Antwoord - Joost Klein

11.

Everything was black. My vision was blocked out by the nothingness floating in the air. No light to guide the hand begging for permission to leave this hole. I was stuck in nothingness.

The walls surrounding me limit my movements to very slim. I could barely turn around in the nothingness. I kept screaming for help but was denied it every single time.

"Mom, please I'm so hungry!" I begged while tears streamed down my face.

"You'll get out when that hunger has disappeared" She yelled back as I heard another door close.

All I wanted was to eat. I had been in Kentucky for four weeks with my school on this program you could sign up for. There weren't a lot of people who got the opportunity to go, but I was one of the few lucky ones.

The food I ate was very unhealthy compared to what I ate at home. There weren't many healthy options in Kentucky so all we ate was fast food with crazy amounts of calories. I didn't think about calories when I ate them back then, but that changed when I came back home and gained 10 kg.

My mother looked at me as if I wasn't even her child when I returned to The Netherlands again. I was forced into a dark closet as I screamed for food to help the hunger in my stomach.

"Please! Please! Please! My stomach is eating itself at this point!" I screamed at 12 years old.

"MOM! PLEASE LET ME EAT!" I was hugging myself tightly as the darkness was everywhere.

No food, no sound, no light. It was only me in that darkness with my hungry thoughts.

"Eleanor" A voice said.

"Don't do this to me, please please please" I pleaded on end.

A light then started to appear. It started softly in the darkness but as time went on, the light became stronger and brighter. The darkness was replaced with one light.

"Eleanor" The voice repeated.

I let my eyes open and was blinded by the sharp light. Then the light was turned off once again and the darkness all came back as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

"Why are you screaming" The voice said, annoyed.

The more I got used to the darkness, I realised the voice was Joost who had brought the light in the first place with his flashlight. I was laying in between the hay stays on a field as the night had overtaken the day.

The bottle of Genever was still next to me as my head was spinning in circles. The alcohol was beaming in my blood while my eyes could barely see straight.

"What are you even doing here?" I scoffed as I carefully tried getting back on my feet.

"Well, I had to go look for the bottle of Genever since it was kind of expensive" He shrugged as he looked at the hand, I was holding the bottle in.

"Fine. You can have it back" I answered but before I would give him the bottle back, I started emptying it. I was chugging down the strong liquid as if it was water.

"Eleanor, I don't think you should be drinking anymore" His hand reached out for me, but I dodged it and kept on drinking.

Everything was slowly starting to become a blur with every drop that hit my tongue. The bottle was over halfway full when I first got to it and now seconds were counting down until it was empty.

"Just give me the bottle, you're going to blackout" Joost stepped closer, and I stepped further away.

I let my feet position get the best of me as I took a step back. I fell directly into the hay while still drinking from the bottle. As soon as my head hit the ground, the bottle separated from my lips and the alcohol flooded out of the bottle on my face, hair and clothes.