Camden, Alabama. May 13 1973

My name is Jane Doe.

I do not know what happened to me. I have vague, fragmented memories of going to bed one night in what I think was my bedroom. I remember that it was dark in the room, but a faint, warm light from a nearby streetlamp filtered through a window. The bed I was sleeping in was a California king, a detail that has clung to my mind for some reason, its size so disproportionate to the rest of my forgotten life. It was a four-poster bed, but I can't be sure, and the sheets were soft, cool silk. I am trying to remember the color. What I do know is that there was no blanket on the bed, just a sheet, and a ceiling fan was slowly spinning above me, its blades casting faint, hypnotic shadows on the ceiling.

There was a painting on the wall at the foot of the bed. It was a woman, small and insignificant against a monumental, jagged mountain. The sun was high in the sky, so the image had blues, greens, and grays. It was a beautiful, peaceful scene, a stark contrast to the terror to come. There was a dresser with three framed photographs—I can't recall the faces, only the frames, one silver, two wooden—and a natural wood nightstand beside the bed. It is all very vague. Everything from before I woke up in that basement is a blur, like a dream that dissolves as soon as you try to remember it.

When I woke, I felt dizzy and disoriented. My head ached with a dull, throbbing pain, and a metallic taste lingered in my mouth. I rubbed my eyes with my hands, the rough calluses on my palms a surprising new sensation, and looked around. I was in a basement, a cold, dark, and unfamiliar place. I was still determining where I was. I was still deciding who I was at this point. Because you see, I started to become afraid. A primal, instinctual fear that this wasn't my home. This basement was not where I belonged.

I noticed a lot of things about that cellar. The air was heavy, smelling of damp earth and something else I couldn't place. There was only one light bulb hanging from the ceiling, a bare, flickering orb that cast long, dancing shadows on the walls. The walls were dark, made of what looked like rough-hewn stone or brick. They were not the familiar drywall of a normal home. The cellar was about 12 feet high, and I couldn't reach the light hanging from the ceiling.

There was a tiny window high up on the wall, about 10 feet up. It was boarded up with a thin piece of wood, but it let some sound through. I heard children playing, their laughter a heartbreaking sound of freedom. I heard the cheerful jingle of a bicycle bell and the distant rumble of cars. The sounds were inconsistent. It was quiet for hours at a time, so quiet that I would start to panic, thinking I was completely isolated. But then the sounds would return. I knew this was daytime. People were at work, and kids were at school. Twice a day, though it was hard to know what a day was without any natural light, I’d hear the rush of cars—the morning commute and the evening return. It sounded like a typical, suburban neighborhood.

There was a heavy metal door in the room, like the kind you see in prisons on television. I tried a thousand times to open the door. I pushed it, kicked it, and slammed my whole body into it, leaving my shoulders bruised and my knuckles scraped raw. I dug my nails bloody, looking for a way to unhinge the door. There was a small hole in the middle of the door at about eye level, a cold, dark portal. That's where he put my food.

The floor was concrete, rough and cold against my skin. There was a metal cot against one wall. It had a thin, stained mattress and a green wool blanket that smelled of musty air.

I remember the stench. At first, it was a faint, musty smell of mildew. But the longer I was there, it began to stink of my own urine and feces. The guy didn't let me out to use the toilet. He didn't let me out for anything. Ever. I was forced to use the corner of the room, a humiliation that stripped away a part of my humanity every day. Eventually, I didn't smell anything anymore; I got used to it, and the smell became just another part of the dark.

I never saw him, only heard him. He would come to that big metal door three times a day to bring me food and water. I did see his hands when he would push the food through the hole. They were enormous, powerful hands, and they had calluses on the fingers and short, chewed fingernails. He was missing the pinky finger on his left hand. Usually, he gave food with his right hand, but one time, he didn't, and that's when I saw the missing digit.

His voice. It haunts me. It was soft and gentle but deep. Almost melodic in the way he spoke. He was clearly from Alabama; I could hear it in his accent, a soft, slow drawl that seemed to contradict the cold reality of my situation. He didn't sound well-educated. He used a lot of slang, like "ain't" and "y'all." He would ask me "Geeatyet?" which is Southern for "Have you eaten yet?" He was always polite; he would speak nicely to me. "Now, Miss Lady," he'd say, "would you please stop all that screamin'? Ain't no one can hear you down here."

A couple of times when he would come down to give me dinner, the cold, black barrel of a gun would come through that window instead of food. I don't know how he managed to shoot me, but he did. I guess it was a tranquilizer dart because when I woke up, my cell was cleaned up, and I was cleaned up. I also had needle marks on my arm. I don't know what he was injecting me with, but I never got dehydrated. Maybe it was fluids or something.

See, I refused to eat or drink anything he gave me. I didn't know what the guy was putting in it, and I didn't want to take any chances. He was a good cook, and the meals he brought me always looked nice. Cornbread and fried chicken, meatloaf, and mashed potatoes. Everything always looked fresh, and the plates were clean. The food was brought on round white plates about 6 inches in diameter. On the bottom of them was a picture of an oven and a dishwasher to let you know it was safe to put them in there. He never gave me silverware.

How long have I been there? I lost count after he brought me about 150 meals. My world was reduced to the space around me, and the moments when he would come to the door. I existed in a state of constant dread and confusion.

One day, after he had brought me lunch, I heard a noise upstairs that I hadn't heard before. It was a different kind of sound. I heard the voice of a woman, a child. Then I heard things being shoved around and crashing. I heard the voices of men shouting. "Police! Open up!" The word sent a jolt of hope through me, and my heart began to pound against my ribs.

I started screaming, "Help! Help! I'm down here!" I ran to the door and began kicking it, screaming until my throat was raw. I heard someone at the door again, a man's voice. "Hello?" he called out. It was a different voice, an official, clipped tone, not the soft drawl of my captor. I was not making any sense; I was screaming for help, help, help. I heard him speaking but couldn't tell what he was saying over my own desperate cries.

That's when the door flew open with a deafening bang. It flew off its hinges and crashed against the wall, and I saw a guy in all black with body armor and a helmet on. He looked like an angel. He walked over to me, picked me up, and said, "It's okay. You're safe now."

I was safe. But I was still me. The girl with no name and no past, trapped in a body I barely recognized. I am free, but the cellar is still with me.

Sincerely,

Jane Doe