“Hi!” The boy said.

Am I dreaming? I rubbed my eyes again to try and wake myself up. Nothing. This was real life.

I sat up to find 3 more faces looking at me. Braylee was one of them.

“Kinsley, you’ve been asleep for two hours. It’s about time you wake up.” Braylee snorted.

How could she be laughing right now? Were in a room with 3 strangers.

“What’s going on?” I panted. My heart started to beat faster like a treadmill when you move up a level.

The chubby blonde boy starts talking, “This is probably going to be a bit of a shock for you. We just need you to stay calm and-”

“Who are you?” I interrupted.

“I’m Grant,” The boy said. He was taller than I thought. His cheeks were bright red, it looked like he had been outside turning into a snowstorm. He wore a light blue shirt to match his eyes.

“Kinsley you just need to listen. This is serious stuff.” Braylee said.

“Okay, I’m listening.”

“There really is no easy way of putting this, you were kidnapped,” Grant explained.

My heart sank into my chest like the Titanic sank after it hit the iceberg. I looked down at my hands to find them shaking uncontrollably. Tears welled up in my eyes and my lip started to quiver.

“I was just - I - I,” I couldn’t form my words.

“I know this is scary. It was scary for all of us too.” A little girl said.

“Let’s give her some time to calm down, we all needed it when we first arrived,” Grant gave me a soft smile.

It had been two hours since I woke up. I hadn’t moved an inch. I had my knees pulled up to my chest with my arms wrapped around them. I rocked back and forth, back and forth. Everyone acted like this was so normal like it was normal to be held hostage.

“Should we introduce ourselves?” A little girl whispered.

“Yeah, I think we’ve given her enough time.” 

All the kids walked over to meet me on the carpet. The room was big. The walls were white and narrow. There were 10 beds, 5 on each side of the room. There seemed to be one bathroom that I had noticed Grant go into a couple of times. On the right of me was a little kitchen. There was an oven with a stovetop and a microwave sitting on top of it. The carpet was in the front of the room right next to a door that had a lock on it.

The kids sat down and formed a circle around me. Braylee was sitting right in front of me.

“I know this has been a hard day for you. We want to do everything we can to make you feel better. We all know how it feels, you're experiencing that scariest day of your life. I’m Grant. I know we briefly met but I never got to formally introduce myself.”

He held out a hand and waited for me to shake it.

“I’m 14, I’ve been here for two years,” Grant explained.

“I’m Oakley!” Oakley was tiny. She had brown hair with the prettiest green eyes I had ever seen. She wore a sundress and a huge smile.

“I’m 6, I don’t know how long I have stayed here.”

“Oakley’s been here for almost 10 months.”

There was only one other person standing before me. He had brown hair with milk chocolate brown eyes. He wore a plain black t-shirt and a pair of light gray shorts.

“I’m Cody, I’m also 14 and I have been here for 6 and a half years.”

My eyes widened. I haven't even been here for 3 hours, I can’t imagine living here for 6 and a half years. My feelings flipped. At first, I was feeling sorry for myself, but now I’m feeling sorry for them. 

“What kind of person kidnaps 5 children!” I yelled.

“The keeper or at least that’s what we call her,” Cody replied.

I tilted my head to the right and shut my eyes hard. I was trying to remember who had taken me to the beach. I remembered the smell. The smell of peppermints and tree bark. I couldn’t place a face to the distant memory. It had only been a few hours, but my memory started to fade like an umbrella when you let it into the sky.

“Why do you call her the keeper?”

“Because she keeps us here, she has taken our lives. I haven’t seen outside in 6 and a half years. It’s the little things that she has taken from us. Usually, kids don’t want to go to school, so I would do anything to step foot in a school. I would do anything to eat a normal meal again.”

Cody’s words hit me hard. I had always taken these things for granted. I refused to eat what my mom put on the table. Little did I know that there were kids suffering in here that could only dream about the life I was living. I would never see my mom again. Tears started to stream down my face like a river of warm water.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Cody put a hand on my shoulder.

“It’s not that. I just miss my mom,” I felt like a little kid going to preschool for the first time. It had always been just me and my mom. She was my best friend, my only family. Now I would never get to see her again.

Braylee pulled me in for a hug. The only thing keeping me from breaking down is the fact that we were going through this together. The other kids joined our hug.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath so I could remember this moment. These kids didn’t even know me and they were already treating me like family. I would do anything to help them, I had to get them out.

“We have to find a way out of here,” I broke the silence.

“We know, we’ve been thinking of ideas for years but nothing has ever worked.”

“What have you tried?”

Stephanie pointed to a vent on the wall right above the beds.

