Every conversation of theirs has had an abrupt end with her exiting the scene without as much as a goodbye but this is the first time that he actually understands why she chose to leave. He would have done the same. Because in a world that exploits every weakness, it is not wise to let vulnerability seep into your tone while conversing with a person you barely know.
He would know.
He sighs as he feels the familiar pang in his chest. There's no point in going down that memory lane. He picks up his coffee mug and goes inside.
_
He will not break. He cannot break. His teeth dig into his lower lip, drawing blood but the sting is a welcome distraction and the much needed ounce of control in a place he has none. His fingers clench onto the corners of the table, his fingers pressing firmly against the sharp, uneven contours of it with a bruising grip.
With every movement, the agony is an exacerbating wave. The forceful weight of the hand pressing him down, digging into his supple skin and leaving bruises there, just seems to be adding to it. It feels like he'll fall apart under everything that he is enduring even as his control over the screams that want to tear out of his throat in accordance with the white hot agony coursing through him, slowly begins to wane.
It wanes with every thrust till a particularly brutal one eradicates it completely. He screams.
The pounding stops. Through the tears blinding his eyes, he sees a smirk.
Fear is an ugly thing, sullying every pore of his body. He knows the end is nowhere soon. He's let out his weakness, he's relented to the notion of the man that he can break. That he has broken.
He shouldn't have. The consequences are something he will never forget.
_
He wakes up with a jerk, sweat beading his forehead. Frantic and disoriented, it takes him a moment to place that he's not in that place again.
That he's not twelve again.
As the realization sets in, he holds his head in his hand. It has been years yet the memory haunts him just the same, playing with clarity and down to all the intricacies. His fingers tingle with phantom pain reminiscent of the one he experienced then. He can feel the touch of those fingers indented into his skin. He shudders at the pungent smell that seemed to have seeped into his soul so deep then that it reeks every time it haunts him.
Disgust crawls through his veins, a feeling of loathing augmenting it even as they rear their heads from the abyss he's pushed them into to survive and exist in the same house and face those eyes filled with maliciousness.
He springs up from the sofa and rushes to the washroom.
_
The water is scalding hot but he does not feel it. His eyes are hollow, the horror of it all prevalent in them with the way he feels drained down to his very soul.
There is a feeling that takes over him, a feeling like he does not exist in his own body. It's a disconcerting feeling, this numbness that is the precursor of an intense outpour. He's not had these nightmares in years but now the pandora's box has opened. It is a long due unravelling, the product of all the ones he's stalled, binding himself with an obligation and the burden of responsibilities to survive.
What he never realized is what he's facing. Suppressing into an abyss does not make it vanish. It instead comes pouring out, a scorching flood that destroys everything in its path some times and spurts of downpour at a time where it is least expected, at the other.
_
He stares at the blisters on his skin in the reflection of the mirror, the new ones layering the old ones that have faded but aren't entirely gone. He meets the red rimmed eyes of his reflection, a drowning feeling of loathing and dejection enshrouded in emptiness, refusing to leave him from its grasp. The ragged lines on every expanse of his body, like carved lines and an art of twisted expression on a canvas. He hasn't looked at himself, bare like this since years but the nightmare has unleashed something within him. He needs to look, to remind himself of the jagged edges and sinful indentations that have vandalised the sanctity of his mind and soul. Or maybe it is to self-sabotage the flutters of calmness he's been having without a predominant burden weighing him down out of lingering fear that a force much larger than his own efforts would wreck havoc he cannot mitigate.
He looks and looks, at the decrepit thing that he is, a caricature that holds all that was done to him like memoirs on itself. Scars, the world says in righteous negligence, are the bearers of strength and the reminders of the challenges and storms one survived. They never know enough to say what the truth actually is, that being scars are more so, ugly reminders of events one prefers to forget. Because they never let a person forget that they were a victim first, a survivor later. Because they never let a prey forget what its predator did to it, a claim laid on it against its will and wish while it remained helpless and hapless.
_
It's like a large wave of despair washes over him, cutting through the emptiness and forcing him on his knees, eyes overflowing and throat constricting around a scream that is the deepest cry of the boy within him who never could.
He sobs, body shuddering with the intensity of it all. He sobs.
He sobs and sobs and sobs, lying on the floor and curling into himself. He is like a baby without the comforting embrace of its mother, with the way his arms wrap around himself, giving himself a smidge of comfort no one else would.
He sobs till it takes everything out of him and the world turns black.
_
WC: 1018 words
Love,
Pratyusha
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Edge Of The Night | ONC2024 ✓
General Fiction[Open Novella Contest - 2024] ONC2024 Longlister Round 1 & 2 Qualifier Prompts: 24,5 Tired of rising from the ashes, when his last reason to hold on falls apart, a man seeking peace moves into a new apartment. What he doesn't expect is to become e...
