The Cell

Ryleigh woke with a sharp inhale, her lungs dragging in air like she’d just surfaced from underwater. Her head throbbed, a dull, pulsing ache that spread behind her eyes. She tried to move, but her limbs felt like they were filled with lead. Aching. Sore. Weak.

She lay on her side on something hard and cold. Cement. The chill of it seeped into her skin, numbing her spine, pressing into her bones. She groaned and rolled slowly onto her back, every muscle protesting.

When her eyes finally opened, she saw nothing familiar.

Dim light buzzed above her, flickering faintly from a single bulb embedded in the ceiling. The walls were solid gray concrete, bare and cold. There were no windows. No clock. No door she could see from where she lay. The air was stale and smelled faintly of stone and metal.

She pushed herself upright, wincing. Her back ached like she’d been thrown down a flight of stairs, and her shoulder burned with every movement. Her skin was littered with faint bruises and small cuts, like she’d been dragged across something rough.

Where the hell am I?

Her heart began to race as fragments of memory returned. Walking to her car. A late shift. Nearly midnight. The parking garage was mostly empty. Footsteps behind her. Then—something fast. A hand. A cloth. The scent of earth and something strange. Not cologne. Not sweat.

Wild.

She blinked hard, trying to focus.

She was in a room. Small. Clean, in an industrial kind of way. A mattress lay in one corner—thin and stiff, no blanket. A metal table stood across from it, and on top sat something white. A piece of paper, folded in half.

She stood, her bare feet scraping lightly against the concrete. Her knees wobbled beneath her as she moved toward the table, drawn to the only thing that didn’t belong.

The paper had her name on it.

Ryleigh—written in bold, slanted handwriting. The kind done with a fountain pen or something just as deliberate.

Her fingers trembled as she opened the note.

You're safe. Trust me.

—D

That was it.

No explanation. No threats. No clues. Just a message from someone who thought she’d believe them because they said so.

“Trust you?” she whispered. “I don’t even know who you are.”

Her voice sounded foreign in the silence. The room was too quiet, too controlled. Not even the hum of a vent. No buzzing electronics. Just the flicker of that single lightbulb.

She looked down at the note again. Short. Direct. Strange. The letter “D” was the only signature.

Her throat felt dry. She hadn’t had anything to drink since… she didn’t even know when. Her stomach ached with hunger. But there was no food. No water. Just this letter. Just this message.

Ryleigh sat on the mattress and stared at the door—thick steel, bolted from the outside.

Her mind spun. You're safe. But from what? Why had they taken her? Why not ask for ransom or even a demand?

This wasn’t random. It couldn’t be.

They knew her name.

They had written to her like they knew she’d panic. Like they knew she needed calming down.

She looked at her arms again—scratches along her forearms, like she’d fought back. There were bruises on her hips, a deeper one near her ribs. Her fingers had dirt under the nails.

Had she been outside? In the woods?

Ryleigh stood and began to pace the room, slow and measured. Every few minutes she paused and pressed her ear against the door, listening for footsteps or voices—anything.

But there was nothing.

No jailer. No interrogator. Just silence and concrete and that note.

She ran through the possibilities: a cult, maybe? Some weird experiment? Government abduction?

Or something worse.

Something about the way she’d been taken—the smell, the sound, the unnatural strength—made her stomach churn.

She wrapped her arms around herself and sat again.

The letter remained in her hand, fingers crumpling the edges now. She held it tighter than she meant to, like it was the only thing anchoring her to reality.

You're safe. Trust me.

“Why should I?”

Eventually, her body gave in to the exhaustion. Her eyes slipped closed, the note still clenched in her fist.

She dreamed.

It started with laughter. The sun was warm on her skin, the air buzzing with summer heat and distant traffic. She stood in her backyard in a gown and graduation cap, flanked by her parents. Her mom fussed with her hair. Her dad had a camera slung over his shoulder.

She remembered the smell of barbecue, the breeze that carried it. She remembered smiling until her cheeks hurt.

Then came the silence.

Time slipped forward in the way dreams often do—unstable, uncertain.

She was alone in her apartment, her gown draped over the back of a chair. The party had ended hours ago. Her phone buzzed once. She didn’t answer. She was tired. She’d text them in the morning.

Then it rang.

And again.

When she finally picked up, the voice on the other end was flat. Cold. Mechanical.

“Is this Ryleigh James?”

“Yes…”

“I’m calling from Highway Patrol. I’m so sorry to inform you—your parents were involved in a collision tonight. Their vehicle was struck by a semi on I-85. They... didn’t survive.”

The words didn’t make sense at first. They floated, out of order.

She remembered the way the silence felt after. The seconds that crawled by as her phone slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor.

Then came the grief, the unstoppable wave of it.

In the dream, she screamed. She trashed her apartment, fists slamming into walls and countertops and picture frames. She broke a lamp. She tore at her graduation cap. She ripped her gown apart.

She screamed for the hours she had lost. For the last hug she hadn’t held long enough. For the stupid text she never sent.

And then she was in the car, their car, sitting in the backseat while her parents laughed in the front. She tried to scream—stop, turn back, don’t go—but they couldn’t hear her.

The dream warped again.

Glass shattered. Tires squealed. The impact threw her sideways. Metal crunched and folded. Her mother turned in slow motion, reaching for her. And then—

Nothing.

Ryleigh jerked awake with a strangled cry, chest heaving, the air around her thick and suffocating.

The cold cement floor. The gray walls. The flickering light.

Still real.

She curled into herself, tears slipping silently down her face.

The note lay beside her, the words burned into her mind.

You're safe. Trust me.

—D

She didn’t feel safe. She didn’t trust anything.

Not anymore