Author's Note: Everything up until Journey happened.

Terror

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

-From Maya Angelou's Still I Rise

All was quiet in the Berry household. Rachel lay under her covers, content and in the hazy stage between asleep and awake. She heard the sound of quiet footsteps on the walkway and sleepily rolled onto her other side. Now that her fathers were home from their date night, she could relax completely and fall into a deep sleep. At the sudden sound of glass breaking, Rachel's eyes popped open in fear as a realization hit her. Her dads weren't coming home tonight. They were spending the night in Cleveland for their anniversary.

"Oh, god," Rachel whispered to herself fearfully. There were hushed voices and then quiet shuffling as the mysterious figures moved about downstairs. Rachel could hear the occasional clatter below her. After laying still for a few moments, Rachel finally snapped out of her terror. As slowly as she could, she slipped silently out of her bed. She slid, inch by inch, to her bedroom door until she could reach out to the doorknob. Holding her free hand to her wildly beating heart, she quickly flipped the lock into place and then stilled her movements, listening for a sign that she had been discovered. She heard clamoring downstairs and knew they were now in her Dad's office. Slowly lowering herself to the floor, Rachel crawled over to her bed and grabbed her cell phone off of her night stand, and then tucked it into the waistband of her shorts. She reached up again and pulled the house phone off of the charger. Holding her breath, she clicked the phone on and held it to her ear. She sighed in relief upon hearing the dial tone. Nervously, she dialed 911 and then tucked that phone under her arm as she crawled over to her closet. She normally would have felt a little silly creeping around her room on her hands and knees, but she was hoping that distributing the weight of her body over a wider space would keep the floor from creaking as she moved around her room. Thus, the intruders would remain unaware of her presence until after they had been apprehended. She reached the closet door and slowly slid it open. She bit her lip and made her way into the closet, turning and pulling it so it would close behind her. She could hear the 911 operator attempting to get her attention and assess the situation, but she ignored it as she quietly tried to maneuver herself as far to the left side of the back wall of her closet as she could. She took a second to be grateful she was such an organizational nut, as this made it easy to work her way to the back of the closet. She also wished she wasn't such a pack rat since there seemed to be an awful lot of those perfectly organized boxes and binders of old school work. Quickly she pulled a couple of winter coats off of their hangers and bunched them on top of herself.

Finally, she sat with her back against the wall and braced her feet flat against the door, hopefully preventing anyone from being able to pull it open. She was breathing heavily, but finally put the phone to her ear.

"Please help me," she whispered frantically.

"Hello? This is Lauren with the Lima Police Department, can you tell me your emergency?" A soft, calming voice said.

"I'm home alone, there are people in my house," Rachel whispered, a lump forming in her throat as her adrenaline began to wear off. There were people in her house.

"I've already dispatched an officer to your location, honey. Where are you right now?"

"I'm hiding in my bedroom closet," Rachel choked out, tears now burning her eyes as her fear began to overwhelm her.

"Good, honey, that's really good," Lauren soothed. "Do you know how many people there are?"

"I think it's two," Rachel told her, "but-" Suddenly she stopped speaking as there was a loud crash. They had broken down her bedroom door. They were now in her room, just feet away, though they didn't know it.

"Honey, what was that? Are you okay?" Lauren asked immediately, concern lacing her voice. Rachel shook her head frantically, trying to rid herself of the terrifying thoughts flying through her mind.

Rachel didn't answer. Instead, she held her hand over the ear piece in hopes of muffling Lauren's voice calling out to her. She could hear the low grumble of one of the men talking, and then footsteps leaving her room. She was about to tell Lauren they had left when she heard the closet door slide open. She could hear the clack of her hangers being pulled off of the rod. Out of season purses were being flung off of the shelf and onto the floor. Photo albums being tossed carelessly, with no regard to the fact that someone's life was amongst the pages. Rachel thought she might pass out from lack of oxygen but she couldn't move, not even to take a breath.

"Listen to me, please," Lauren was saying into her ear. "Honey if you are still there but you can't speak, then I want you to let me hear you take a deep breath."

Rachel gripped the phone so tightly that her hand was beginning to ache. She was terrified, but she managed to force herself to take a shaky breath loud enough for Lauren to hear. The connection of the phone brought Rachel back from her paralyzing fear and she regained some of her fight. She inhaled again, trying to relax herself as she heard the burglar walk away from her closet. She swallowed a sob as she heard the crack of her jewelry box being smashed against the top of her dresser. The jewelry box itself had belonged to her Dad's mother when she was a teenager. She knew that the priceless ring and necklace her father's had given her for her 16th birthday would be gone forever as well. They had been a parting gift from a young Shelby to be given to her as she entered womanhood, and had come with a loving letter full of life lessons a woman needs to know. The letter was locked inside the jewelry box as well. Based on the sound of her jewelry box shattering, it was probably at least ripped in half. Though her meeting with Shelby had not gone ideally, the letter and jewelry were still some of Rachel's most prized possessions.

Rachel was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't realize her grip on the phone was getting tighter and tighter until finally it happened.

She hit one of the buttons with a very audible BEEP. The movements in her bedroom stilled and after a beat, the footsteps came closer to the closet. Rachel barely had a second to push back her panic before the top coat was pulled off of her head.

"Shit," a gruff voice said. Rachel trembled, her head buried in her arms. She felt the burglar pull the rest of the coats away and she released the phone, hoping that he wouldn't notice it falling onto her carpet over the sound of the coats rustling. A hand wrapped around one of her wrists, and finally, she raised her head, tears filling her eyes.

"Please," she whispered. "Please, just leave me in here, please. Don't hurt me!"

The guy hadn't moved, his hand still enclosed around her, though his grip had tightened. The footsteps of his accomplice could be heard entering the room, and she watched as her spotter's torso turned towards the sound.

"Uh, Brian, what are you doing? We gotta bounce before..." his voice trailed off as Brian backed out of the closet and pulled a trembling Rachel out with him.

"Dude, we got a problem," Brian said.

A few moments later, Rachel found herself standing in front of her trunk with her hands duct taped behind her. The still unnamed burglar grabbed her upper arms in a rough grip and half-lifted, half-threw her into the trunk. She squeezed her eyes shut and sobbed harder when another piece of duct tape was placed over her mouth. Without giving her a second glance, the trunk was slammed shut and she was thrown into darkness.

Author's Note 2: There we have it. The first chapter of my first INTENTIONALLY multi chaptered Glee fic. I hope you enjoyed!