Monday 4th January, 2am - 5am Pt. 2.

I was tied to a wooden chair in a comfortable looking lounge. There was a glass-panel door to my left which looked like it led to a kitchen. In front of me were a man and a woman; the psychopath and his hostage. They were talking like friends. I knew I’d been right about her mental state. She began talking to me, much more alert and confident than she’d previously seen. She moved a mobile phone back and forth between her hands, taunting me that I was trapped and couldn’t call for help. I looked at the phone in her hands, and thought that if I even managed to make a call it would probably be futile. The couple untied my ligatures, but forcefully held me in place on the chair. I was frozen with terror; they were going to cut my throat and I was helpless, my life entirely in their psychotic hands. And suddenly I got angry. Enraged at the thought of someone else being in control of my life and my body, being able to decide if I lived or died. How dare they inflict themselves on me? My life was my own. The psychopath went to sit on the sofa opposite me and I took my chance. I lunged from my seat and propelled my right fist into the girl’s jaw, grabbing the mobile phone with my left hand. I stumbled to the door on my left, and shut it behind me, leaning my entire weight against it to stop them from entering. There was a key and lock on the door, and I turned it, taking the key with me in case they broke the glass and could reach through and unlock the door. There was an identical door to the right of the first, and as I went to pull it shut, I noticed a figure lying in the room beyond. It was one of my colleagues, and his throat had been cut. A huge pool of blood drenched his clothes and the floor around me. Dead. I pulled the door shut, and locked it, again pocketing the key. I could see movement behind the first door and I moved out of sight, behind the counter and fridge before shakily dialling the police. I was certain that the psychopath would have somehow intercepted the line and I wouldn’t get anywhere, but to my relief a different voice answered on the other end. Whispering, though I knew the couple wouldn’t be able to hear through the door, I explained that I’d been kidnapped by two psychopaths and was being held in some house by the woods. The voice asked where the house was. I told him I didn’t know, though I remembered gaining consciousness as I was being driven along Tye Common Road, and so most likely the house was somewhere bordering Bluebell Woods. I heard the voice asking me if I knew anything more about the location when suddenly the woman appeared in front of me. Though she wasn’t a woman; her features were stretched into the shape of a dog’s and she had teeth like a wolf. She tried to rip at my face, but I managed to get my hands up, and was holding her mouth back. Being of a thin frame, she didn’t have too much strength, so I was able to grip her top right tooth and bottom left tooth with my fists. She kept at me, angry that she’d been thwarted, and it became harder and harder to hold on. I could sense the man to the left of me, moving toward the corner, casually resting himself against the worktop and looking in our direction. He didn’t interfere, just watched us with his eerie eyes. The woman lunged and her teeth came inches away from my face. Still gripping them, I used my strength to pull them away from each other, and could have ripped them from her mouth or at least yanked them out of shape and caused some blinding pain, but something held me back. I knew it would hurt her, and whilst it was the only way I could survive, I couldn’t bear to inflict pain on another being. The woman-dog kept at me, but every time I started to pull at her teeth I found my stomach turning, and I had to stop. We’d scuffled into a different position, and I could clearly see the man in the corner. He’s placed what looked like four Mahjong pieces in front of him on the counter and was repeatedly rearranging them into difference formations. As he lifted each piece, I noticed that they were all number four tiles, in some form or other. I recalled what he’d said earlier, about killing four people. My colleague in the other room…me…Maidenhead…They were going to cut my throat and then their own. The police would never get there in time. I was going to die.