SURVIVOR

01

Emma blinked her eyes again, but nothing changed. She didn't know how many times she had repeated this gesture, but her eyes still couldn't adapt to the darkness of the room. She had been sitting sideways on the bed since she woke up, a period of time that seemed like hours, but actually couldn't have been more than ten minutes. Her eyes were fixed directly on the black curtain in front of her (which she presumed was hiding a window), with the door located on her right.

This position had been chosen precisely to keep the two exits under her surveillance. Upon waking up in this unknown place and with no memory of the previous days, she concluded that she must have been kidnapped, so she didn't want to make any noise that could attract the attention of her abductors. Previously, she had confirmed that this wasn't a safe place when she gently lifted the phone from the bedside table and noticed that there was no line.

Addicted to thrillers and having seen hundreds of this genre, Emma had always been convinced that she wouldn't do badly if one day she were put in this kind of situation, although she never really believed she would go through such a circumstance. It turns out that reality is always harsher and crueler.

At this moment, she was trembling, and her body's response to the fear that was consuming her was the discomfort of her intestinal system. "Oh, please. Don't let me have a stomachache right now," she thought to herself.

Gathering the little courage she could muster, she rose calmly towards the blackout curtain. She touched the fabric with just two fingers and began to pull it back slowly. As she had thought, there was a window, but not a glass window, but an old wooden one, composed of two halves. To see what was behind, she would have to lift the very rusted latch that kept them closed. She paused for a moment, exhaled deeply, and glanced at the door. She walked slowly toward it and pressed her ear against the wood. No sign of human life, and hopefully no alien life either. Then she headed back to the bed, grabbed the pillow, and removed the pillowcase. She returned to the window, pulled back the curtain again, and wedged the pillowcase between the latch and the window. She pulled the pillowcase towards her, and the latch made a noise as it flipped. She felt her spine freeze and moved back towards the door. Again, no noise from outside. Now she could feel sweat forming on her forehead, but there was no other option; it was time to lift the latch. She wrapped it completely with the pillowcase to muffle as much of the noise as possible that she knew would surely come. She turned it back and forth while trying to lift it, and despite the initial resistance, the latch finally gave way, and Emma had no trouble lifting it. Part one completed, but the big problem still remained: the top latch. A huge challenge for someone who was just over five feet and three inches. She carefully scanned the room with her eyes, and even though the darkness was still terrible, it wasn't a very large room, so it didn't take long for her to analyze the entire space. No chair.

"What the hell!" she roared in thought, but then set her eyes on the nightstand beside the bed. "It will have to do," she thought.

As it couldn't be otherwise, reality is always tougher. The nightstand was made of solid wood, too heavy to be lifted. She also couldn't drag it, as the noise this time would be impossible to ignore. So she decided to exert force on one side, lift the other end of the piece of furniture, and rotate it in the air. She was going to do this until reaching the window. After about ten or twelve movements that exhausted much of her energy, she managed to position the object under the window. She grabbed the pillowcase again and climbed onto the nightstand. She repeated the procedure she had done in the lower corner of the window, and this time the noise of the latch turning was even louder. She stopped what she was doing, but this time decided to stand still. With sweat already dripping from her forehead, she took some deep, long breaths - more to calm herself than to regain energy - and managed to lower the upper latch. Now she could finally open the window.

She pulled the front flag gently to peek without drawing attention, and then... nothing. Or almost nothing. It was totally dark on the outside, so there was little that she could see. She thought that maybe she was seeing a street and some houses on the other side, or maybe some cars, but it was so dark that she was not sure of anything. Her first impressions were that it looked like an ordinary street like so many others in her country, except for the lack of lights. The total silence was also weird. Okay, it was probably very late at night or even dawn, but not even a cat making noise or annoying teenagers screaming? No. In fact, it was so quiet that the only sound was made by the wind.

After peering for a few more moments with no change in the scenery, she decided it was time to take a riskier step. She opened the window flag completely and saw that the ground was three meters away. She had hoped to find a roof just below, where she could climb down to a tree, but now there was no choice: she would have to exit the room through the door.

Whether recklessly or not, she now felt more confident to take this step. After the noise and movement she had made, no one had appeared, and she also thought that there was no car parked in the uncovered garage (for what she could see). As a precaution, she looked for the heaviest object she could use as a weapon, which turned out to be the old corded telephone. She ripped off the extension and began her journey to escape.

She was fully aware of how absurd she looked holding the old telephone overhead with her left arm, but it was better to be ridiculous than dead. If used correctly, the phone's receiver could inflict some damage by hitting someone's head. Placing her other hand on the doorknob, she turned it slowly. Unlike the window, the door offered no resistance, so she pushed it calmly and peeked through the crack: the lights in the house were all off, but it wasn't as dim as the room, allowing her to see an empty hallway with closed doors. She cautiously made her way to the stairs and upon reaching the first floor, briefly reflected on whether to search for a more dangerous weapon or leave the house as quickly as possible. Opting for a combination of both, she decided to venture into the kitchen, grab a butcher knife, and search for the backdoor. After that, she had no intention of exploring further. She wasn't a fighter, for sure, but she could be a decent fugitive, running like an athlete when she smelled danger.

Having accomplished her objectives, she felt a spasm in her shoulders and steeled herself for what lay beyond the door. Time to go out.