I would cry, if I had tears left to give. But I used them up years ago. Crying was all I did in those early days when I thought I had a chance. But no more. I learned the hard way that crying wouldn’t save me. It just made me look weak and pathetic – like a helpless little girl who ought to be wearing a nappy and pigtails. Which is exactly how they liked me.
I am a prisoner; not of war, not for being a criminal. But because someone likes to keep me locked up as their ‘little toy’. Every day my torment is their amusement; I’m confined to small spaces where my captors can stare at me, feel me, or take advantage of me in any way they please. They don’t care about my misery, they don’t even think of me as a human being. In their eyes, I’m just an animal – their play-thing. And they get a sick pleasure from treating me like one. Their callous faces never show any kind of remorse for the poor, pitiful creature they’ve made me into.
I’ve given up all hope of being rescued now. It’s been years since I was taken away and nobody even knows where I am – not even me. If a search was made for me it’s long been abandoned, I’m sure. Even I’ve given myself up for dead at this stage. My captors want me alive, of course, but it’s just to squeeze every last bit of twisted pleasure from my body, before they move on to a new victim.
Nevertheless, I don’t think anyone cares now whether I live or die; I know I don’t. And as I lay here on this hard, unruly floor – like a half-starved dog, with no strength to even lift my head – I can feel my life slowly ebbing away. Perhaps mercifully, my death will come sooner than I anticipated.
You must be wondering, how? How did I come to be in this grim state? Surely I wasn’t born expecting to become this empty shell of a girl, full hopelessness and misery. Well you’d be right, in a way. You see years ago I used to be like you. I lived a happy life in the countryside with my mother, and many brothers and sisters. Most of them were half-siblings, because she’d been in numerous relationships over the years. I never knew who my father was. Admittedly we struggled to live, because there were so many mouths to feed. But we all cared for one another and those blissful days were spent chasing butterflies in the fields, eating strawberries and bathing in the open sunlight. To me it was heaven.
Then one day it happened. I don’t know why. But we were suddenly ambushed by a group of vicious men. They forced us from our home and carried us away to a shrivelled-looking ‘detention centre’. There we were drugged, probed and forced to sleep in overcrowded cells, with dozens of other terrified prisoners. It was clear that no police officers worked here.
Several weeks later, my new ‘masters’ arrived. They took a fancy to me and my soft, brown hair, and I was sold to them on the spot, before I could protest. Without saying goodbye to my family, I was hauled into the back of their car and driven away to my ‘new home’. My vision was impaired throughout the journey, so I wouldn’t even remember the way back.
Arriving at the house (which was almost in the middle of nowhere), I was lead through a series of small corridors to a room that was to be my make-shift cell. It was no larger than a small boiler room, with hardly any space to stretch my legs. There wasn’t any furniture, the walls were pealing and the floor was littered with straw and sawdust, as if it had once been a pig sty – my ‘masters’ must have thought that fitting for me. The door was fitted with a large bolt-lock to seal me inside, and there was even a built-in window to let those creeps peer in on me whenever they felt like it. There was nothing else in the room except a second window that looked out to the back garden. The glass in it had been smashed and both windows were sealed off with barbed wire to prevent me escaping through them. On that first day, I was herded inside the room. And I’ve rarely seen the outside of it since.
Every morning is something of a ritual between me and one of my captors – usually the one with droopy-looking eyes. They open the door’s window and say good morning to me, in an obviously mocking tone. They take my water bottle, refill it, and then wedge it between the barbed wires – as though expecting me to suckle on it like a hamster. They then repeat the process with the food bowl, before leaving me to gorge myself. This is the only time of day I’m ever fed or watered.
Whilst the water is pleasant and refreshing, the food is always the same thing; small brown peas that look like they’ve been stored in a can for over 20 years. I’m rarely given anything else, unless my ‘masters’ feel generous. Which isn’t often. In fact, more often than not, they refill the bowl and bottle outside my door, so I’ll hear and be more desperate. Sometimes they even forget to feed me deliberately, so that I think I’ll go mad with hunger until they finally do bring me the food and water.
I’m never allowed out of this cage-of-a-room – not even to go to the toilet. I have to do my business in a corner, like an animal. And for weeks I’m surrounded by my own urine and faeces, until one of my captors decides to clear me out. Which isn’t often.
The only time I’m allowed out is for one of two things.
The first is to be taken to a private ‘medical centre'. I say ‘private’ because I don’t think the authorities know about it – if they did I’d have been rescued long ago. Most of the ‘doctors’ appear un-medically trained and I’m sure that most of what they do to me is illegal. It’s generally the same as what happened in the ‘detention centre’; I’m drugged, probed and experimented on – all so they can keep me alive and beautiful for a few weeks more. And of course my vision is impaired each time I’m taken, so I can’t tell where I am.
The second reason I’m let out is to be given some ‘exercise’. My captors let me into their back garden so I can stretch my legs and take in the cold, depressing air. It’s quite a large garden, with yellow grass and 20-foot high fences encasing the whole area – even if these monsters had neighbours, I doubt they’d be able to see or hear me.
In the early days, one of my captors would keep an eye on me to make sure I didn’t get up to anything funny or suspicious – like squeeze behind the shed where no one could see or reach me. Sometimes he’d even stand directly over me, and when he felt it was time I should go back inside he’d grab my body and haul me back himself. I could never overpower him no matter how much I kicked or scratched.
Later on, after a time when it seemed like they were starting to trust me being on my own, my ‘masters’ decided to get a guard dog. This vicious monster was let loose on me whenever I got up to anything troublesome. He would chase, pounce and snap at me, until I was back in the sanctuary of my own room. Sometimes they even released him for fun and pretended it was an accident. Fat chance!
But they obviously thought it was necessary. In the past, I had already tried to escape. I’d found an opening in the fence once, and was able to squeeze through it, only to be trapped in next-door’s abandoned garden and be recaptured by my guard. Another time, the door to my cell hadn’t been locked properly and I managed to sneak out of the house. I was found by a nice, old lady, who didn’t seem to understand what I was telling her about my situation. Nevertheless, she took me in and fed me. And I thought my nightmares were finally over. But then my captors came knocking at her door and she betrayed me. She choose a small reward over my freedom and I was hauled back to my prison within moments. I’ve not dared to make another foolish escape attempt since they got that monstrous dog.
My days pass by with such pain and misery, now, that they’re not worth living. Sometimes when the rain or snow pours in through my shattered window, I feel a sense of misery that’s just unbearable. And yet, I don’t cry. My tears betrayed me to the lust of those monsters and so I’ve never forgiven them. I’ve rejected my tears, as hope has rejected me.
I’d like to think that maybe my captors care about me sometimes. After all, they do keep me alive, and recently they’ve talked of fixing my window or moving me into a better room. But then I remember just who these people are and what they’re capable of. I’m not their first victim, you know. From what I’ve heard, I’m their fourth – and probably not their last. I’d hate to think of what they did with the bodies of their other victims, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to chop mine up and feed it to the dog. Cannibals!
As much as I’d like a fixed window or better room, all I really want is to be free. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of my old life in those lavish, green fields. And I think of all the fortunate ones, who go on with their happy lives – blissfully unaware of the pain and suffering I go through daily. What I wouldn’t give to be with my family again; eating grass, digging borrows and looking out for badgers and foxes. Instead of chewing on splinted wood, and having nowhere to perk up my ears and tail. But it’s useless praying for the impossible. This worn out, little rabbit hutch shall be my prison, until my dying day.