Electra - On Hiatus

twenty five

Life had always been cruel to me. May be I am too selfish, but I just can't seem to get past my own problems to bother to dive into someone else's. Not that I don't try, but I just can't seem to break my own barriers to break other's.

However, I learnt that I am not alone. But consoling myself with that one fact didn't make me feel any better. My pain, if not lessened, only worsened.

As I grew up, surrounded by people who loved me, I somehow felt overwhelmed. Life is not all rainbows and sunshine. I could be smiling one moment and crying the other. I don't even know why.

I was nevertheless grateful for a family that loved me, one that treated me as their own, even when it was extremely difficult for me to consider myself worthy of the affection I was receiving. 

I was not the only person in those cells, but I was kept alone for months before I met Azrael. 

I was secluded in a dungeon where there was no light, no water and no food for days. I would be served a stale bread and half a bottle of already drunk water after what felt like an eternity. I was surely not fed every single day.

I knew my fate. I was prepared for death. As a mere 4 year old, I was exposed to the bitter reality of death, hopelessness.

I was not tortured my them. I was tortured by myself. 

He would stand there and command me to burn myself and I could only nod and meekly reply with an 'okay' when he would dump hot water on me for not responding verbally. 

However that was still bearable. But when she would ask me to lie down on a freezing ice block twice my size, with my face into the small carving, I would pass out of anticipation and fear.

Sometimes, she would pin needles into my back and then hammer them into my flesh. 

Once, she put a burning stick on my back and lit it on fire while it rested there. That pain was the worst and I still get nightmares into that reality. That stick was a metal rod which was connected with a hefty current, that though wasn't capable of killing me, it certainly paralysed me for days. 

I was not cleaned, I was not bathed, not fed and not kempt well. I went for months with matted, greasy hair, with all kinds of bugs stuck in it. I wanted to kill myself. I even tried to do so, but I was supervised by them while I tortured myself. That one time when I attempted to pierce the knife into my chest, I was instantly retracted by the guards. 

Yes, my first suicide attempt was at 4.

Having a photographic memory was icing on the cake. 

But, somehow, I remember nothing before the day I was brought into their chamber. 

As a punishment, she had tied me to chains and shocked my multiple times, until I could not feel my legs. I was beaten with a stick with sharp needles on one side, puncturing through my skin and oozing out the red colour substance that I couldn't even pronounce clearly.