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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/bladerunner3027 on 2024-04-09 19:00:12.

The first 20 years of my life were spent in a dingy basement underneath the house my grandparents owned on the top of the hill in our little town. My earliest memory is from my 5th birthday, I was given a single slice of red velvet cake, an old television was wheeled in and I was allowed to watch cartoons for an hour. I suppose it’s a good thing that my first memory is a rarely-found happy needle in the haystack of that hellish existence.

Of course, I tried to escape a great many times throughout those two decades. It wasn’t as easy as it may sound, though. The basement was made up of four bare walls, a singular dangling lightbulb, a metal bed frame with an impossibly thin mattress lying upon it, a free-standing sink and an old toilet. That was all. I wasn’t even allowed the luxury of a window. Heaven knows I asked for one, though. Begged occasionally. I was told I would be allowed a window if I behaved myself for long enough. All I wanted was to be able to see what lay beyond the confines of my dim existence. I was taught about the outside world and told all about the green trees and the blue sky, but I was never allowed to see it for myself. It was an ever-out-of-reach carrot being dangled mere inches from my grasp. Grandpa and Grandma taught me other things too, like how to read and write. I’m not sure why they ever gave me enough knowledge of the outside world for me to be aware I was living a life of horror. Perhaps it was just another carrot they could entice me with, teasing me in a show of arrogance and confidence I would remain imprisoned for as long as they wished.

Escaping through the old, rusty metal door wasn’t my only idea of freedom. I tried to kill myself a few times, too. A dinner knife through my chest, a noose made of various pieces of clothing and a jagged floor tile across my wrists. Of course, my attempts were all futile and only led to greater subjugation. They never took me out of the basement, Grandpa was a doctor and knew I would bring outside attention to what they were doing if I were to be taken to a hospital. Truth is, I never tried to hurt myself to be taken to the hospital anyway. I just wanted out, even if that meant death was the way. I came to miss the things taken away as punishment after my attempts, a good example being how my awful meals tasted even worse with plastic cutlery.

As you can imagine, my life was a waking nightmare and I grew to lose the hope I once had of ever escaping my captivity. That was until my 20th birthday. Whilst most other days were an amalgamation of mental torture through sheer boredom and destimulation, birthdays were always special in one way or another. During my worst years of acting out, birthdays served as a day of particularly cruel punishment. I vividly remember spending the 24 hours of my 13th birthday tied to the bare, cold wall and was given no food or drink. It’s one of my worst memories, and I still wake up in a cold sweat when it occasionally forms a part of my nightly mares. Often though, I was given a small reward for getting through that year with acceptable enough behaviour. As I mentioned earlier, that typically involved cake and a CRT TV being brought down for me to watch some awfully outdated show or movie on. Still, though, this was the best part of my existence down there and my 20th was one I was looking forward to all year.

I had just woken up after they gave me the news I had behaved well enough for my reward the night before and was in a better mood than usual. Granted, all it took to clear that bar was a very slight desire to remain alive. I crawled out of bed and towards the sink to wash my face when I noticed something I hadn’t seen in my entire existence there. The door was ever so slightly ajar, enough to reveal a tiny ray of sunlight and enough for me to be thoroughly intrigued. I hesitantly crept towards it and built up enough courage to swing it open for the first time in my life. I was faced with a set of wooden stairs beckoning me to climb them. To take my first steps that weren’t in that basement. So I did. I struggled with the climbing motion but eventually made my way to the top and found myself standing in a living room. Something quickly distracted me, though.

A window. I had the ability to see the outside world with my own eyes. The deep blue sky was cloudless and the lawn at the top of the hill was spotlessly green. I had never seen such vivid colours before, and having them described to me was nothing like being able to gaze upon them myself. It was the most incredible moment in my life and simultaneously almost my fatal mistake. A figure came into view from the corner of my eye, and I quickly recognised the shape as my Grandpa. Before we could even make eye contact, I ran. A lot of what happened next is a haze, but I remember the fascinating feeling of my bare feet slamming against the pristine lawn as I sprinted as fast as my weak legs could carry me. The downhill nature of the hill helped me greatly, and I eventually managed to alert a younger couple who lived at the bottom of the hill with what probably sounded like the screams of a mad woman. I will always be grateful that they took me inside as opposed to ignoring me, and from there, it was a case of an innumerable amount of new experiences being thrown at me in order to explain the situation to various authorities. I ended up under police watch in the hospital, turns out that being under the medical care of a single doctor with inadequate facilities and resources leads to an incredibly unhealthy body. The nurses said they were shocked I had managed to maintain so many critical bodily functions considering what I had gone through.

Now, throughout the process of explaining my ordeal, I was naturally tempted to do the “right” thing and give up the location of my captivity at the top of the hill. But I didn’t. I couldn’t bear the thought of allowing my captors, my grandparents, to be given the luxury of a better imprisonment. They would be given a better bed, better meals, other people to socialise with, the ability to see the outside world and so much more that they never had the humanity to afford me. They didn’t deserve that.

So I decided to go back.

I waited until the cover of dark to make my way back up the hill. Armed with a bucket of lighter fluid and a box of matches. They were old and I’ve come to learn that small-town practice at the time was often to keep the front door unlocked and so gaining access was fairly easy. Naturally, I crept down the steps to the basement. Not before I picked up the set of keys lying on the living room table and tested them to find the right one to the front door, though. The door was placed back into the ajar position which facilitated my escape. I wistfully looked around at what was all I had known up until very recently. My whole existence, every little bit of it, was in that basement.

That’s why I had to start the fire there.

I emptied the bucket and made my way back towards the door to make a quick exit before lighting a match and tossing it at the far corner on my way out. I wanted to watch it all burn, but I needed to get out. I swung the door wide open once again and climbed those wooden steps one last time as smoke began to fill the basement behind me. I left the house on the top of the hill once and for all and made sure to lock the front door on my way out.

I slipped the key underneath the ragged doormat beneath my feet. Finally, I was the one dangling the carrot just out of reach. I hope the key survived the fire, so people always know how close their escape was, so they know it could have been so different, so easily.

It has been three weeks since the house on the hill burned down. This is the first time I have told anybody where I was imprisoned. Every night, I am tormented by the memories of my ordeal. It feels so incredibly real. I am unable to enjoy a single waking moment with the knowledge of what is to come upon my eyes closing that night.

I may have escaped in real life, but I am still held captive in my dreams.

I believe I always will be.