CHOOSE ME, AND BE FREE

Days went by, each one blending into the next, until I'd lost track of time altogether. Except what marked days was the increasing desperation gnawing at my insides. It had been a week since I got Seth's letter, but while the words had given me hope—hope was beginning to feel like a cruel, fast joke. Nothing had changed. I was still trapped, still at Noah's mercy, and no rescue was in sight. Every morning, I woke with a pit in my stomach; the weight of my situation bearing down upon me until I could hardly breathe.

I lay there in bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling the minutes crawl by with agonizing slowness. Seth's letter had always been close at hand, under my pillow or in the pocket of my robe, a reminder of what I once had and what I had lost—the man I loved. As the days turned into weeks, even that small comfort began to fade as the cold, harsh truth seemed to overwhelm me at every turn. Noah would not be swayed, and he was everywhere.

He would come to my room every day, always