Without even thinking, I pulled the veil over my face as strange men made their entrance into the confessional room.

The depressed-looking camera man, who carried a tripod, eyed me briefly, taking in the fact that I was wearing the full niqab, and realized I was not meant to be stared at. Faizan and a few of Zaakhir's men stepped inside. Ahsan stepped ahead defensively; his gloved hand brushed over the AK-47 strapped around him, as Zaakhir came forward and strongly clasped my shoulders.

He ignored Ahsan. "Come now, sit here," he said to me, referring to the bench I had slumped in earlier. "Now, everyone else out."

Faizan and the others reluctantly exited the room, and apart from me, only Zaakhir, Ahsan and the camera man, whose ID card that hung from his neck read James, remained in the room.

"You too," Zaakhir told the cameraman, James. "But only after you set the camera on its stand."

James obeyed by defeatedly placing the video camera on top of the tripod, and pressed the Record button after setting it in front of me. James looked at me again with sympathy etched across his dreary face. Then, he left.

Zaakhir was about to sit beside me when he noticed Ahsan still standing there. "Do I need to give you a written invitation?" He snarled. "Get out!"

Ahsan did not look as though he enjoyed being yelled at.

His face tightened beneath the balaclava as he glared at Zaakhir. Before he hesitantly turned to go, his eyes darted towards me for a millisecond. Then he, too, closed the door behind him and I was left alone with Zaakhir and a video camera.

No, come back!

A stone fell in my heart as I watched Ahsan exit the confessional room. While he could be blunt and cruel, I had undoubtedly felt much safer when he was in the same room as I was.

I clasped my hands together, watching my knuckles tighten, while Zaakhir paced around me in a circle.

"Faizan said he fetched a good one, but I didn't think you'd be this good," he murmured to himself in awe. My face twisted in disgust beneath the veil.

Zaakhir adjusted the strap of his AK-47 so that it was in front of him, then faced the camera and spoke in a thick European-Arab accent. "I am back, Mr. President because of your selfish foreign policy towards Al-Tho'baan and because of your insistence on continuing your bombings, despite our warnings.

"I, and thousands like me, have forsaken everything for what we believe in. Our driving motivation does not come from physical possessions that this world has to offer. Our motivation is Islam," he said.

With my eyes fixated on the ground, I had the sudden urge to run.

Zaakhir and I were both Muslims. But certainly at a glance, it was plain to see that one of us is practicing religion very horribly wrong.

"Your democratically elected governments continue to commit atrocities against my people over the world. Their support makes you directly responsible just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters," he said, in an apparent message to Western countries particularly America.

"Until we feel security, you will be our targets. Until you stop the bombing, the gassing, the imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier, now you, too, will face the reality of this situation," he said.

"And as they have let rivers of blood run in our countries, we will, God willing, erupt volcanoes of anger in their countries," he said slowly, letting every threat sink in. Zaakhir propped up the butt of his rifle on his knee. "This is my final warning to warn all governments that enter this evil alliance with America against the Al-Tho'baan to retreat and leave our people alone."

He paused for a moment. My palms were beginning to feel clammy as I waited what felt like centuries for Zaakhir's next move. "So just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people, such as this one!" With a swift motion, he flipped the veil over my head and the sudden exposure to the cruel air caused my body to stiffen.

I held my gaze to the ground, not desiring to face the camera, but I knew I would not be able to resist for long.

"Lift your head." The foul stench of his breath wafted around me.

I did not budge. I could not.

"Now."

His hand appeared from nowhere, tightly gripping a fistful of my hair and the veil that covered it.

"Hayat Janaan Ishfaq. Age twenty-one. Columbia University student from New York. It would be such a shame if this pretty head were to...oh, detach itself from the rest of the body in the most unfortunate circumstances, eh?"

A scream tore through my lungs as he forced me to face the camera.

What if my parents and brothers saw the video once it releases? Would Nat and Marc see? Would anyone do anything to help me?

As horrible as it sounds, it was terribly risky for any country to crack a deal with terrorists when there were hostages at hand. The extremists would demand a large sum of money, and if there a truce was planned in that hostages would be released for ransom, the terrorists would be under no obligation to fulfill their end of the deal with honesty.

It was very possible that they may take the money, kill the hostage, and make a run for it again - which explains why countries do not jump to accept a deal of ransom.