“See that vent, we've tried to unscrew it but it’s hopeless. It just won’t budge.”

I looked around the room to find something sharp that could help unscrew the vent. She was right, there was absolutely nothing. The sharpest thing in here was a plastic spoon. I lifted my pointer finger up to my mouth, I started gnawing on my fingernail. I sat there with a blank face pondering the idea of what I could do?

Grant turned towards a clock on the wall next to the microwave and oven. He spun back around, his face was bright red. He looked petrified like he had just seen a ghost.

“It’s 9:45, 15 minutes past our bedtime, get in bed now!” Grant yelled.

“Do you have a bedtime?” I laughed.

“We're on a schedule, we have to be in bed at 9:30. The keeper comes and checks on us, you don't want to know what happens if she catches us out of bed.”

A pit appeared in my stomach. The keeper was going to come in here? I tried to swallow but a mass in my throat stopped me from doing so. All the kids jumped up from the carpet and ran to their beds. Braylee and I stood still on the carpet.

“Where do we sleep?” Braylee whispered as Oakley turned off the lights.

“It doesn’t matter, take a bed. Now!”

Braylee and I hopped into beds that were next to each other on the right side of the room. I pulled the white comforter over my head and shut my eyes. All of a sudden I heard clicking noises. 5 clicks. I peeked my head over the blanket and saw a woman stepping through the door. It was the same woman I had seen on the beach a couple of hours before. Where was the man? I hid under the covers again, making sure to make no noise. I focused on my breathing, this always calmed me down. My mom always told me focusing on my breathing was the key to surviving. Now, I finally understood her words. I heard footsteps coming closer to my bed. I clenched my whole body to make myself feel smaller. I heard breathing above my head. I stopped focusing on my breathing and decided to stop breathing altogether. I held my breath until I heard the footsteps fade away. 

There it was again, the 5 clicks. I let out a breath and let my body stretch out. I took the covers off my face and stared at the ceiling.

What is life right now? Maybe if I go to bed I will wake up in my own bed with my mom in the kitchen waiting for me with breakfast. I shut my eyes and aired for my body to fall asleep.

“Good morning!” I felt a pounce on my bed.
I opened my eyes to see Oakley staring down at me. I stretched my arms towards the ceiling and let out a huge yawn.

“Good morning Oakley.”

Oakley seemed like the life of the party. I had only known her for a couple of hours but she always had energy and always knew how to make people laugh. Grant approached my bedside with a bowl of cheerios in hand. He smiled as he gave me the bowl. I returned his smile and shoved a spoonful into my mouth, I was starving.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

I was starting to get used to being in a room with no windows. I was starting to get used to not being outside. It was scaring me how fast I was adapting to this new lifestyle. I looked around the room and saw everyone sitting on the carpet with a bowl of cheerios in hand. I felt out of place. It wasn’t any of their faults, it was mine. I wasn’t allowing myself to feel comfortable. Everything felt off to me, I wanted nothing more than to get out of here.

I noticed a laundry shoot by the main door with the code on it. I tilted my head to the side to get a better look at it. 

“What’s that?” I pointed.

“I’m not really sure. I think it’s a laundry shoot or something, we never use it,” Grant brushed off the question like it was no big deal. I had some ideas stirring in my head.

“Have you ever thought of it as a way to escape?” I smirked.

Grant looked at me like I was crazy.

“No. It’s always just been there. We have never used it.”

“Have you ever looked it up?”

Grant looked down at his hands. He looked ashamed.

“No. I’ve never even really noticed it.”

I pushed the covers off of my legs and walked over to the shoot. I put my head inside and looked all the way up. It was a clear shot to the upstairs.

“I think there is a door at the top. If someone could climb it, maybe they could open the door and escape?”

Everyone's face lit up. Smiles grew ear to ear and somehow the room looked brighter. 

“Oakley, do you think you could climb up that shot?” Cody asked.

“Sure!” Oakley seemed happy to be a part of anything.

She stood up and stuck her little head into the shoot. She climbed in and fit perfectly. From the outside view, we could only see her feet. The laundry shoot looked like a little box in the wall. When you looked up at it, it looked like a vent from a movie. It was a gray rectangle that traveled all the way up to the second floor.

“Okay Oakley, do you know how to climb?” I asked.

“Not really,” she said.

“I want you to put your hands on the sides of the walls and push up so your feet are also on the wall. You need to keep pushing up and holding yourself with your feet so you don’t fall. Climb all the way up and open the door. Okay?”

“Sounds good!”

I turned over to the rest of the group and wiped my forehead. I was sweating bullets.

“That girl isn’t afraid of anything,” I whispered.

