❛𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐁𝐄 𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐃, 𝐈'𝐌 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐖𝐈𝐅𝐄...❜ | 𝐍𝐨.𝟑

Chapter 18- Free At Last...

Lauren's POV:
Slam. There goes the door...it's so loud, and for what? The dreadfully repetitive and resounding noise reverberates from dusty wall to dusty wall, empty space to empty space, echo, echo echo, creating a pounding within my minds borders.

He's gone...but now what?

I'm dead.

Gone, no longer a human able to see past todays life. But what will I do in my final moments?

Will I sit here, talking to myself, trying to resist the fears creeping up my spine of my death coming soon? Will I sit here, in silence, sending a message to my family I know they're never going to get, just to make me feel better, just to know that I gave them a goodbye in the end? Will I sit here, dozing off into the distance, accepting that this is how my life ends? That this is simply all I'm worth?

I'm dead.

It's obvious. I know it, and so does he.

"Oh, dammit..." a realisation flashing before my eyes, my body hauls over, leaning far and deep toward the rough ground below me, my stomachs contents making a reappearance beside my body as I turn my torso sideways, pressure added to my stomach to urge whatever unholy force corrupted within me binds my body a farewell. Just when i think the worst of it is over, I begin choking horrendously on my own vomit, my own disgusting bodily waste dripping from my chin in a sensation of self-disgust.

My breathing quickens to a rushed pace, the trapped feeling inside my throat building up, until my strained voice pushes out the words longing to come flying out of my mouth since the moment Connor's hand was clasped around my mouth...

I'm. Dead.

"I can't take this anymore!"

The thought that I'll never reach the day where Max grows into a man, or when Aloura becomes a young woman, milestones i've learned to love over the few years spent with my family... All these beautiful, cherishing moments I'll miss, all because of the undying and unbreakable love one person shares for my 'fiancée'...who will never see the wholesome day where she turns into my 'wife'.

I'm dead.

My emotions cloud into one...one heaping pile of utterly distraught sadness, and eventually, into floods of unending tears...all I've ever wanted from life, the one thing i've never had...

was peace.

A peaceful life, a peaceful journey that i could easily relax myself deeply into, slipping into a generous world of no worries, no anxiety, no fear, no forevermore dealing with the worlds problems I'm constantly thrown with each and every day, all because of the universe's infinite vendetta against me...

And finally, I ask the last question before my dear life slips away from me for the final time...why me?? "Why me?!"

Streams of unapologetic tears flying down my cheeks, my face growing crimson-red and colourlessly puffy with uncontrollable painful emotion, my joints begin to ache and itch against each other's fleshy surfaces, the sheer stickiness of the cursed tape wound around my body irritating my flesh, only adding to my sorrow and demise.

A tired, annoyed moan escapes my lips, any sound I make not making its way to my head through the thick air between them. "For fuck's sake...even bondage rope doesn't hurt this much..." the adhesive clings to my hairs, sprouting more tears from my aching dark-green pupils and reddish lids. I wriggle around on the spot, becoming more and more uncomfortable. Comfort is all I want, yet it's the very last thing on my mind...

My movements never stop, twisting and turning with every becoming moment, until...I feel a sharp spike of pain in the heel of my palm. A minuscule poppyseed of blood sprouts from my flesh, no less than a moment later do I feel a light trickle of hot, red liquid oozing out of it, stopping each and every one of my rambunctious movements. I since quietly in pain, feeling the sting of hurt within my thinner skin. "Ow..." I feel my finger tips around the area, blindly touching a sharpened edge of the post I'm slouching yet leaned up against, a dent cutting deep to form a prickly point.

A seed of potential is planted within my minds roots, a hopeful glimmer that I'm sure will find a way to be dampened down, one way, or most certainly another...just like my entire life has been since day one.

But...

Maybe...maybe this isn't so hopeless after all...

Lauren, stop this...you're being gullible...there's no way out...you're trapped. Accept this.

When did Lauren Thorne ever go down without a fighting chance?

And more so, what exactly do I have to lose?

I scoot myself further down, lining up my wrists to the area where I think the dreaded mini-weapon stands, before attempting to puncture the irritating tape wrapped around me using the point, hope filling my heart and soul to the very brim, my one and only plan for escape running rancid through my brain...

"Come on, you bastard...I don't ask for much, just fucking do it already..." to my surprise, I manage to saw the tape against the pointed cranny, barely enough to tear the tape straight down the continually widening space between the sides of my pushed together hands...just barely...but the thing is...

I'm not dead anymore.

I'm free.

I strip the tape from my hands, bringing them to the front in a rushed yet smoothed motion, taking every second I have to memorise the sacred moment I'm witnessing...and more importantly, still here to witness.

Slowly, unbelievably, I begin the long process of untangling the sorely flawed, cloudly tape from my lower legs, taking a
nanosecond to rave within the polished feeling of the material I've grown to hate oh so much for what feels like forever...and take the plunging stand upward, my calves and thighs no longer feeling as if they belong to me no more.

My long, shaky legs feel terribly weak and wobbly, the unsteady sensation more than likely from the sudden applied pressure to them, flowing from my upper thighs and through my kneecaps, until it drastically reaches the soles of my feet. As soon as my figure adjusts itself, shocked chuckles coming from my mouth, I begin sensing an underlying emotion of light-headed-ness, my world passing by me gradually when I can't help but remember once again...

That I'm free.

But all at the same time...there's no way I'm free. Despite this all I've ever been wanting for the longing time spent in this damned place, I refuse to believe it. Through my obvious and deductible deliriousness, all I can do is stare constantly at my hands...just stare. For what feels like forever, I relish in the freeing feeling coursing through my blood, beginning at the tips of my padded fingers, radiating through my long, long arms, past my curved shoulders and through the downward slope of my strong, sturdy spine.

I'm free.

Everything I've said, every damned word that I've let run away from my unknowing fibbing gob, all of my worries and thoughts of a tragicomic, demising death coming my way, have been eagerly thrown out of the nearest window, hidden in plain sight, to never be found once again.

I'm free, Emma...and now?

Now...it's time to go home.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Thank you for reading.

Looks like Lauren won't be meeting a gruesome and tragic end after all.

Two more chapters left, will Emma and Lauren get the happy ending they've always wanted?

(i'm really sorry, i've forgotten your username, but thank you to the lovely girl named 'River' for helping me edit this chapter xx)