Free Lost by Chris Jordan

pressing the cold cloth to my forehead. Gets a dry towel, pats the moisture from my neck. “You couldn’t check her e-mail, remember? And if you could, she’d have found another way. Your daughter is obviously a very willful young woman.”
    “Obviously.”
    He folds the towel, slips it back on the rack. Most of the men I know, they’d drop it on the floor, because that’s where used towels go. Not Randall Shane. He’s different. Been in my house for an hour or so and I know that much.
    “You feeling better?” he asks, standing tall, very tall. “Good. I just got a hit on Seth Manning.”
    “A hit?”
    “His address. I know where he lives.”
    15. Seven Finds A Wall
    Time is squishy. Sometimes the seconds tick by in a reasonable, almost ordinary way, and Kelly counts her heartbeats, the pulse in her neck. One, two three, and so on. The highest she gets is seventy-six and then the overwhelming darkness seems to bend around her, a kind of dim gravity, and the clock in her head stops ticking and gets all squishy.
    No other way to describe it. Squishy.
    Because she can’t measure the passage of time, Kelly has no idea how long it takes for the paralysis to dissipate. All she knows is that at some point she can wiggle her toes, raise her languid arms and let them droop across her chest like melted bones. Could be hours, days, eternity.
    Thoughts slowly surface out of the inky black, like a die rising inside a Magic 8-Ball. The usual 8-Ball answers, too:
Outlook not so good. Ask again later.
    She manages to place her tingling palms on the floor, detects the familiar roughness of concrete. Not bare ground, concrete.
    Is it night outside, is that why the darkness is so absolute?
    Wait, how does she know she’s inside rather than outside?
    Sluggish thoughts, and then she knows the answer. Because it
feels
inside. The closed silence, the still air, a kind of muffled feeling. Definitely in, not out. Enclosed.
    On impulse she flails, looking for a wall. Wanting to find an edge, a shape to the world.
    Nothing.
    You’re a baby, she thinks. Lying on the floor like a baby, flailing around. Get up. Do something. Learn something. Find a way back to the world.
    It takes forever, and she has to endure a violent swirl of dizziness, but Kelly eventually turns over, manages to get on her hands and knees. Huffing the thick air because the effort makes her feel faint.
    Hot, stuffy. Wherever she is, that place can’t be very large. The darkness is close, pressing. Slowly, very slowly, she crawls, struggling to keep her balance. Not wanting to fall over like some cheesy mechanical baby toy. Boink, I fall down, Mommy!
    Counting as she crawls. One two three, four five six.
    Seven finds a wall. A very solid wall. Slippery smooth surface. Steel, like the cafeteria counters in school.
    Now we’re getting somewhere, she thinks, and the thought becomes a giggle. Now we’re getting somewhere? As if! Hilarious. Ironic. Whatever.
    Keep going. Orient yourself. You wanted to learn to fly, flygirl? Seth’s first flight lesson pours into her brain, and it helps, hearing his gentle confident voice.
    First rule, know where you are. Find the horizon. Very good, keep your wings level. Trust your balance, but trust the
instruments even more. It’s all about perception, judgment, making choices. The choices you make keep you alive.
    I choose to crawl, she thinks. Another giggle. But her body keeps trying, keeps moving. She nudges along the wall, counting as she crawls.
    One two three four five.
    Six smacks her head. Not hard enough to see stars. She’d love to see stars, love to find the sky, locate a constellation, but all she’s located is a corner. Ninety degrees. Steel walls intersecting. Still, it means something. The world has a corner. The shape of it begins to form in her mind. A small shed? A big steel box? Where is she and why is she here? What about Seth? What about her mom? What about the beautiful airplane, and the fantastic flight that