“She’s perfect for the job,” Cody laughed.

“Am I doing good?” Oakley asked.

“You’re doing great!” We all said.

“I’m almost to the top. What do I do when I finally get there?” 

“I want you to hold yourself up with one hand and both feet. You need to make sure you are in a comfortable position and that you are sturdy where you are. The most important thing is that you don’t fall.”

I couldn’t help but smile. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but this might actually work!

“That was the easiest door to open ever!”

We all shot our heads towards the laundry shoot.

“You got it open?” Braylee cried.

“Yeah! What should I do now?”

Tears were rolling down our eyes. We were going to get out of here, we were going to be free.

“What should she do? If she goes through the laundry shoot someone could be in the house,” Grant scratched his head.

“Oakley, stay where you are. We're thinking of a plan,” I called.

There was no response.

“Oakley?” Cody yelled.

“Oakley!” I screamed. 

No response. I put my head in the shoot and saw an open door at the top. She had crawled through.

“She’s not there,” I panted.

Cody’s face turned red.

“This is all your fault. You sent a 6-year old up a laundry shoot to open a door to a kidnapper's house with no plan. What is wrong with you!”

“I - I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

I could hear my heart beating in my head. I grabbed a strand of my hair and started twisting it. That always seemed to help me think better.

“We can’t start turning on each other now,” Grant said.

“Can you think rationally for a second? You always look on the bright side, but there isn't a bright side this time. We're trapped in a room with no way out and now a member of our family is gone!” Cody was yelling now.

He put our situation into perspective. He was right, there was no bright side. Our whole lives have been stolen from us and there was nothing we could do about it. All of a sudden footsteps traveled down the stairs. We all stopped and stood in silence.

“The keeper never comes down during the daytime,” Grant whispered. “This is bad.”

This was the first time I had seen Grant like this. He looked defeated.

There was a knock at the door.

“Guys, it’s me!”

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I exhaled as I heard her voice.

“Oakley!” I cried.

“Are you okay?” Cody pushed me out of the way and put his hands on the door.

“I’m doing great. No one is even home,” she laughed.

Cody let out a huge breath and closed his eyes.

“Are you guys going to climb up too?” Oakley asked.

I looked around to see what everyone else was thinking.

“I don’t think I would fit.” Grant motioned around his stomach.

“I’m claustrophobic,” Braylee said.

I looked at the keypad and kept thinking about the 5 clicks I heard.

“Oakley, is there a keypad by the door?” I asked.

“What’s a keypad?” she responded.

“It’s a little box with numbers on it,” Cody said.

“I see a box with letters on it.”

“Okay hold tight for now. If you hear anyone come inside the house you either run outside or run to the laundry shoot.”

I looked at the keypad on our side. Ours had numbers on it, not letters.

“I heard 5 clicks last night when the keeper came in. Does that mean anything to guys?”

Grant scratched his head and looked around the room.

“I had always heard 3 until last night,” Cody shrugged his shoulders.

I counted the number of beds in the room. 10. But only 5 were being used.

“There are 5 of us. There were 3 before we came, that’s probably why there were 3 clicks until last night! There is a click for every person in here.”

“You're right! It has to be something about us.”

“What about our ages?” Braylee asked.

“Oakley said there are letters on her side,” Grant responded.

“How can the keypads be different?” Braylee ran her finger on the number 5.

“Oakley, are you positive that there are letters and not numbers?”

“I’m positive,” she said.

Cody browsed the room with a confused look on his face.

“Do you think it’s a 5 letter word?” Grant asked.

“What if it’s the first letter of our names?” Cody suggested.

“The keeper doesn’t know our names,” Grant gave him a dirty look. He was clearly still mad about Cody’s comments earlier.

“It’s worth a try,” I said.

“What order would it be in?” Braylee asked.

“Could it be in the order of how old we are?”

“I was thinking it would be in the order of when we came here.”

“Good idea,” I said.

“Okay Oakley, we are going to have you type a couple of codes in. Are you ready?”

“Yes!”

“Try c,g,o -”

“Who comes first? Kinsley or Braylee?” Grant asked.

“Let’s first try with Braylee first and then we can try with me after,” I said.

“Oakley, do you still have those letters typed in?”

“Yes.”

“Now click b,k. Then there should be an enter button.”

“I don’t know how to read yet. Where is the enter button?”

Cody looked down at our keypad.

“It should be next to z.”

“Found it!

We waited for the door to open, but it didn’t.

“Did you click it, Oakley?”

“Yes, nothing happened.”

“Okay, we have one more code for you. You're almost done, you’re doing great!” Cody encouraged Oakey to keep going.

“Ready?”

“Ready!”

