In the Shadow of Mordor

-

The wood plank floor of the old house was rough against her cheek as she slowly, painfully regained consciousness. Her limbs were stiff with cold, and she remembered snow so heavy that even the old four-wheel drive truck struggled to climb the narrow road that wound upward to wherever she was now.

Her two captors were getting loud and probably drunk in an adjoining room. They spoke Russian, although with a distinct Kavkaz accent. Their choking laughter turned to howls, like ravaging wolves, and her heart rose to her throat. She recognized one word “девочка,” girl.

Her wrists and ankles were bound. It was strange that she hadn’t noticed at first, but the shock of coming to in such primitive surroundings and the raucous voices of the men who had snatched her from her apartment must have numbed her reactions — that and the cold. It must be near freezing in the room and several degrees colder where she lay on the floor.

The journey to this place had been a long one, both in terms of time and distance, and experience, too. She supposed it must have started that day so long ago in Moscow when they broke into Golovina’s apartment.