Fatalé (18+)

Chapter forty eight

⚠️ Trigger Warning ⚠️ this chapter contains distressing topics, (trafficking/abuse/torture/sexual assault). Highly recommend 18+ readers. (Read with CAUTION. You've been warned.)

Ilaria

The world was a beautiful lie.

So beautifully structured, it's easily blinding. No one wants to address this because the world is what's consuming. I never believed it, maybe for a second when my Papà treated me like a princess but that was many years ago, and it was definitely the last time I'd ever feel like his princess. For me, the world has been and will always be an ugly place. I feel nothing as I'm staring into oblivion, but all I do feel was like I was floating, so high up that I'm not expecting anything to catch me, or take me because it's just been so long. Too long that I've lost count of the days I've been trapped.

I sit in front of the TV, my legs crossed as I'm sat on an old rusty couch positioned in the middle of nowhere. Behind me was nothing but cold air, brushing against my skin, making me feel ill. The rest of the room seemed like it was fading away with the darkness, each corner of the room was void of any sort of light. The walls were scratched and stained with graffiti, all the paint chipping away slowly, like it's losing its colour. It was cold on some day but warm on others, I don't know where the heat was coming from, I never explored. It was eerie, the only thing I could hear was the TV and the constant water dripping from somewhere. On some days, most days, it drove me insane. I stare blankly at the screen, the blaring sound rings in my ear and the lights from the screen hurts my eyes as I'm forced to focus on the screen. It's been like this, over and over again, every single day for the last couple of months of my life.

"Chto ty smotrish', dorogoy?" A voice creeps behind me. My heart raced at the sound but I couldn't react physically, my eyes were glued to the noisy screen that displays some sort of advertisement for a rental company for cars. I breathe steadily and don't speak a word, my eyes bore into the screen until I lose my sense of the real world. "Let's change that, shall we? Put on something more entertaining."

I release everything I'm holding back and relax on the couch because I know having this feeling wouldn't make the slightest difference. I couldn't run from it now, I never will so I won't even attempt to. I'm still going to endure it, everything else that I've endured in the last couple of months is nothing foreign to me. The voice now has a face as he walks around the couch and stood in front of me, blocking my view of the screen. I don't react, instead I blink. Everyday, there's a new face. I've lost count of how many of them there is, perhaps it's because I stopped counting the moment I realised there was no way out, that nobody will ever find me.

The man grabs the controller and flicks through a plethora of channels before he stops at one. The current news, stationed live in Russia.

"Tam," he grins, "that's more entertaining."

It took a moment for me to register what was on the screen because I've felt detached this whole time but when a familiar face appears on the screen, my jaw slowly clenched shut and my eyes burned from the tears threatening to fill.

Papà, Mylon, Tio, Cristian...

Nico.

My chest tightens, slowly constricting as I'm beginning to lose myself again. None of this felt real, it felt like I was in my worst nightmare. I stare at the screen of a picture of Nico and gulp, my face was still, void of any emotion as the Russian man kneels down closer to me and watches me. I don't have the capacity to understand why Nico was on TV, on a news channel, all I see was his face and soon after, I was beginning to drift away from the reality. My heart sinks lower and lower as I'm watching the only face I've dreamt about every single night for the last couple of months. Now, I don't see him in my sleep anymore because all I see is darkness. I chose this darkness and each time I do, I see him, giving me that hope that one day, everything is going to be better. But slowly, even that hope is fading, just like my will to exist. My stomach turns at the thought of him again, it's like a dark paradise. My fists clenches together in between my legs, immediately, my senses heighten when the man leans closer and closer, like personal space didn't mean anything to him. My eyes haven't travelled to him yet, they never do when this happens, it's the only way I can detach myself from the vicious reality.