Gone...more

Music softly playing, sounded like from another room, she couldn't be sure yet.  The room was dark and she was lying down on something soft. The music was gentle and calming, but not like anything she had ever heard before.  As Annie woke up it was this music that calmed her. She was in a dark place that was not at all familiar to her, and yet she was not really scared. 

In the darkness Annie sat up and realized she had been laying on a bed. It was comfortable but she wanted to find her mom and dad now. She wanted to know where she was, not to sleep more. The music played on, Annie put her feet on the floor and her hands out in front of her to guide her in the darkness.  She took several steps and realized she had come to a wall. Still completely dark in this room she was in. She wanted to find the door. Annie ran her hands along the wall trying to feel for anything different. For a minute or so it was just walls. And then she found a door frame and then the door knob.   She grasped this but it would not turn, and the door would not open for her.

Now, despite the calm music, Annie did begin to panic. She wanted to be someplace not dark and scary, she wanted her mom and dad too. She tried the door knob again and still it wouldn't turn.  Annie hit her hand on the door now several times. "I want out," she said. This was answered with silence. The music stopped playing but no one answered her.  The darkness was enveloping her and it really scared her now. No calm music and no one coming to let her out.  She hit her hand on the door a couple more times and said again, "I want out. " It stayed quiet and dark.

Annie walked past the doorway and felt her way along the wall again.   After several more minutes of slowing moving in the dark, her hands came upon a rougher surface on the wall. She wasn't sure of what it was, just that it wasn't as smooth as the rest of the walls. Had she been able to see it, she would have found it was a board over a window, to cover it.  In the darkness though, she had no idea what it was and so she went on with her hands along the wall. Hoping to find something, anything, to get out of this place.

As she continued on Annie came to another doorway, on the opposite side of the room from where the first door had been. She found the door knob for this door now. Tried to turn it and, surprisingly this door knob did turn in her hand.  She turned it as far as it would go and tried to open the door, first by pulling on the knob, which didn't work. And then by pushing the door away from her.   This worked.   She had hoped to find light in this next room as she pushed the door open.  Instead, she found more darkness.  She went through the doorway regardless, not knowing what she might find in yet another dark room.