Margaret’s face fades in my memory little by little, like a camera losing focus ever so slowly. Her eyes were hazel, yes, but what was the pattern of her irises? There was a time when I was obsessed with those eyes, painting them into my art in such detail that you might mistake them for real if the rest of the paintings weren’t abstract. But if you gave me a paintbrush today, I would draw completely different eyes.

Her smile, though, radiant as freshly fallen snow; I remember that clearly. And her bellowing laugh that you could hear from the opposite end of the house, which turned to a squealing giggle when she really got going. I always loved making her squeal like that.

Margaret was better with the kids than I was, her heat warmer, her patience a vast lake to my small pond, her love as infinite as the darkness in which I now sit. She’d stay up late helping David—bless his frantic and loving heart—with his school projects. She’d rub Grace’s back while she cried about school or friendship drama, she’d braid Anna’s hair and help her manage her anxiety.

My children’s faces have dwindled to a single defining feature, as if I only heard one instrument in a ten-piece band. David’s bright smile (he got that from Margaret), Grace’s stony gaze, which she called her “resting bitch face”, Anna’s gorgeous curly auburn hair (also from Margaret). I wonder which features from me have faded into oblivion.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Put another log on the fire for me; I made some breakfast and coffee-ee-ee.” Strange that I remember a David Bowie lyric, as I lay more wood on the flame, but not my children’s faces.

All there is to do here is remember, and yet, each moment another memory is swallowed by the suffocating space and time that surrounds me. I pass time by exercising—pushups, burpees, calisthenics—or messing with the sand, more gentle and porous than any sand I’ve encountered.

I want to walk beyond the light of the fire, but I am afraid, for when I reach past the light of the flames, I’ll have nowhere to go. I could follow the sound of the waves, but they seem to come from all directions at once. I am trapped in this bubble of light, and my only escape would mean a slow death, cold as a Chicago winter’s biting wind, which rips through your layers to chill your bones. And death is not an option if I want Margaret to live.

But is it? If they’ve held me as long as I suspect, Margaret is long dead anyways. What’s the use of stoking this pathetic fire, my last and only purpose in this monstrous game? It’s time I fought back, devised a plan to counter my captors’ wicked game. If I don’t, I fear that Margaret, the kids, my memories of a better life, will disappear behind the shadows of the fire.

The answers lie in the head. I’ve contemplated the hooded man’s reply ceaselessly and still have no explanations. But I do have an idea, a desperate idea for a desperate man.