𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐎 𝐃𝐎𝐋𝐂𝐄; rigel wilde

ix. 𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐞

TW! nightmares, past trauma, self-harm, unhealthy coping mechanisms and Lionel. (be careful!)

ཐིཋྀ . ˚ ᡣ𐭩‧₊˚⋅ ✭ ₊˚⊹

I couldn't move. My legs were trembling, my eyes were blind. The darkness was too dense. My gaze was darting from side to side, as if hoping that someone would appear. My nails scraped against metal, convulsive and feverish, but I couldn't get out. I never could.

No one would come to save me. No one would answer my screams. My temples throbbed, my throat burned, my skin cracked under leather, and I was completely alone.

ཐིཋྀ . ˚ ᡣ𐭩‧₊˚⋅ ✭ ₊˚⊹

I woke with a stifled sob.

The room was spinning. My stomach was in knots. I sat up, gasping for air, trying to calm down, but cold sweat clung to my back, terror sinking into my skin.

Clammy shudders ran through me, and my heart threatened to burst out of my chest.

I curled up against the headboard and clutched my caterpillar plushie.

I was safe. That was another room, another place, another life.

But the feeling remained. It crushed me. It crumpled me up and sent me right back there, to that darkness. I went back to being a child again.

Perhaps I still was.

Perhaps I had never stopped being one. Something inside me had broken long ago, and remained small, childlike, innocent and frightened.

It had stopped growing.

And I knew I wasn't like the others, because as I grew up, that broken part of me stayed a child.

I still looked at the world with the same eyes.

I reacted with the same naivety.

I searched for the light in others, just like I had searched in vain for it in her when I was little.

I was like a butterfly in chains.

And maybe I always would be.

The urge to make myself bleed struck with more force than ever.

With trembeling hands, I grabbed the blade that now I kept under my pillow.

"Just this once, and then I'll stop." I whispered to myself, making a promise I knew I wouldn't keep.

When I saw the blood runing down my thighs, that crushing agony ceased, and I could finally breathe again.

ཐིཋྀ . ˚ ᡣ𐭩‧₊˚⋅ ✭ ₊˚⊹

"Lele, are you okay?"

Billie was staring at me. Her head was tilted to one side, her bushy hair pushed back from her face with a headband.

I had been awake all night, trying to keep my nightmares at bay, and it showed on my face, even though I tried to cever it up with a little bit of makeup.

The darkness was unrelenting. A few nights, I had tried leaving the bedside lamp on, but Anna had noticed and, thinking I had just forgotten, came in to turn it off. I didn't have the courage to tell her that I would have preferred to sleep with a nightlight on like a little girl.

"Yeah," I replied, trying to sound natural. "How come?"

"I dunno...You look paler than usual." She scrutinised my face. "You seem tired. Did you sleep okay?"

Anxiety tightly wound itself around me. I was used to sudden, unwarranted reactions like this. I was often overwhelmed by excessive worries that ate away at my most fragile and childlike self. It always happened when I thought back to that.