𝖋𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 𝖕𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 ⋆ 𝕶𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖓 𝖉𝖆𝖞

𝖋𝖔𝖚𝖗

╔═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖✰〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══╗

He's coming towards her. She's small, so tiny that he towers over her. She barely reaches his knees, even fully grown, and she reaches up her arms with pleading eyes.

"Please," she says. But his foot comes down on her, crushing her into the floor below, heel grinding deep and breaking both of her legs. "Please, Jonathan."

He relents. Legs useless to move and body so broken beyond repair, she lies at his mercy. With fingers the size of tree trunks, he lifts her up. She sees her home before her, each room laid out like a dollhouse. The kitchen, dirty dishes piled high and the refrigerator smelling of rot. The lounge, Exy news playing on the television, the couch nibbled by moths and covered in debris. Her bedroom, her safe haven, walls painted sunny yellow and plastered with cut outs from newspapers, popstar posters from gossip magazines, a closet full of sports uniforms and knitwear and shoes that are a size too small. And then...

Jack places her down on the floor of her father's bedroom. He's normal sized now, standing in the doorway. The light filters into the dark room from behind him, turning him from a boy eleven years her senior into a monster, shadowed and scary, looming over her. She's tall for her age, but so is he. She tries to run to him, her saviour, her big brother who'll protect her from the world and all it's evils. But he pushes her back, so hard she tumbles to the floor.

"You've been naughty," he chides in a sing-song voice, waggling his finger at her. "And naughty girls need to be punished."

The door slams shut. She starts to hyperventilate. Her breaths come sharp and short as she wheels around on her heel. Deep red light illuminates what is before her, and something inside her forces her to take shaky steps towards it. She doesn't know what's there. She knows exactly what is there. She doesn't want to see it, God, she doesn't want to see it. But something is controlling her every move. One small, shaky hand reaches up to the stained white sheet and pulls it back.

Her father's decaying face stares up at her. Maggots have gotten to half of his flesh, rot has gotten the other half. There are no eyes where eyes should be. There are curled, puckered lips revealing black and putrescent gums. His inky hair is in clumps on his head, falling out and disappearing to time.

And then his sunken eyelids flash open, and his half-skeletal hand reaches up and takes her by the throat.

He squeezes, squeezes, until the room around her is made of stars and shooting lightning bolts...

Daisy awakens with a start. She can't breathe, she scrabbles at her neck until she realises nothing is there, cutting her lungs off from what they sorely need. The little pink nightlight that hangs from a hook on the wall beside her face becomes her anchor. She stares into the little fuchsia heart emanating a soft yellow glow, reaches out and traces it's perimeter with a gentle touch.

Her watch tells her it's a quarter-past five. Classes start today, so morning practises begin at six o'clock. Daisy peels herself away from her sweat-drenched blankets, silently climbs down the ladder to find that Renee is already awake.

"I'm sorry," Daisy whispers shakily. Renee shrugs, and opens her arms to the girl. With a quivering bottom lip, the black-haired girl climbs into the bottom bunk and into Renee's grip. They hold tightly onto each other.

"I know," Renee murmurs into Daisy's forehead, combing her fingers through her hair gently. "I know."

They get up together, Renee flicking on the electric tea kettle in the kitchenette while Daisy showers. They switch; Daisy pours two cups of hot water and drops in two tea bags of a fruit tea that Renee's mom had gifted to her last year. It's an easy routine to fall into, and it makes Daisy feel safe. They drink their tea together, Daisy manages to finish most of a bowl of oatmeal, and by the time they're finished the other two girls have dragged themselves out of bed.