My Timeless Torment.

Chapter 23

Peyton's Point Of View

Lights danced along my horizon and the sun burned my fingertips.

As I inhaled the dusty air, my lungs screamed for a fresh breeze, as loud as my stomach screaming for something to eat.

The house I was in could barely be called a house. The floorboards were rotting, cracking and splintering beneath my weight. Dust made up the air like a thick, heavy blanket, trying to tuck me in.

My eyelids drooped as the sun began to touch the dirt outside, the orange sky giving the light a red tinge.

I lowered myself onto the ground, pulling myself up into a sitting position. My fingers drew pictures in the thick layer of dust that covered the floor.

I let my thoughts wander.

Home, 4 letters that made up my everything. Home was where I was born, home was where my mother left me. Home was where I ran to at night and home was where I explored in the day. Home was when I was alone, home was where I was in the arms of the one I loved. Home was hiding, the streets, the alleyways, the darkness, the light. Home was with Sarah and Justin and the baby. Home was nowhere, home was everywhere.

But where was I now?

I picked up a piece of wood, and broke it in two. Using a sharp edge, I pushed the wooden spike into the palm of my hand. I winced as it broke the skin, but I kept pushing.

I only stopped when I grew dizzy, blood dripping from my hand onto my stained t-shirt.

I could almost hear exactly what he would say.

"Peyton, why? You don't need to bring pain upon yourself. You say that you want to feel something but breathe in. Do you feel the air brushing past your lips? Do you feel your lungs fill, then empty? Do you feel your tongue dry slightly as you breathe out? You're feeling without the pain. You don't need pain to feel real."

Then he would touch my skin. Maybe let his hand fall onto mine, maybe move my hair from my eyes. Maybe brush his nose against mine before his lips pressed against mine.

"Peyton, breaking your skin won't fix things, it'll only scar whats mine."

Then he would continue to whisper the things he liked about me until I would fall asleep.

"I like the way you snort when you laugh too hard, I like the way you don't know how to describe your hair, colour wise and style wise, I like your dimples, one more shallow than the other, I like how your teeth aren't perfect, but your smile is, I like how your legs go on and on and I like how you don't let yourself get dirt under your nails."

I've never been one to cry, but the tears began to roll down my face.

I looked up, not realizing how fast the time had moved on, the sky already dark outside and the would on my hand framed with dry blood.

I reached up and rubbed my eyes, the pounding of a headache starting to begin inside my head.

Ending the night, I layed back, trying to find  comfort in the rotting floorboards and the wood splinters covering the ground.

The comfort never came.

Peyton's dream.

He was there, I was there and we were close enough to touch. But we weren't.

I stepped forward but he stepped back, his eyes full of panic. He looked dirtier, more ragged then when I had last seen him but he was still the same.

I tried to reach out but my fingertips could only brush what I wanted to hold so bad.

I stepped forward again, only to find myself falling. Falling into the depths of nothing.

Just as I saw myself coming to an end, I stopped, seized by the unbearable tightening of rope around my neck. I choked, feeling my throat being crushed beneath my clawing hands. My sight blurred, fraying around the edges. Before it all went black, I saw his face once more. A blank expression painted on.

I awoke.