I felt my eyes widen when his other hand snaked around my throat; blood built up in my head.

Zaakhir eyed me as though he was inspecting an explosive science experiment before turning back to the camera again. "Twenty-one million dollars for this one."

Twenty-one million dollars was my ransom price!?

"It would be best for you to keep in mind that Harris Johnson, an American journalist, was beheaded yesterday and his remains were thrown into the Mediterranean. His cameraman, James Sweeney is still in our custody amongst many others."

The man latched on to my neck; his cold, filthy nails dug into my flesh.

"The longer it takes for the money to arrive, the more time we get to spend with our newest addition here." Seizing me by my hair, he dragged me over to where the camera was and pushed the record button again to turn it off.

My fingers fumbled around his wrists, trying to relieve his hold of me. Instead, I found my feet being dragged along the wooden planks of the floor as I lost my balance.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the door flew open and three covered men barged into the confessional room. Having been thrown onto the dusty ground, I perched up slightly to see any signs of familiarity. They did not seem recognizable to me.

"Done?" One man asked Zaakhir in Arabic. "Faizan brought in the kids."

The children!

Zaakhir narrowed his eyes at me briefly before resuming a normal tone at the men standing at the doorway. "How many are there?"

"Nine."

"Only nine?!"

"Yes, sir."

"He told me there were twenty!"

"We don't know about that, sir," said a second man. "There's only nine that we could count."

With that, Zaakhir stormed out of the room in rage while the other men trailed behind, leaving me in a coughing fit on the floor of the confessional room.

When I brought myself together, I stood up, rubbing my abdomen due to the intense pain of not having eaten properly.

I was starving.

I limped out of the confessional room and stopped abruptly when I heard voices not so far away from me.

"You said there were twenty! Why are there only nine? Where are the others?"

"They're dead." I assumed the reply came from Faizan.

"Dead! You idiot! What do you mean dead?"

The fierceness in Faizan's voice, which was evident in the tone he would use on me, had suddenly vanished. "I had to kill them. That...that girl provoked me!"

I had a strange notion that the girl Faizan was referring to was me.

"Who?" Zaakhir sounded furious. "Hayat?"

"Yes, her. If only she had obeyed me from the start, they'd all be alive."

I was right.

"She must be punished," Zaakhir announced severely and I gulped. "Because of her, we lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Can you imagine? All those children were virgins! Can you fathom the amount they would reap!"

"I know. But what about the people in the main church area? There are some children there."

"They're useless, all scrawny and bony. They are not even worth a dollar." There was a pause and Zaakhir spoke up again. "I'll contact the others so we can get to this business as soon as possible. And Hayat will be included."

"Is she not too old for this group?"

"No, she'll be very valuable. She will be of good use."

My eyes darted down the hall in fear as I heard retreating footsteps fade away. Sighing in relief that the men were out of earshot, I stepped into the main sanctuary and gasped at what I saw.

Ahsan sat on the wide ledge of the pew, with his feet placed on the actual seat, overlooking the live and dead bodies of the people on the church floor. He juggled a water bottle in his hands and eventually dragged the opening to his lips, water sloshing down his throat.

I peered at him in immense envy. He had water and selfishly kept it to himself!

My throat felt parched as if the skin had been extracted and laid out in the scorching sun to dry. I swiped my tongue across my lips, but that did not help much. A slight breeze blew past, making my mouth even drier.

But my situation was nothing in comparison to the minority families who were also gazing at Ahsan in the hopes that at least one drop of liquid would miraculously reach their tongues.

Miraculously, it did.

A little girl, covered in dust and torn sackcloth and perhaps no older than five years of age, bent over sharply as if she'd been punched in the stomach out of nowhere. Her dry coughing fit turned into screeches. It hurt to listen to; I could only imagine the pain she was going through due to starvation and dehydration. He gave her a sideways glance and cocked an eyebrow at her shrill.

Hiding within the shadows of the church columns, I watched carefully at what happened next.

Ahsan's eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the bottle, thinking hard about something. He scanned the room, perhaps double-checking that none of the other men were around, and then strode towards the little girl.

The others crouched back in fear that he'd whip out his gun and shoot them all, but much to everyone's surprise, he bent down and tipped over his water bottle into the girl's mouth.

Then, Ahsan did the same for the forty-something others in the room, without bothering to find out who was either a Yazidi, a Druze, an Alawite, a Shi'a or even a Christian.