“Type in c,g,o,k,b then click the button next to z.” Cody crossed his fingers.

I heard 5 clicks. I grabbed Braylee's hand and closed my eyes. I was praying that the door would open. I opened one eye to peek at the door. We were so close to escaping. I opened my eyes to a smiling Oakley. Cody was already hugging her. He was in tears telling Oakley how good of a job she did.

“We did it! We're free,” Grant cried. He crouched down and put his face in his hands.

I pulled Braylee in for a big hug. Tears were streaming down my face like water on a window when it’s raining.

“It’s finally over,” Cody let out a huge sigh.

Grant pulled Cody in for a hug.

“I’m sorry dude, I was just really stressed before and -”

“Don’t worry about it.” Grant interrupted while slapping Cody's back.

Cody crouched down to give Oakley another hug.

“I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks, Cody!”

Cody and Oakey always seemed to have the best relationship. He took care of her like she was his true family.

“Let’s get out of here before anyone gets home,” I laughed.

We stepped out of the door to a staircase of cement stairs. The staircase led us to a beautiful room that was filled with white furniture and glass windows all around. It was the nicest house I had ever seen. Cody led the way. He looked like he had just seen the doors to heaven. His smile was the biggest I had ever seen.

“I haven’t seen the outside world in 6 and a half years. Here it is,” he wiped a tear from his eye.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Is it everything you remembered?”

“It’s better.”

Screaming filled the room. I jolted my head backward to see Oakley being pulled by the arms.

“Get away from her!” Cody yelled.

I ran to her and tried to pry away the woman's hand. She had a tight grip.

“Let her go!” I screamed. I started kicking and hitting, I did everything I could think of to her hands off of Oakley.

The lady looked hurt. She wouldn’t look me in the eye. 

“I either take her or I take you.” The lady said.

Her words surprised me. I knew it should have been an instant answer. I should have let the lady take me, but I had to think about it. I wanted to get back to my old life, but what kind of person would I be if I chose my life over a 6-year-old little girl. She was the one that got us out of here and she had so much life ahead of her.

“Take me.”

The lady looked surprised. She tilted her head and loosened her grip on Oakley. She grabbed my arm. Her nails dug into my skin.

“Go! I’ll be fine,” I gulped through my tears.

“No! We're not going to leave you. We stick together, we're family,” Cody replied.

The lady took a handoff off of me to wipe her eyes. I tried to pull away but her grip was too tight.

“Why are you crying! This is your fault! You did this to us!” Braylee looked at the women.

“It’s not my fault,” The lady cried.

Everyone stopped, the room went silent.

“What do you mean?” Grant asked.

“It’s his fault.”

“Who’s fault!” Grant yelled.

“The old man.” 

I was too stunned to speak.

“The man at the beach,” I realized.

“He stole me too. 25 years ago I was his first prize.”

My mouth dropped open. I remembered seeing the 2 of them at the beach. I thought they were a couple, little did I know that she was a prisoner of his.

“Why are you helping him take us then?” Cody asked.

“He will kill me if I didn’t.”

“Why don’t you just run away? Aren’t you home alone right now?” Grant asked a good question.

“I’m scared. I have no place to go. I have no family. He gives me food and a house to live in. It’s not the best life, but I have learned how to survive.”

My eyes widened.

“Are you kidding me! He stole your life and now he is having you steal ours! You are just as bad as he is,” Cody screamed.

The lady looked like she had just been stabbed.

“Thank you,” she said.

Cody had a confused look plastered on his face. She let go of my arm.

“I needed to hear that.” She stood there with a blank stare.

“Run!” I yelled.

I unlocked the door and sprinted out. All 4 of the kids were behind me. I turned around to see if the lady was following us. She wasn’t. She was standing in the doorway, petrified. I didn’t feel scared anymore, I felt invincible.

The grass looked greener than it had ever looked before. The smell of flowers filled the air and the warm air seeped into my skin. I lifted my head towards the sun and took in this moment. I wanted to remember it forever.

“I don’t understand you,” Cody caught up to me. We were on our way down the driveway.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’ve been here for almost half of my life. You come in here for 2 days and get us out. The way out was right there the whole time, right under my nose. I don’t understand how you did that. You just gave up your life for a 6-year old that you barely know. I don’t understand you.”

“You all helped me.”

“How?” He asked.

“Hearing your stories is what kept me motivated. No one will truly ever understand what you have gone through. Grant can’t even understand. You were here for 4 years before him. You are an inspiration.”

Another tear rolled down Cody’s face. He was 14 years old and had gone through more than an average person would go through in their entire lifetime.

“Thank you,” he said.

“No, thank you.”