Trapped Inside

Trapped Inside

Norma Callaway roused herself. Or rather was roused by something poking her sharply. She shifted as much as she could until she felt a wire. Carefully, she drew it out of her bare hip to find it coated in blood.

“I need to leave a message to whomever finds me.”

She began looking for something to write on. Right in front of her terrified eyes was a yellow brick. Using the wire like a pen and her blood as ink, she laboriously began to write.

Continuously she was forced to dip the wire in her wound to be able to say all she wanted to. By writing as tiny as she was able and crisscrossing the lines, she finished and signed her name shakily.

The air was rapidly leaving the small space behind the wall. Her last thought was for her newborn daughter.

******

Alicia Callaway slammed the sledgehammer hard against the crumbling wall. Renovating the old homestead was an ongoing chore and a labor of love for her. A yellow brick broke away in one piece and fell to the dirt floor. Seeing red marks on it, she picked it up curiously.

“What’s this?”

She took off her safety goggles and wiped her face with a work glove. She peered at the brick.

“Is that blood? All I can read are the last two words. It looks like Norma Call...”

She almost dropped it in shock.

“It can’t be! There’s no way! Daddy said she left us!” Alicia sobbed.

She peered into the opening she’d made in the wall. Hauling out her flashlight, she turned it on shakily and shone it into the black hole. When white bones gleamed in its light, she screamed repeatedly for what seemed like hours.

“Mama?” she whispered brokenly through her tears.