A glossy black coating mirrored my face and reflected my disinterested expression back to me. I clasped the phone between my shoulder and chin as I continued to carefully paint my toenails. My boyfriend is on the other end and he’d been talking intermittently for several minutes, in that time my attention had drifted so far that I was now paying more attention to the pedicure I was giving to myself. He’s telling me what a...

The blackness was suddenly lifted. The bag was pulled from over my head and light flooded my eyes. I was tied to a chair. In front of me stood a big guy with a tattoo on his head, he had his thumb wedged firmly underneath his belt. I tried to pull my wrists closer together as what felt like cable ties restrained them to the back of the chair. My eyes began to quickly adjust. The room was in fact only dimly lit by the lamp...

The lift was out of order. After climbing up the five flights of stairs to get to Ed’s, I looked up to find the door to the corridor being held open for me, it was one of the older fellas that lived in my boyfriend’s building. Ed would be going out with some friends from work for a night out and I would be staying at his place. “Oh, thank you!” I said, lurching forwards towards the open door with urgency and gratitude. “N...