She woke up in a dank and sordid basement with a single bare bulb burning in the middle. A formidible amount of fear and confusion sweptover her as she partially remembered what had happened.

She slowly stood up, lightheaded and aching everywhere. She loitered over to a equally soot-covered sink that was shoddily attached to the wall. It reminded her of the sinks in prision, the unbreakable ones... She closed her eyes and turned the water on. It ran a muddy color for a few minutes, then it began to run clean. She slowly washed her face and drank, for her imminent thirst told her she had been there for a long time.

Now, with her thirst quenched and mind more awake, the feeling of consternation returned to her. She hastily and clandestinly tip-toed back to the corner she had originally been lying in. Just as she shut her eyes, the man had started down the rickety old stairs with a strange vivacity.

The man slowly approached the scrawny girl, about the age of 15. He poked her with a long, bony, cold and death-like finger. She stirred a bit. He poked her a little harder. She opened her eyes drearily, trying her best to not vanquish her purpose of looking as if she just woke up.

She stared blankly at the man, trying to remember his gaunt face.

All she could remember was her walking home on a late friday night. That October night was chilly, and the skimpy party dress she had worn to her dance was not the best apparell she could have sported, knowing full-well it was going to be a cold night.

She recalled taking a shortcut through the park and looking at the frivolous plaques on the benches. She had stopped to sit on one to liberate her aching feet from her heinously tight dress shoes. She took little notice of the strange man coming her way on teh path.

All she could recall was he smelled quite odious and offal, like he had been locked in a condemned house for months. She didn't catch much of his face, only his pale skin and then a cloth over her mouth as she struggled to free herself. Then sleep.

These thoughts ran through her mind quickly, and still she stared at him. Not with awe, or any such thing. Just a blank stare.

He quickly grabbed her arm, fearing she may be planning something. His smell was different, perverse, and not any better. He twisted her arm and pulled her up. She reluctantly stood, quivering from being cold, damp and frightened. He ran his hand over across her cheek, and said she was a very pretty girl. She shuddered and tried to back away.

She felt him encroatching on her personal space, his musty smell thickening. She tried to pull away.

"Calm down, young one." he said.

"Everything will be okay." He nudged her towards the stairs.

"Now come upstairs and I'll fix you something to eat."

She walked like a beraved family missing their youngest child, up the cheap stairs. He followed close behind, very close, touching her shoulder every now and again with his hand, perhaps to try to comfort her. Just as she reached the top step, he stopped. He had caught his shoe on the step behind her. She didn't take notice and was by then, out of the basement.

He grabbed her leg, and she jumped, thinking he had been behind her all along. Noticing a brick on the table next to the basement door, she grabbed it, figuring it must be heavy enough to keep the door from being opened from the inside. As he was looking down to release his shoe from the stair, she vindictivly hit him over the head with it three times before he fell back and down the stairs to the nasty floor she had been sleeping on.

His head was bleeding generously onto the ground, and his arm seemed out of place. She just slammed the door and locked it, then wedged the brick there so even if he was conscious, he wouldn't get far. She ran through the house and found a phone. She promptly called 911 and in short order, the cops had arrived.

In the end, the man was arrested, the girl sent home to her family after almost three days of being missing, and the house was condemned.