You wake up. For a brief, blissful moment, you think you've finally awoken from a long nightmare. Then the aching head, the limbs stiff from cold, the hard floor beneath you shake you back to reality.
Tears of despair well in your eyes, as you struggle to keep yourself from sobbing. Maybe you can buy yourself some time before they notice you've awakened. You swallow hard, around the painful lump in your dry throat.
Suddenly, you notice the silence. No sound but your own ragged breathing echoing in your ears, and the distant whistling of the wind. You don't dare to hope, but maybe you're alone.
You open your eyes and look around. The room is small and barren, with nothing but a few broken chairs in the corner. A small, dirty window, high above you, lets in the milky morning light. There's nobody else here. You are alone.
You climb to your feet, the sudden jolt of adrenaline chasing away the stiffness and the aches in your limbs. You quietly approach the door, praying to whatever God is listening that the door will open.
The door opens.
Outside is a barren land, with small hills covered in dead grass and the trunks of long-dead trees. To your desperate eyes, no Promised Land could be more beautiful, more full of hope. You glance furtively at the distant house of your captors. No movement. All is still.
You slip back into the shadows of the shack and quickly devise the beginnings of a plan. Run. Run like hell. Find a car, a house, anyone. Anywhere is better than here.
For a brief, joyful moment, you are convinced that you're free.
Then you see it. All your hopes are in vain. There will be no escape, no freedom. Your fate is sealed.
This is the last sight you see, before the screaming starts.
edited cause I'm an idiot and screwed up image formatting