If there is one thing in common between all kidnap victims, it is the desire to escape.

But more than that, it is the fear.

So far, Mari had been subconsciously denying the reality of her situation. The bizarre nature of her cell hadn't really helped convince her otherwise. It was just too weird. Regardless, Mari hadn't felt the weight of her peril until now.

Now, she was afraid.

There were stories - horrifying ones - of young women abducted and locked up in a basement for years, abused and raped over and over and over. Until the victims were totally broken, physically and psychologically.

Mari shuddered. She didn't want to think about it. But her logical mind did, and it steadily ploughed on.

Her circumstances were different to the stories. She wasn't chained up in a pig sty (no really, true story) or confined inside a coffin under someone's bed. In fact, her situation was relatively mild. She'd only been here two days, and the worst thing Shwef had done was swear.

That didn't mean it would stay that way.

The future was uncertain, unpredictable. Shwef himself was hard to understand, let alone the invisible kidnappers controlling this situation, watching her every move. She didn't understand them, couldn't fathom their motives. That was what made it so scary.

Mari snuggled further into her blanket on the floor, staring up at the dark ceiling. Shwef had brought it for her before going to bed himself. Mari was grateful, but...

Maybe he was just manipulating her. Maybe they were just trying to induce Stockholm syndrome by showing her a bit of kindness. Maybe this was the carrot before the stick, a small consolation before the mysterious food they had been feeding her degraded her body into some horrifying abomination.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

She knew one thing that wasn't maybe. No rescue team was coming. This wasn't some psychopathic dude kidnapping a random woman to lock her up in his bedroom; this was planned, methodical, organised. They wouldn't have left a trace.

Or they were simply too powerful to care. Either way, Mari was on her own. She needed to find her own way out - and it would be tricky. She needed to bide her time, gather information, find weakesses. She only had one shot. And if she failed-

Mari curled into a ball, fighting the overwhelming fear that was creeping up from the pit of her stomach. She felt so afraid, so uncertain.

So alone.

She began to sing. Softly, in her mind, to comfort her trembling heart. She kept on singing until she fell asleep in her blanket, tucked against the invisible barrier that was her prison.

"My God, my God, be near me,

There's no where else to go...

And Lord if you can hear me,

Please help your child to know..."

◇◇◇◇

Mari woke. A sharp stabbing pain seared through her abdomen.

"Arhh!"

Her body heaved up, hands clutching at her stomach. Nausea radiated like a wave, and her butt was tingling.

Mari groaned. She knew exactly what the tingles meant. Hastily, she disenangled herself from the blanket and practically leapt for the chamberpot.

This was a bad, bad case of diarrhea.

The pants were coming off when Mari remembered something. Shwef! Her head whipped around to look at the bed. There he was, a mess of grey-brown hair poking out of the blankets. Fast asleep.

"Shwef!" Mari called, trying to wake him up. No response. She tried again.

"Shwef!"

He didn't react. Mari nearly threw the chamberpot at him in frustration. Her intestines convinced her otherwise. We don't give a damn whether it's into the chamberpot or into your pants. It's coming out now.

Mari made a quick-snap decision. The pants came down in a flash. She snagged the blanket and wrapped it around her waist as she sat down on the chamberpot.

Not a moment too soon.

It burst out like a volcano eruption. And it burned! Mari nearly cried from the pain. She'd never had it this bad before - heck, she hadn't had a full-blown case of diarrhea in years. If there was anything Mari was proud of, it was her gut. She made a practice of eating the most dubious of foods, and the 5-second rule definitely applied. Expiry dates? Pshh, what was that?

Her constant training kept her gut in tip-top shape. She never got travel diarrhea anymore. Her defense was impeccable. Even if all her friends got food poisoning from something they ate together, Mari would stand, unaffected.

Well, she definitely felt the effects this time. There was no doubt it was the strange food. It wasn't that surprising, really. The incredibly wrong colours made it pretty obvious something was afoot. She just hoped it was only her gut.

Eventually the splattering ceased, and Mari got some reprieve.

"Oh man...."

She felt like a wrung-out rag.

It was at this convenient moment that Shwef decided to wake up. The....ongoing ambient noises may have been a factor. Mari would've felt embarrassed, but she was too wrung-out to care. She just smiled weakly and asked if he had any toilet paper. In English.

He didn't understand, of course.

So she asked for the hanky instead. They had exchanged words for it yesterday, thankfully. Shwef got up to get it and handed it to her, but he seemed a little puzzled why she would want it.

Usually, she would've felt bad for befouling such a delicate, pretty handkerchief, but....Mari just didn't care at this point. So she shrugged and shamelessly shooed Shwef out of the room.

As she wiped her butt, Mari wondered if her kidnappers were watching her through their cameras. If Shwef was watching her through a camera. The thought made her angry. They knew she would get diarrhea. They knew she didn't have toilet paper. And they knew because they had set this whole thing up, trapping her in here with nothing but her pajamas, and she didn't even have a bra on, and she'd been trying to not worry about it this entire time, trying to keep her shoulders bent forward so the shirt would hang loose, and they probably knew, the bastards, they were probably laughing at her every move behind their monitoring screens.....

Mari was whipping herself into a silent frenzy when Shwelf returned with breakfast. She fumed as he brought the tray towards her full of neon yellow scrambled eggs with orange bacon bits and slightly blue toast.

And so Mari did something reckless.

Against her better judgement, she grabbed Shwef's wrist as his hands came through the forcefield - and yanked him with unyielding fury into her invisible prison.