10-year-old Natascha Kampusch

 On the first day that she was allowed to walk to school alone, 10-year-old Natascha Kampusch was abducted by a man driving a white van on the streets of suburban Vienna.

She would spend the next eight years in a nightmare — locked in a windowless room that her kidnapper built beneath his basement and suffering unimaginable abuse at his hands.

Image: bottom- the entrance to the basement where she was held.

But through it all, Kampusch never lost faith that she would escape. She even experienced visions of her 18-year-old self, who promised her she would one day be free.

Finally, after 3,096 days of captivity, she escaped, just when her older self said she would.

After her escape, her frustrated abductor walked in front of the train killing himself.