Tortured by Hope and Dreams

12

I'm sitting up and I can feel myself breathing more heavily, but all I can hear is a ringing in my ears. A cold line of sweat crawls down the side of my head. I have to kill this part of myself. I have to. I have to in order to live. My stomach turns within me and I feel like throwing up. The world around me has been cut off, leaving every sensation in my body to be amplified. I'm scared. I don't know when the shaking started, but I squeeze my body in an attempt to hold myself together. A small hand touches my shoulder and the ringing cuts out. The mumbled sounds sharpen and I can hear the child next to me.

"Hey. Are you okay?"

My heart is pounding in my body and I can feel the beating reverberate in my head. Do it. Kill her. I see her confusion and I look into her unsuspecting eyes. It feels like there is an aching countdown striking at my mind and soul. I lift my trembling hands toward her. The puzzled look on her face continues. So young, so pure. Her apprehension comes too slowly. Just a moment ago I was her friend, her awareness of danger diluted by this sentiment. My hands reach the curve of her neck. The image snaps and the next thing I know I've pushed her to the ground and I'm strangling her. The violence of the act shakes me, and heat pours out of my body as I try to cut off all of the life in her.

She's a fighter, of course she is. She's fighting so strongly against me. I'm sobbing as she desperately struggles below me. I feel like my body is breaking. I'm trying, I'm trying so hard to kill her. My tears split my head and cause me excruciating pain as they fall from my eyes and onto her. I can't. I can't. I let her go. I collapse on the ground away from her and feel myself break apart. I'm crying out in pain, so much pain, and my sounds echo all around me.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill this part of me. The part of me that dreams. I'm laying on the ground, broken by the act that I just tried to commit. My body lays as if close to death, as if I was the one that death had come for. My sobs continue to break down my body and the tears that stream from my eyes cut deep inside me. The moment before felt like two beats of the heart. The release of violence and then its ending. The moment after, this shattering, continues on for what feels like an eternity. Time seems to fold in on itself. I cry into eternity.

When her hand reaches out to touch mine, I shudder. My eyes shoot up in fear at the figure near me. Despite just previously being the assailant, I flinch away from the child before me like a wounded animal. Her expression is strained, struggling, and yet her eyes remain unclouded. She looks with concern, sympathy growing inside her for someone she believes is suffering. Her own pain washed away in comparison because this young child in front of me is stronger than who I am right now. This dreamer who has just been dealt such cruelty and violence has always had the strength to carry on. I've become so weak in comparison.

My heart pours from my eyes as I look at the dreamer within me that I've been trying to kill for so long. My soul stills. She looks at me, still struggling to understand. A breath is taken, and then she hugs me. She hugs me with more strength than I thought she could ever muster. Her shoulder soaks up the tears that have been dropping silently. I take a shaky breath and I let it leave me. I bring my arms up slowly and hug her back. My eyes close gradually and as they do, the last of my tears fall.

I wake up. The plain color of an apartment ceiling comes into view. Tears streak my face and I realize that I was actually crying. I lift myself off of the couch that I'm laying on and slump into a sitting position. The apartment is empty, I can hear the faint dripping of the kitchen sink and I know that I'm the only person here. I'm still trying to get my bearings together when I see the note on the coffee table in front of me. I know it's from her, the woman who put me into slumber. My body stills as I read the message left for me. With soft, but steadfast strokes it reads: I'm glad you found what you needed. That and nothing more. A small acknowledgment brushes across the corners of my lips, and I feel the conclusion of tonight's events. I stand up calmly from the couch, pick up my belongings, and head out the door. Leaving the apartment with more strength than I've had in years.