Ruin - By N.M. Martinez Page 0,60

scream until someone came along to let me out. But that panic, it felt much the same as the slow realization of what it means to be really trapped-- really stuck. I have a lot of ground, but I can never go elsewhere. Just these two floors and hope they never come up and try to pull me downstairs.

Because Henri strikes me as the sort of person to let others learn their lessons. And I'm sure anything short of death he'd count as a very important lesson.

Henri is already sitting by the time I catch my breath, and he glances at me sharply. "You going to sit down?"

I can feel my face tighten, my brows draw together, and my head throb, but still I nod and take a seat too. There isn't anything I can say. I glance up at Henri and he's already digging into his food as if I'm not really here. There is no point to bringing up my thoughts, to asking him directly about the orders of the people downstairs. This is probably my first and most very important lesson.

Sixteen

Henri leaves after right breakfast. It's still early. The sky is lightening up, but the sun hasn't made an appearance yet.

My eggs are cold and the strips of bacon even colder. Still, I don't want to waste the food so I keep eating them slowly while glancing out the window. I had nightmares last night. Nothing that I can remember except for this morning when the smell of cooking bacon filled the house and seeped into my room becoming part of my dream.

I half woke at the smell. The faint traces that reached me in my sleep brought up an image of something snapping, crackling, and burning that made me sick to my stomach, fear like lead pushed everything else out of my stomach and I sat up. The cold morning air brought me back to my senses and helped push the dream away though the memory of it remained.

Mom never made bacon, though it smelled distantly familiar. I tried to remember where I'd caught a whiff of that before, but then realized it was stupid. I could have smelled it anywhere really, and just never paid attention before now.

I finish off my breakfast, pausing again when I bring the bacon towards my mouth and catch that smell that makes my stomach roil again, then I start washing the dishes as the morning lights up enough to turn off the electric lamp on the table. I expect to start hearing the voices from downstairs soon. They start early in the morning and continue throughout the day. It's hard to tell if they're the same voices through the door, but they're loud and usually boisterous enough that napping in the living room is difficult.

I take a seat on the couch and wait for the voices to rise. Drawing my knees to my chest and grabbing an old blanket Henri hangs off the back of the couch, I wipe the sleep from my eyes and just wait. But no sounds rise up to the door. Nothing invades the quiet.

Something about this morning is off. Perhaps it's just the dream leaving its claws in me. I lie down on my side on the couch. The blanket over me, my legs curled up. Nothing. It's blissfully quiet. And though the room is cold, the warmth from the kitchen earlier having dispersed, and despite the dust and musty smells, something about it makes me feel at ease. Before I know it, I'm sound asleep.

I wake up to a room brightly lit with sunlight. It's early morning and there's still no sound from outside.

When it was noisy, I wanted nothing more than for it to be quiet, but now, when faced with this real quiet, I think I prefer the noise. It feels like something is wrong. It shouldn't be this quiet.

I open the door and step out trying to avoid the squeaky part of the hall that I stepped on last time. It doesn't matter. I end up stepping on another squeaky patch and brace myself for someone to come up.

There is movement over at the stairs. I see the shadows on the wall near the opening before I hear the rustling of clothes and then the soft steps of someone walking up. A head peeks up again and at the sight of me he smiles, his green eyes bright in the pale morning light.

My stomach does a flip to see him