Nothing (ON HOLD)

Chapter One

Chapter One

The aches and pains are enough to wake me after a night of limited slumber. A piercing, continuous high pitch whistle intensifies with every pump of my heart, the pounding making my head hurt worse than usual. Last night must have been pretty bad. I can't move without white hot pain shooting through me, so I stay lying down on my front. It seems as if I haven't moved since I dragged myself to my room when he finally left me alone.

Alone. Am I alone?

I bolt up ignoring the severe pain and just stare at the door. The lock is on.

Looks secure.

This revelation brings my spirits up a bit (I'm safe). Now feeling that there is no danger afoot, I begin to close in on myself (yet again). One of my many imperfections is self pity. I search the reminiscence of my old room, so few things that have remained the same over the past three years. Since then, life for me has just gone tits up. The same wallpaper and posters from middle school decorate the walls, peeling at the seams revealing the damp mould covered wall beneath. In my mind I always use this room as a metaphor to describe myself. A horrid broken girl inside decorated to blend into the background, left behind over the years.

The ticking of the Winnie the Pooh clock hanging from the wall draws me away from my depressing thoughts and back to reality. Its half past six in the morning, he shouldn't be up yet. School isn't for another hour and thirty minutes, but I'll take anything to get out of the house. I slowly peel myself from the creaking bed and limp toward my door. I unlock the hatch taking precaution to make as little sound as possible, not wanting to wake the beast. With my head sticking out the door, I check the hallway to see if I caused any disturbance. (Clear).

Knowing its safe, I hesitantly run for the bathroom, skipping over the floorboards prone to squeakiness.

Safely in the bathroom I lock the door and calm down. I remove the clothes that I had worn yesterday and threw them in the wicker wash basket under the sink. I'd worn them two days straight now and people where beginning to talk at school (well, talk more than usual). I pull the glass door of the shower across and set the setting to a lower temperature to sooth my wounds. Turning the water on, I squeal as my back burns with pain. I reach for the dial and turn the water to nearly freezing. The pain subsides a little. As I endure one of the many worst showers I will ever have, I brace myself against the tiled wall with my left hand as I wash with my right. My head is bent down as I let the ice water cascade down my body, relaxing me. This doesn't last long as I notice the enormous amount of blood pooled at the bottom of the shower, and is still running down the back of my legs. Still bleeding, hopefully the cold water will deal with that.

I turn toward the mirror wall and begin to inspect my body to find the bleeding injury. Cuts and scratches infest my arms and legs but they seem to already be healing so it's not those. A rainbow of blue, purple, green and black massive bruises inhabit the front of my body. But my face was spotless, clean from any harm. He always knew not to punch me in the face, knew that people would be suspicious of where the constant black eyes were coming from. He knew if he hurt me anywhere else, I would cover up. Deny anything and everything. He knew he had me under his thumb.

Still in search of the source of the blood, I turn my body to have a look at the back. Instantly, I see the problem; a huge gouge in the side of my back. The culprit?.. A  gigantic shard of glass.

I leave the shower running and carefully retrieve the first aid kit from the cabinet above the sink. I also grab a flannel, preparing for the pain. I'm back in the shower and am now shaking through terror for having to pull this bad boy out. The flannel is wet now so I place it under the shard of glass sticking out of my back, using the mirror for guidance. Bracing myself, I reach behind me with my other hand and quickly rip out the shard as not to draw out the pain over a longer period of time (like this sentence).