Beyond Control

Chapter 41 (part 2)

In a world of coldness, I felt a touch of warmth, on my skin, underneath my neck, then it moved under my nose.

There's a heavy smell of blood and nothing else, as if I was sleeping in a blood pool.

"Crystal, dearest," I heard, "wake up."

I sniffled softly, delicately blinking my eyes open.

"Wake up, dearest," I heard again, "wake up, please."

A tear escaped my eyes and I moved a little.

Just a little bit, and I could already feel my body warning me about moving. A sharp pain struck my leg and I whimpered aloud.

My heart was racing, and I was gasping for air from the pain. There's a squeeze somewhere in my heart, and tears begin falling down my cheeks drop by drop, the silence slowly breaking into sobs.

The figure before me watched as the last few bits in my body fall apart, slowly shattering and breaking.

I felt so ashamed, so embarrassed, that I failed to save myself. I can't help it, I can't fight back, I can never do it without someone's help, can I?

My long lost brother doesn't care about my health. My mother had already sold me off to a place synonymous to hell. And even I can't even do a little bit of fighting to protect myself.

No one is ever on my side.

I am helpless, harmless,

unwanted.

I felt his hand grabbing my arm, which didn't hurt me at all.

He brought it to my gaze and reached another hand to brush my hair off my sight, wiping away the tears so I could see him clearly.

From here, I could see the bruises on my forearm, red dots and lines covered the entire surface of my arm.

He leaned forward, holding my arm in his hand and showing the bruises to me. His eyes traced and inspected the wounds on my forearm then he touched them tenderly.

His eyes switched to me, glaring into my eyes deeply that I can see something in his eyes, something that even death fears to be close to.

Ayven frowned as he muttered to me, "Who did this?"