First there was darkness.
A seemingly typical young
woman wakes up to find herself in the dark. She does not know how she
got there; she does not know why she is there. She feels for a light
switch, thinking the light will ease her tension, thinking the light
will make things better.
Then there was light.
Death is only an instant.
What she sees in the once white room is way past death itself.
Realization sets in. The answers to the how and the why cease to be
vague, and it is made clear that escape is out of the question. For a
puzzling madman holds her captive, and only he can provide her with her
freedom. Only he can grant it because only he has the key.
Now there is only a
decision.
He will kill her only if
she is able to prove the existence of a certain syndrome. In the
meantime, he settles for torture. Escape is not possible, and there are
only two different ways of ending this madmans reign: Kill him or stay
alive.
Staying
alive requires tolerance to pain and despair. It asks of her a precise
resistance to a syndrome one she knows nothing about. If she doesnt die,
he doesnt search for his next victim. If she doesnt die, no one else
has to.
Killing
him vanquishes all hopes of freedom, for the key will die with him.
Killing is just another form of murder. Murder will make her the one
monster she swore she would never be: The same beast responsible for
building a definite barrier on the line that divides past from present
to possible future. One who has silenced her past forever.
When Allie flips on the
light, she is struck with the sudden realization that there is infinite
comfort in darkness, in not knowing, not seeing.
The screaming is now only in Allie's head, the
others no longer make a sound. She awakens to a nightmare, and the man
responsible for creating such terror is now her captor. Allie knows her
escape is untenable, and her only recourse is to try to understand and
placate the man with so many faces. He can and will take her life
whenever and however he chooses, but for the moment she is an enigma he
finds hard to resist.
Every psychological thriller has two basic elements: the predator
and its prey. But what happens when the prey chooses not to run or
fight, but accepts its role and feels guilty for those that come later?
Allie's will is unbelievably strong, but at the same time so tragically
fragile that she can bring you to tears. Nicole Fuentes book is intense, insane, and incredibly
ingenious.