Saruti

So when John offered her food, she'd refuse to eat anything that wasn't pre-packaged, living off after-eight-mints cans of fizzy drinks and wrapped sweets, all to avoid poisoning.

When John asked her to scream as loud as she could so that he could test out the soundproofing of the bunker, she only screamed loudly enough for him to be able to hear it on the baby monitor, not loud enough to make him decide to reinforce the insulation further.

She hoped this might create, at some point, a chance that she could be heard by one of the police officers she knew were in and out of John's house.

So Katie played along with his game where she needed to, while also slipping in little questions to try and destabilise John.

She would ask him, for example, how would he keep her a secret forever?

How would they raise their kids together in this bunker?

How was she supposed to get an education and learn skills for this fairytale life they were going to have together?

Bit by bit, Katie burrowed her way into John's head, planting seeds of doubt and nudging him towards the outcome she wanted, him letting her go.

But as John's confidence began to crumble, one day he alarmingly confided in Katie that he was planning to take his own life.

He promised that he would leave a note explaining where Katie was, but how could she trust Katie?

the same man who had kidnapped and abused her for days.

Katie faced the terrifying prospect of being stuck down there forever, with the only key locked inside a dead man's house.

It forced her to walk a very perilous tightrope, keeping John just unbalanced enough to consider letting her go free without pushing him over the edge to the point that he took his own life.

For over two weeks, it was a constant game of push and pull.

But would it be enough to negotiate Katie's freedom?

And it is a completely...

fucked up scenario where yes this man is the reason that she's down there he is the one who has been abusing her but he's also as far as she can see the man who's freed her and so there is going to be a complicated feeling there of like you did this to me but thank you for setting me free we've talked about it before we're like the genuine meaning of stockholm syndrome i was gonna say when it actually comes down to it what it means is you're so deprived at the hands of this person

But then they are the one bringing the food, the light, the conversation, the human connection, even the most despicable way.

And so that bond begins to grow because they're your only connection to anything other than the hell that you're living in.

And they're the ones who can let you out.