Remy Hadley was in the dark.

She didn't know where she was, but that was mostly because she couldn't see anything. The blackness was solid. Impenetrable. She would open her eyes every so often to see if anything had changed, but each time it was the same – she would have to reach up and touch her face to make sure that she even opened her eyes. There were times that she thought she was blind.

Being deprived of her vision had enhanced her hearing, and in the darkness she could hear water. Dripping water. It made sense. She was lying on a cold ground, and she could feel the dampness of it increasing with every minute she lay there. The air was dank smelling and cold. Remy shivered.

She didn't remember anything. Her head hurt. Her eyes ached. Her throat burned. She had been screaming earlier, but there was no point now. She didn't know where she was, and neither did anyone else. Somewhere along the line it occurred to her, whether she was conscious of it or not.

She was going to die here.

In the cold. On the ground. Bathed in darkness.

Remy didn't remember much. She remembered coming home from work, walking down the dark streets of downtown Oshawa with hurried steps. She remembered that the air was crisp and cool and smelled of fall. Fall was her favourite smell. She yearned all year for the smell of campfire and leaves. She loved the weather that called for sweat pants and sweaters.

She remembered a car.

After the car, there was blackness.

Remy was contemplating that very blackness when a creaking shattered the silence. The water stopped. Light filtered in through a crack of a door. She shielded her eyes. The light burned them. It left white marks on her eyelids. She swallowed thickly and moved her hands away.

There was blood around her.

Red soaked the floor around her. It covered her palms and her arms, and it slid slickly down her legs. She touched her head. Was she bleeding? Was the blood around her from her own body? She heard footsteps and looked up.

There was a figure, silhouetted by the light from the door. Outside the door, around the person, she could see dawn. The sky was orange. The clouds were ebbing away to sunlight.

It smelled like fall again.

The person moved closer to her, inside the room, right up to the bottom of her feet. Remy squinted up.

Her head still hurt. She still saw white on the backs of her eyelids every time she blinked. The person smiled. In their hand was a blade.

Remy's heart beat picked up. She shook her head. Her mind raced and she looked from the knife to the door, out to the sunlight and air.

"Please don't…" Her voice was barely there, coming out as more of a whisper than what she wanted to be a scream. In front of her, the silhouette crouched. The knife dragged itself across her throat.

"Scream."