(This is a 440-word short story I wrote as an exercise. It had to be about a woman who rents a house and finds something in the closet.)

Mark was unpacking bedsheets when Debbie emerged from the bedroom closet with a puzzled look on her face.

“You’ll never guess what I found in there,” she said.

“You’re right, I won’t,” he said. “What did you find?”

“Come see for yourself.”

He stood up and followed her into the closet. She pointed to a steel plate that had been bolted into the drywall behind a clothes rack. There were two solid steel chains hanging from the plate. At the end of each chain was a steel wrist shackle.

“Did you notice these when we toured the house?” she said.

“No. You really can’t see them from outside the closet. I guess we didn’t spend much time looking around in here.”

He examined the shackles up close. They were sturdy and well-maintained. The entire construction was solid and all the metal had been polished to a mirror shine. The whole thing could easily have held 500 pounds without budging.

“Do you think someone actually used these things?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, casually tugging on one of the chains. “This is a lot of work to put into something you aren’t going to use.”

“So it must have been a kink, right? Like, a sex thing?”

“I doubt it. These shackles are solid steel. They would be extremely uncomfortable, and besides, you wouldn’t need something this strong just for kinky sex.” He shook his head. “No, I think someone was locked up in here.”

She stared at him. “You think someone was stuck in this closet against their will?”

He shrugged. “I can’t imagine any other reason to have shackles like these.”

“Wow.” She looked back at the shackles. “You know, we don’t know anything about the guy who lived here before us. Who knows how long he could have had someone trapped in here?”

“It might not even have been him. There are plenty of sick people out there, and dozens of residents lived here before he did. These shackles could have been here for years. Maybe everyone just ignored them.”

“It’s possible,” she said. “Anyway, I’m going to go call the landlord. I’m not comfortable living in this place, and there’s no telling what else we might find around here. After that, we should call the police. This might help them with an ongoing investigation.”

Before Debbie could leave the closet, Mark grabbed her in a stranglehold and lifted her off the ground. She struggled for a few seconds, then fell unconscious. He dragged her back inside and sat her against the wall.

“This is awesome,” he muttered to himself. “Now I don’t have to buy any shackles.”