I was drifting, caught in a murky haze where consciousness was a fleeting visitor. Awareness came in jagged spikes, each one piercing through the darkness with a clarity that was as sharp as it was brief. I realized, with a lurch of my stomach, that I was in the back of a truck, my hands tied securely behind my back, and my mouth gagged. Panic fluttered in my chest, a bird trapped in a cage, its wings beating against the bars in a futile attempt to escape.
I rolled over, the movement sending a wave of dizziness through me. The window above me framed a slice of the sky, a patch of blue that seemed impossibly far away. It was a small comfort, a reminder that there was a world beyond this, a world where I wasn't bound and gagged in the back of a moving vehicle.
The voices from the front sea
