Lost Cave

Prologue

Most vivid of his memories of his hometown were those of the cave. He was sure it was on private property despite being hidden amongst columns of trees in the forest not far from his home. It was his escape, even now that he didn't have the freedom to reach it. The thought made him grimace. His home had become the basement of a man he only knew as Master. The cave, although damp and mossy served as a place to hide, a place of safety. Master ruined the sanctuary of his cave and placed him in one of his own creation.

"Gee, baby," the unexpected call startled him out of his dreams of damp, mossy cave walls and was followed by thumps down the stairs.

Gerard quickly crawled into a kneeling position with his head bowed, the perfect picture of submission. He always found himself conflicted on whether he should fight back but his energy was gone and his master was kind when he obeyed.

His master appeared, newspaper in hand. "They've given up on you, baby. It's just you and me now."

The newspaper fell into his lap, opened to the memorial pages. He used his chained hands to bring the paper closer to his eyes and quickly spots an old image of himself amongst columns of the dead. It declared him to be a beloved son and cherished brother. There was no date of death. He glanced up at the year written like a footnote at the bottom of the page. It was five years. He had been here five years. Tears smudged the ink on the page.

"Baby, don't cry. I'll never give up on you," his captor smirked. "Why don't we go upstairs? Get you off this dirty floor."

Gerard's hands were freed but he was more trapped than ever. No one was even looking for him. He was left for dead. At least his master loved him. He was kept safe and warm in the house and he was a cherished pet until it came to work days where he was locked in the basement. Left chained in waiting. All he could do in this house was serve his master and hope he would be trusted enough to no longer need these chains.

And Gerard knew what would happen once he was upstairs.

"Gerard?" Frank called through a locked door, knocking on it slightly. "I know you're afraid, but I need you to come upstairs with me. You need to take your pills and we need to talk about what set this panic attack off."

The therapist sighed, clutching his client's folder to his chest. This was their fourth session together and the third time Gerard had locked himself in his basement bedroom mid-session in fear. Frank struggled to work out what had gone wrong, where his words had taken a wrong turn. Setbacks like this is one of the many negatives of in-home therapy. The client has the ability to lock themselves away or do essentially anything as it was their own terrain.

They had been speaking about self-care, well, Frank had been speaking of self-care while Gerard sat across from him, head bowed. This was how the man often sat, only looking up when spoken too. The initial psychiatric evaluation suggested this could have been a trained habit from his captor of five years, his automatic response to another human's presence- submission. Frank's role in this was too help him ease back into his old life, teaching him how to cope with the trauma and anxiety as well as looking into education that he had missed.

Five years of sexual abuse and slavery. He had spent most of his days chained to a basement wall and only freed when his captor returned from work and forced him into terrible things. Gerard was lucky to have been found. People had stopped looking for the man. He was found accidentally, after a neighbour had reported sounds of what she believed to be a pained dog's whimpers. He was found chained to a tree, gagged and exposed to the cold weather. It made sense that Gerard would run down to the basement when he was afraid. It was the only space he had to himself in his last home, point of refuge, the only place where he could be alone. As something that was owned, his release from captivity encouraged him to take back what was familiar, from his life before and his life during. He grew up in a basement, surrounded by comics and VCRs and was later held captive in one. Basements oozed familiarity, more so than his own family.

There was a click as Gerard opened the door, nose snotty and eyes red. Frank only got a flash of it before his head bowed.

"Thanks for coming out, Gerard. You ready to go back upstairs?"

~ hahahahahah more ideas oops maybe I'll actually update this one. Welcome welcome yep