Life After Death - An Erica Black Continuation (4)

Fourty Three

"Have you seen this?" Exclaimed Erica Black as her father and God-father entered the kitchen,
"What is it?" Asked Remus, walking behind the woman to read over her shoulder.
"There's been another attack, in London. Near identical to the past ones but no one's connected the dots yet." She threw her head back with a frustrated sigh, dropping the paper on the table carelessly, Sirius shrugged, picking up the discarded paper as he responded.
"And why would they? There haven't been any death-eater attacks in thirty years. It's the last thing on most people's minds." His daughter sighed, laying her head in her arms on the table top. "That's true, this is only the third" She mumbled.
"Third? second. There's been two reports." Remus corrected her from his seat across the table,
"Third." Erica repeated herself sternly, "There's been three attacks." she said with a tone of certainty that made her God-father freeze for a short moment, trying to decipher the emotion behind her words before he spoke. When he did, he selected only a single word, proceeding cautiously; "When?"
"Shortly after Regulus came back, two death-eater's invaded my quarters, looking for something, I was the victim of the second attack" She sat for a moment, staring straight forward blankly, as if her own words had struck a nerve, she inhaled sharply and let it out shakily before stuttering, "I- It was me. I was the victim of the second attack... They broke into my home and... and" She couldn't continue, her breathe caught in her throat she felt as though she couldn't get it out, she swallowed and hiccupped and choked but she couldn't seem to dislodge the panic that was swelling in her airway.
"Erica?" Her God-father's voice sounded distant and she could barely hear his words over the around of her own heart racing, she could feel his firm grip on her wrist, she could feel the comfort of his presence close to her but she couldn't stop panicking, she couldn't breathe, she couldn't see or hear. Everything around her was a blinding blur, simultaneously too much and not enough.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Remus knelt in-front of his God-daughter, his hands on her wrists, looking up at her as she stared vacantly at the wall opposite her, like she was frozen in time, lost in her own mind.
"Erica?" He called again but she didn't move, she didn't flinch or shift, or even blink. She merely sat there, an empty shell. And in that moment, not for the first time, Remus Lupin wished he could be inside that woman's mind. The little girl who he had raised from the day she was born, he wanted more than anything to know what she was thinking, to understand the world from her eyes...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(TW)
That man towered over her again, exactly like the first time, he blocked all light from her eyes, making it near impossible to see anything. She couldn't breath, her panic spiralled again, just as it did the first time, if anything it felt worse, more real, as the suffocating stench of his body and the products he'd used to try and mask it filled her lungs, drowning her in fear. She could feel his jagged nails scraping painfully at her skin, she could see his crooked, satisfied smirk as he watched her flinch at the pain. She was painfully aware of the sensation of her wand against the side of her foot, where it had fallen from her hand when he'd grabbed her. All she could hear was this monster's heavy, grunting breaths and the echo of her own heart pounding in her throat. Things that she had never noticed before, never had to experience were now being uncovered as she relived her traumatic experience in high definition. Feeling as though she were experiencing it from both an outside perspective, merely a spectator and within her own body. Her heart sank like a stone, that terrifying, helpless feeling settled inside her one again, despite her protests. She felt sick. She shut her eyes tightly and tried to scream, no sound came.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(TW)
Pressed against a cold surface, rain falling on her exposed skin, Erica Black opened her eyes to find herself on the floor of her shower, once again, her perspective was confusing as she was both within herself and observing helplessly as she watched her world crumble around her. She lay silently beside her past self as she lay under the steaming water, foetal, bloody and bruised, screaming her pain and fear... It broke her heart, she hated everyone who got her here. In that moment, she hated her attacker, her rapist, she hated her abusers and she hated those who had watched silently, she hated those who had left but she hated those who had stayed more. But, most of all, more than anyone else in her life, Erica Black hated herself.

All her life, all she had ever known was death, destruction, abuse, neglect and abandonment... Erica Black had only ever known pain. Her skin burned from his touch, and it itched for another's. She just wanted to take that pain away, she wanted everything to stop. It wasn't real, she knew. Except for the fact that it was real, it was all real. She felt as if her skin were suffocating her, she couldn't breathe for the weight of it and it felt like it was getting tighter, attacking itself from the outside in, she couldn't escape it, her skin, that horrific dirty feeling that seemed caked to every inch of her..