Everyone thought she was dead, including her parents but now 18-year old Austrian Natascha Kampusch is alive and was held captive for more than eight years in a small dungeon under her captor’s house. Those eight years were filled with loneliness and intense longing to escape. She realized her long time dream to escape only last August 23 when her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, was busy with a phone call. Priklopil committed suicide after she escaped.

“I have always felt like a poor chicken in a hen house,” Kampusch said in an interview a couple of weeks after her escape. “Why me, among the many millions of people? I always think: I certainly didn't come into the world to be imprisoned and to have my life ruined,” she outspokenly said.

Kampusch narrates that she usually banged the walls with bottles and her fists to get the neighbors’ attention but her efforts were useless. There were times Priklopil allowed her to go out of the dungeon but he always threatened to kill their neighbors, her and himself so she was not able to do anything. But Kampusch said she wasn’t scared for herself. She has promised herself that she would grow older, stronger and sturdier so she can break free one day.

Now that she’s free, Kampusch is even more determined to move on. She wants to finish school and plans to have her foundation someday.

By Khristine