Tribulation [h.s]

37

"What if I told you I feel like I know you
But we never met?
It's for the best."

Play when you see *

-

I can hear Maggie crying. No- she's screaming. Blood-curdling screams rip her throat to shreds.

She's in the dark, hidden in a locked closet, one I had put her in. She never liked the dark. She's never liked being alone either. Right now, however, she's both.

I need to get to her. I need to protect her.

I tried crawling away, but large hands grabbed at my ankles and pulled. Those hands drag me through a pool of red and broken glass, and I've never hated touch more in my life.

His touch is destruction. His touch is death.

Body flailing and legs kicking, my struggle is vain. My struggle doesn't derail him in the slightest. Then, he flips me over and hovers over me, trapping me underneath his weight.

I'm powerless. Completely powerless.

His left eye is wrecked, oozing blood and other fluids. But, even that pain isn't enough to stop him from getting what he wants.

He's going to kill me.

In one vicious move, six inches of rigid steel are buried deep into my abdomen. At first, I didn't even feel it. Then, when he rips the knife out from my flesh, coated in my own blood, the pain spreads through me like wildfire.

It hurts.

-

My ears are ringing.

My mind is struggling to operate after the shock of being forced to remember the night where I fell apart, the night where my story took a drastic turn down the road of never-ending fear, desperation, and hopelessness.

My heart is still beating, but I know a part of me died that night.

Choking on each breath I take, shuddering, shaking — struggling. But, even with the chaos of my mind, there is one thing that leaks in through my thoughts.

Harry.

My head snaps up, and my eyes frantically search the scene before me. There's a bullet hole in the wall beside his head. The gun I had knocked from his hands had fallen to the floor, skidding on the tile and stopping right before my feet.

He's alive.

But then he starts laughing.

"Is this fucking funny to you!?" I stumble to my feet, breathing frantically. "You almost just fucking killed yourself!"

Harry continues laughing to the point where he hunches over in the tub. I can feel my eyes burn with a fresh layer of tears I refuse to shed at the deranged scene unfolding before me. But then, I come to a sudden realization. The fact that he can laugh in a moment such as this strikes a chord with me. He does this often, I realize. I usually just passed it off for him being a sadist or straight up fucking insane, but that's not the case now, is it?

After a moment, his chuckles start sounding much more exhausted, much more fractured, until they stop altogether. His head lulls back and thuds against the wall behind him. His body goes slack. "...why are you here, Allie?"

And even through all of my frustration and all of my fear, my shoulders slump, and my ragged breaths begin to even out. I've never seen Harry like this.