Behind Closed Doors

Untitled Part 20

I can't believe I'm sitting here listening to this. The girls down the hallway were crying and moaning. It hurt my heart to listen, made me feel sick inside. Id been there not too long ago. I wasn't even sure anymore how long. Why do I let this keep happening? I would've wanted someone to help me...I DID have someone help me. I stood up. I couldn't sit here in resolve until they just stopped, and I maybe felt better about the situation. I couldn't.

I tiptoed over to the door, and pulled on the handle. Surprisingly enough, it popped open. I bit my lip at the sound, and paused. God, what if this is a bad decision. The sounds at the end of the hallway were enough to help me make up my mind, and I pulled the door ever so slowly, so that the creaking was faint and barely audible.

When the door was finally open enough, I squeezed through, my skinny body having no problem fitting through the opening that looked big enough for a toddler. The hallway was dark and musty, it smelled foul, like piss and cigarettes and mold. I crinkled my nose at the scent, and edged down the wall. I could hear the sounds mixed in with the deafening silence, and it pressed in on my ears like water when you dive to the deepest end in the pool. It was maddening. I was sure that at some point, the pressure of it all would burst my eardrums.

I couldn't tell if I was still breathing, but my lungs were aching, and my eyes were burning from the light and smoke and the dust in the air. As I got closer to the door I was searching for, with the girl behind it in pain, my heart beat faster and faster. I couldn't picture myself pushing the door open, and yet, that's exactly what I did.

It creaked slightly when I pushed it, and I zoned out. I only saw my grubby looking fingers against the wood, and then I saw the room. I saw him on top of her, and there was no emotion. It was almost as though I were watching from someone else's eyes.

I didn't know I was reaching for anything until I had something in my hands, and I still have no idea what. I just know that my arm came up, with the object clenched tight between my fingers, and came down on his head. He didn't yell, he just rolled off of her, gripping the back of his head. He moaned slightly, so I hit him again, right in the forehead. It must've knocked him out, because I heard nothing from him after that.

I turned to the girl on the shabby bed, and her eyes were so wide, and she was crying. I dropped the thing in my hand, and reached it out to her. She hesitated, her eyes questioning my every move, and she took it. I pulled her up from the bed, and we lit out of the room.

I finally felt like I owned my body and mind again. Nothing was foggy anymore, it was clear as crystal. I couldn't sit here and do nothing, let them use me and violate me every day. I had to escape, or at least die trying...

We edged down the hallway, and we felt like we were on fire, at least, I did. She looked frightened, and like she may be sick at any time. Her face was pale and ashy, her eyes dark and doe like. She didn't belong in a place like this, I honestly don't think she could handle it. She was shaking to the point that I could see it, her small silhouette against the wall, shivering like a teacup Chihuahua.

We turned down hallways and tiptoed past cracked doors, but the place was bigger than it had seemed. It was a never-ending labyrinth of torture and pain, and I was getting dizzy from all the smoke and dingy lights hanging from the ceilings. I had to stop. I could barely breathe and we didn't seem to be getting anyplace. I ducked into a corner that seemed to be the darkest, and she followed me, both of us crouching like predators in the dark.

I looked at her, hard. She was so small, I imagined that I could see through her, as though she were like a piece of paper, one gust of wind from blowing away, never be seen or heard from again. I suppose, in a way, we were both that way. We had, I was sure, both disappeared without any word as to where we were or what was happening to us. We were a cold case that someone would eventually file in an old box in a dusty room with all of the other cases that either no one had cared enough to try and crack, or there had simply not been enough leads to solve.

I took her hand, a trembling jumble of thin bones that could probably be snapped like toothpicks. Stringy blonde hair lay across her face like bleak and lifeless straw. The greasy locks shaded her face from everything around her, and made her look like a lost child, homeless on the streets.

"What is your name?" I whispered. I felt like I needed to ask her, to know something. Things could change in an instant and I had to know something about this little girl that I had risked everything for. A head shorter than me and voice soft as snow, I was in love with her. The beauty behind the dirt and grub all over her drew me to her.

"Sam." She said. I could tell she was less than happy to speak. She seemed so scared, and so tiny. Her little voice rang out like Christmas bells, light and airy. She reminded me of the little children in those homeless commercials, so sweet and lost, broken and in need.