If silence had a scent, it would smell like liquid iron. For that is what I tasted as blood dripped down my broken skull, streaming into my open mouth and down each little tastebud on my tongue.

My captors are gone. The hole in my head began throbbing. Sweat coated my skin, sticking to the concrete floor I laid on. My hand reached out, feeling each and every crack. Did the piling of past victims erode it?

Footsteps entered the space, out of rhythm like a confused marching band, followed by conversation. My nostrils recognized the faint smell of weed. I am circled by four pillars of shadow.

“As soon as we dump her, we’re gone. Heading up north towards Canada,” the one in front of me said. The others nodded.

While my vision faded, I was grabbed by my arms and legs, chucked into a river like garbage. The lapping water caressed my cheeks, my only comfort as my life slipped away like sand in a strainer. Wind swirled, screamed in my ears.

My mind jumped from each memory to the next. The birth of my little sister, the first step into our new house, my sixteenth birthday. With each passing moment, I tried desperately to move, to dive into the happy moments I wished to relive.

But then I smelled the silence, and my world went black.