Natascha Kampusch had been making the short walk to her primary school for just a few weeks when she set out from home on March 2, 1998.
Warning: This story contains content which may be distressing for some readers.
The 10-year-old had been "negotiating for quite a while" with her mother for the right to make the walk instead of being dropped off.
"I wanted to show not just my parents, but also myself, that I was no longer a little child," she said, years later, adding the walk still made her feel anxious.
"That day I made a resolution: I wanted to try and be strong. I wanted that day to be the first day of my new life and the last day of my old one.
"Looking back, it seems rather ironic that it was precisely that day my life as I knew it actually did end, albeit in a way that I could not possibly have imagined."
She had just returned from a holiday the day before, and the walk to school took her through a series of suburban streets.
A delivery van was parked by the side of the road. A man stood in front of it — later she would say the sight of him standing there set off "alarm bells", but she could not explain why.
"Deep down, abduction was still something that happened only on TV, and certainly not in my neighbourhood," she said.
"Everything happened in one fell swoop, as if it had been a choreographed scene, as if we had rehearsed it together. A choreography of terror."
As she continued down the footpath and walked past the car, the man grabbed her, pulled her inside, slammed the door and drove off.
The home she was brought to by then-36-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil was in the town of Strasshof, less than 20 kilometres from her home.
Placed inside the windowless, soundproof cellar under the garage, behind a door made of steel and concrete, her arrival marked what would ultimately be almost a decade in captivity.
'All kidnappings come down to control and power'
Natascha Kampusch's kidnapping is one of a series of high-profile abductions that have generated headlines internationally.
In 2008,Elizabeth Fritzl escaped from her fatherin Austria, who had been keeping her in a hidden basem*nt for 24 years.
In 2003, American teen Elizabeth Smart was rescued after nine months of captivity at the hands of a man who believed he was a religious prophet.
Earlier this month, a 45-year-old Algerian man who disappeared as a teenager was found 26 years later, held in a neighbour's cellar all that time.
His family assumed he had been killed during the civil war that was ongoing in Algeria at the time — instead, he was found in a sheep pen just 200 metres away from his childhood home.
The University of Adelaide's senior lecturer of Criminology, Dr Jared Dmello, told the ABC kidnappings could be split into different types based on motivation.
"One sort of grouping is the kidnapping of opportunity, where it just sort of happens by chance," he said.
"We see this in movies all the time. It's a dark road, someone is walking, a car pulls up, they're suitable targets."
Other motivations include financial, political, domestic violence and sexual frustration.
"A lot of the [perpetrators] experienced some sort of victimisation of their own earlier in their life," he said.
"So for example … the person who abducted Elizabeth Smart, there's reports he actually experienced psychological abuse as a child.
"When I look at kidnapping … all kidnappings come down to control and power dynamics, whether it's the internal dynamics or external."
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For victims of abduction, the process of reintegration into society can be long and confronting.
"I'm not trying to make these the same topic, but it's the same idea as someone who was incarcerated for decades, who then gets released into society," Dr Dmello said.
"If your life is forcibly stopped for extended periods of time, the world around you has continued.
"If an individual has been held captive for eight years, 10 years, in [the Algerian case] 26 years, the world that they knew is very different.
"If someone was kidnapped as a child, children already have a very different view of the world than adults do … it makes it really difficult because in addition to getting over whatever traumas they've experienced, in some ways they're learning an entirely new world.
"What do you say when you're trying to get a job [as to] why you may be 30 years old getting your first job?
"There's all of these different considerations. That's why I think it's so important that we have a team of people there to help these individuals."
'Days and days passed, and no one came'
Hundreds of police officers combed the streets of Vienna with dogs and helicopters in the search for 10-year-old Natascha Kampusch.
News outlets and investigators cast suspicion on her mother, Brigitta Sirny. Other rumours circulated involving child p*rnography rings and organ theft.
Because a child had reported seeing Natascha dragged into a white van, police inspected almost 800 white mini-vans — including her kidnapper's, who told them he had been alone at home when the child went missing.
The family had just returned from a holiday in Hungary so the search was extended abroad.
As investigators and her family searched for her, Natascha "hoped every day, every hour, that the door would open".
"The hope that someone couldn't possibly make me disappear so easily carried me through the endless hours in the cellar," she said.
"But days and days passed, and no one came. Except for the kidnapper."
She would not leave the cellar for six months, and after that was only allowed to leave during the day, being locked inside again to sleep or when her captor went to work.
At times, she was seen outside in the garden and allowed to leave the house for several hours at a time.
Later she would pen an open letter to the public, detailing her daily life.
"This was carefully regulated, mostly it started with a joint breakfast," she wrote.
"There was housework, reading, television, talking, cooking. That's all there was, year in and year out, and always tied in with the fear of being lonely."
There was a darker side to her captivity also — Priklopil often became violent, denying food and light, shouting insults through an intercom installed in the cellar.
3,096 days in captivity
Her captivity lasted 3,096 days, or just over eight years.
On the last day, she was ordered to clean the same van that had been used to abduct her.
"The white van was parked between the hut and the garden gate … Priklopil fetched the vacuum cleaner, plugged it in and ordered me to clean," she said.
"I was in the middle of doing so when his mobile rang … Absorbed in his conversation, he turned round and moved several metres away from me towards the pool.
"I was alone. For the first time since the beginning of my imprisonment, the kidnapper had let me out of his sight while outside.
"I stood frozen … my rib cage felt as if it were encased in an iron corset. I could hardly breathe.
"Then everything happened so fast. With superhuman strength, I tore myself out of the paralysing quicksand that was tightening around my legs.
"I dropped the vacuum cleaner and bolted to the garden gate. It was open."
It was August 23, 2006. The 18-year-old was identified by her passport, a scar and by DNA tests.
Wolfgang Priklopil took his own life before he could be arrested.
Natasha Kampusch has since written multiple books and had her own talk show.
The number of days Ms Kampusch was held captive would go on to become the title of her 2011 memoir — 3,096 Days — and of a 2013 movie dramatising the case.
Other survivors of abduction have also gone on to become public speakers, authors, and activists.
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According to Dr Dmello, this could allow survivors the chance to "reclaim the narrative".
"But also I think a part of it is a sense of empowerment," he said.
"Like, 'this is my experience, I can tell you want happened to me, and I hope that if something similar is happening to you, you'll see the red flags'.
"It's interesting to me that some people take that victimisation experience and they use it as a way to help the next generation and make sure no one else experiences [it].
"Whereas some individuals … actually go down the spiral of becoming the offender."
After her captor's death, Ms Kampusch claimed the house in Strasshof where she was held captive, saying she wanted to protect it from vandals.
As of 2017, she still owned the house.
The cellar has been filled in.
