Alternate World

Chapter 3: No Running Away (tw: abuse, bullying)

"It's okay, it's not gonna last forever." All my three siblings and I were in mine, Monica(second eldest child in our family) and Sky's (second youngest child in our family) room. I could hear the partially muffled and yet extremely loud voices of my parents arguing in Cantonese. My siblings, repeated as before, would continue to do their activities and act unaffected, though we would be physically closer together, sometimes all of us held hands. Sky and Zack(youngest child in my family) were playing together, and Monica was half hugging me from my side and browsing on her phone, me being curled up in a ball, gripping my hair. These were one of those horrible days that my parents had to mess with mine and my siblings' mental healths, though judging from our reactions towards their squabbles, mostly mine. They were constantly arguing with each other, if it was not money, it was different opinions on certain routines my parents did not see eye-to-eye to. If it was not that, it was about the mistakes my siblings and I made, especially my mistakes(it was somewhat like arguing and adding on to what we could have done better.) If it was not that, it was that my mother was accused of having an affair with someone from work. I do not know whether my mother was ever being unfaithful, though I have been hearing less of my parents argue about this. They have been arguing for as long as I can remember living. If the whole household was lucky, there would just be prolonged shoutings, insults hurled from both sides and nothing more. At that moment, I heard the sound of glass breaking and shattering into a million pieces. All four of us in the room got startled as we heard the glass hit the floor, I gripped my hair even harder and Monica pulled me closer to her, and my arm reached out to hug her too. Even Sky and Zack approached us, Monica pulling them in to be hugged. The shouts that amplified kept getting even louder in my head. "Make it stop, make it stop," I mumbled, eyes filled with tears.  As if my tears were somehow answered, I transitioned to being in school compounds, more specifically the corridor leading down to the artrooms. Ahead of me I spotted two of my classmates and my friend. I inched closer to them and I was whisked into seeing them and me in third person. "Haha I don't think Lily realised I blocked her lol," one of my classmates begun the conversation. "What...," I thought. "HAHAHA she's such a crybaby and doesn't open up to anyone. She's too quiet," my friend chortled. "I-I'm not...shut up..." I thought to myself, feeling the easy tears coming to my eyes, my heart starting to sink. "Right?? She cries too much, her responses are so dry and I just use her for homework laugh my fucking ass off. She's too easy to push around," my other classmate snickered. Switching back to first person, I stepped back with fear, starting to feel disconnected from myself and my surroundings. I peered at the hands I held up and spluttered, "Wait...what...?"
It was then I woke up in a cold sweat, sitting up while doing so. My eyes felt tearful as I blinked to look all around me. I saw the clouds that surrounded me, the platform of particles I was sitting on, and the starry night that hung above me. It was then I realised that I had had a really horrible dream, a gist of what I had run away from physically and possibly the worst product of the negativity of my mental health, a dream that felt too real to be just a dream. Tears trickled down my cheeks while I curled into a ball and hugged my knees, repeitively pacifying myself, muttering, "You're okay, you're okay, you're safe..."
After some time, I had calmed down. I glanced at my watch. It showed "6:34". I sighed. "I definitely don't feel like sleeping. I'll just rest for a bit." I slung my bag over my shoulder and lifted myself up, forming a figure that resembled a bean-bag like 'chair' made out of the same particles I used for my 'bed' and plopped myself into the 'chair', gazing at the picturesque view of clouds that looked stacked on top of the other. The voice in my head said to me, "Looks like there's no way you can actually run away from all this, huh? No matter how high up you are in the sky, away from them, and its the fifth day. Haha." Hearing that statement, I flinched with hopelessness and despair, hugging my knees and resting my head against my arms, looking at my side view of more majestic clouds, trying hard to get the dream out of my head and the intrusive thoughts that followed.