My family locked me in the basement to give birth. Days later, they returned to find a dark red liquid seeping from the door. As my mother screamed, a voice whispered behind her, “Looking for me?”

of emotion.

“Good luck,” she whispered.

The heavy oak door slammed shut with the finality of a coffin lid. A second later, the metallic, definitive scrape of a deadbolt turning echoed through the dark. I was buried alive in my own childhood home, and they were leaving me behind.

Chapter Two: The Subterranean Truth

For the first sixty minutes, I was entirely continue reading …