of him.

  “Who are you?” Abigail asked. “Was I out that long, I didn’t notice another person being added to this hellhole?”

  “Yeah,” Pauline replied.

  “Anyways. Who in the freak are you?” she asked again.

  “I’m Chad.”

  “I would say it’s nice to meet you, but that’s ironic, don’t ya think?” Abigail’s sarcasm made Pauline scoff a laugh. Her head turned to Pauline. “It’s not funny.”

  “Please, Abby,” I said. “Just look at your chains.”

  “My hands are where yours are. Wouldn’t it be a little too hard for us to break them?”

  “Shoot. I wasn’t thinking about us.” I sighed, blinking several times in thought. “Just Pauline or Chad.”

  “Have you ever thought to sit on your butt and squirm your hands under them to bring them forward?” Chad asked.

  “With the way they are,” Abby replied, “we could tear a muscle.”

  “I mean, we are in a situation where it’s life or death,” he said. “I’d bargain with the one that means the most to you.”

  Abby and I were unwavering for a moment, then we sat on our butts and tried what Chad suggested. I pulled my arms down as far as they could go, then rocked my body side to side, shimmying my hands over my butt the best way I could. Stopping to take a breath, my hands started to hurt. I proceeded anyways. What he said spoke to me, our lives meant the most to me.

  Finally, I forced my hands with a tug forward and I did it. I started to laugh with joy. “I did it.” Then, I pushed my legs through my arms. “Abby?”

  “Yep, almost there,” she groaned. “It’s kind of difficult with bruised ribs.” With a drawn-out ow, I heard her chains make a loud rustle. “I did it too.”

  The sun finally peaked at its highest, and we all started to check our chains. Like pulling a rope, we pulled ourselves toward the concrete. I began feeling frustrated as mine seemed like they were a couple of years old. There were some scuffs, scratches, and dents but no rust. I saw nothing that a knife could burst through. I glanced at everyone who was searching too.

  “Just perfect,” Chad said, “mine are new.”

  Pauline finished the last loops. “Mine are old, but not enough to bust.”

  “Dang,” I asked, “Abby, what about yours?”

  “Give me a second.” I saw her pull herself to her last loop. “Maddy, throw me the knife. This looks like the metal has been stretched. If I put the end of the knife in there, I think I can stretch it enough to get it to bust. “Please, Lord,” she said, “give me strength.”

  I took the knife and tossed it to her. She quickly picked it up and squeezed the end of the closed knife through the hole. She grunted as she twisted it, then taking her foot, she used the strength in her legs. A moment later, with us all practically biting our nails, we heard it break. Abby’s eyes grew wide as she clasped her hand over her mouth, and she screamed. I smiled wide and, in my mind, thanked the Lord above. I watched Abby loosen her chains as quietly as she could, then as she unloosed the last bit from her hands, she was free. She closed her eyes, as her nostrils flared in relief. Her eyes began to water, and she ran toward me. Throwing her arms over me, she dug her face into my shoulders and started to softly cry.

  “I promise you ? I am going to get you out.” She looked at me, tears flowed down her soft pink cheeks. “I’m not leaving you.”

  I shook my head with a small smile. I knew she had to leave, something within me told me to tell her to leave. “I love you, but you must leave. Run and get help. Run and don’t look back.”

  “No, Maddy ?”

  “You have to, Abby.” The tears in my eyes began to fall like a waterfall. “The Lord is telling you to leave. Trust Him.”

  She hesitated with a shake of her head.

  I frowned because if I knew she didn’t leave then she would die. “Abby, please. What is the point of going to church if you’re not willing to listen to the voice of God. Go.”

  She wavered again.

  I widened my eyes, and with seriousness in my voice, I uttered strongly. “Go get help. Do not stop for anything. Do not look back.”

  Abby quickly turned away from me, but before she walked to the door Pauline stepped in front of her. “Look through all the cracks and see if the men are stationed outside before you go. I imagine you can run fast, but if they catch you, you’re dead.”

  Abby shook her head and did exactly as Pauline said. “All clear.”

  “Okay, go,” I said, “remember, don’t look back or don’t stop for anything.”

  She shook her head, then she pressed on the door and remembered it was locked. Looking back at me, she whispered, “It’s locked.”

  “Pull the knife out and force the lock upward,” Chad said.

  Abby opened the knife and did as Chad directed. The lock made a sound, then, she pushed the door open as carefully as she could, but before she left, she looked back at me and mouthed, ‘I love you.’ She shut the door and I heard her soles take flight.