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Awards:
- [8CC May-June Challenge Finalist]
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Atlas had never experienced love until Jude walked into his life. She became his first true friend, and ultimately, his everything. Though Atlas was trapped in h...
Do you ever know those dreams where it feels like what you've dreamt was so real? So real, so that you didn't want to leave. You didn't want to return to reality because for once, you felt happy, for once you felt safe, for once you felt loved, and for once you felt seen.
The sharp piercing noise of the slaps echoed continuously through the house.
I often think about what my life would be like if I was never abandoned...if I had a family...if I had a brother or a sister...what would my life be like?
The sound of the screams slice through the paper thin walls.
I lay there, the cool air chilling my fingertips as I traced imaginary constellations across the ceiling. The tips of my fingers had taken on an icy hue, reminiscent of the bone-chilling cold from snowy horror films, where characters face death by hypothermia.
I often found solace in imagining myself counting nonexistent stars or tracing invisible constellations at night, attempting to lull myself to sleep. It was a coping mechanism, especially when the screams became too suffocating or my thoughts spiralled. But sometimes, even that didn't work. I couldn't recall the last time I drifted off to sleep without relying on those mental distractions.
If that didn't work then I'd move on hypothesizing all the reasons why they might've left me. Maybe it was because they were aliens who sent me to earth to save everyone like superman...or maybe they just needed to leave me here for a little and they would come back...or maybe...I ran out of ideas eventually.
I raised the volume of the MP3 player till it's absolute max, and yet still the noise never went away.
It was as if it were on a constant reverberating loop bouncing off on the walls of my mind, echoing with such an intensity that seemed to etch itself into the very fabric of my being.
A reminder of 'my place'.
A reminder that even if I left this place..I would never truly leave, because my mind stayed stuck frozen.
Day after day, the burden of my solitude felt like it was a heavy weight placed on my chest, each day heavier than the last, crushing any hope I dared to cling to.
Day after day, I stayed confined to these four walls. These four walls I was meant to call a 'room'.
The walls bore no resemblance to what a room should be like. The walls were peeling the decades old grey paint, and the floor tiles were breaking off chip by chip. There were no windows, and no semblance of colour in those cold four walls. It was comparable to a prison cell at best.
All the kids here had rooms like this.
I didn't see them much though. I wondered if they were like me. I wondered if we'd be friends.
No, it's not possible in a place like this.
I wondered if we'd be friends if we'd never come to this place. I wondered if they were alright.
I had often wondered that, but my thoughts were always preoccupied with anything but this place. I didn't want to think about it. Not here. Not anywhere.
Tick...Tock...Tick...Tock
The clock ticked relentlessly, each second dragging on as if unwilling to pass. It was getting closer and closer.
