Its been six days

without food.

Three, without water.

The pool of blood drying to my

face, so thick and stiffening, my

left eye held shut by hardened liquid.

Unable to move, my arms and legs

stretched out,

lying on my stomach.

Chained to metal spikes

that had been hammered into

the concrete floor

of the basement.

The face staring across from me

was that of an elderly anorexic man,

completely naked,

bald head cracked and

leaking brain and blood.

He was my captor.

He hid in the backseat of my car,

until I got off work.

I saw him just as the syringe

plunged into my neck.

Now, however, my kidnapper was

only a corpse.

In a stroke of luck, or divine-intervention,

my life had been spared.

He was slowly coming down the stairs,

brandishing a box cutter,

staring through big red eyes,

tears streaming down his face.

“How do you want to die?

Should I open up your throat?”

I wanted nothing more than to live.

To see my mom and dad,

my annoying little brother.

Pulling desperately at my restraints,

as I watched in horror as he descended

towards me.

But before he could get down the stairs,

the board he was standing on snapped,

and the man came crashing to the ground.

His head hit the unforgiving floor

with a sickening thud, followed immediately

by wet splatters, as his head burst

like a pimple.

I had survived, and just as soon as

help arrives, I’ll be in my cozy home

with my family.

I can’t wait to see...

The silence was broken by a

quiet scratching sound.

My blood froze.

A small rat appeared, and scurried

up onto the chest of the man’s corpse.

It sniffed, moved toward his neck,

and without hesitation, began biting

the flesh from his throat...

The gag around my mouth wouldn’t

permit me to scream.

I shut my other eye tightly,

and tried to think of anything other than

what I had just seen.

Until I heard the scratching noise

growing louder.

I felt something against my leg,

tearing at my jeans as I desperately

tried to shake it away.

I felt one on my back.

I opened my eye, and to my terror,

the man was covered in rats,

furiously devouring him.

They piled on me, gnawing away at

my clothes, frenzied and determined.

My eyes fell upon the box cutter

lying next to the man.

I stared longingly at it,

lusting at the thought

of burying the blade in my neck.

Anything but this, I thought,

as they began devouring my face...

“How do you want to die?”

Faster.