Chapter 112

Chapter 112

Was it real? Or was she dreaming? Naomi couldn't tell. Swathed in total darkness, she was almost tempted to believe that she was already dead, that she'd descended into some bottomless hell that was no different to the prison she'd been incarcerated in. And yet something was telling her that that this was no idle fantasy, that she was still in the land of the living, that the faint noise she could hear was real.

Gasping, desperate, Naomi tried to push herself up onto her hands and knees. Straining, she managed to raise her head off the ground long enough to pick up a muffled cry, before her arms gave out and she fell down again, her cheek connecting sharply with the hard floor. The shock was extreme, the pain intense, and she was tempted to dissolve into tears, but she swallowed down her distress, convinced now that someone was close by. Someone who could help her, save her even. Such an outcome seemed impossible, fanciful, but …

There it was again. Quieter still this time, but definitely a human voice, possibly even a woman's voice, calling out her name. Who could it be? Her mother? A police officer? And what did it mean? Had her abductor been captured? Had he confessed? But even as hope surged through the floored captive, the cries seemed to die out, silence reigning in her fetid tomb once more. Maybe she was imagining it, maybe this was one last, wild hallucination before death, but if there was the slightest chance that this was real, that a potential saviour was on the other side of that wall, Naomi had to try.

Opening her mouth, she bellowed, bellowed for all she was worth … but all that came out was a dry, feeble wheeze. Her body was failing her, her mouth bone dry, her throat parched and there was not an ounce of oxygen in this suffocating space, no air that she could suck into her lungs. Terrified, she tried again.

‘Help!'

But her pitiful cry was no more than a whisper, barely audible to her, let alone anyone else. At the crucial moment, her body had been found wanting. She tried one last time to find some energy, some volume from somewhere, but she knew it was hopeless now. Settling back down on the floor, she leaned her head against the cold pipe and started to cry. It was too little, too late.

This was the end.