After-Effects

6

Keith

As I struggled to awaken, the murmurs in the distance grew louder, an exchange whispers that seemed to seep from the shadows themselves.

I heard faint voices in the distance, but my eyes were stuck shut. It felt like an invisible force was holding them closed. I was trapped in a dark void, running from something, but I didn't know what.

I was breathless, terrified, and disoriented. Someone or something was right behind me, but I couldn't see. I was consumed by a hidden fear, its source unknown. Yet, somehow, my mind sensed its presence. The fear crept through my body, growing stronger. I couldn't identify it, but I felt its grip tightening.

Then, as if in response to my desperate pleas, a distant scream pierced the air, echoing through the void with a haunting cry: "KARRY!" The sound sent shivers down my spine, its anguish and terror resonating deep within me.

I jolted awake, my heart racing with cold unmeasured terror, as I frantically scanned my surroundings with a sense of utter disorientation. The familiar contours of my loved one's face were nowhere to be found, replaced instead by the unsettling silhouette of a brunette stranger, her petite frame entwined in the sheets beside me.

I stumbled out of bed with a clumsy haste, landing with a jarring thud, the woman stirred up awake, her eyes fluttering open with a confusion that mirrored my own. Her gaze darted about the room with a desperate intensity, as if seeking answers to the same questions that were racing through my own mind.

My eyes widened in stunned recognition as the fog of confusion lifted, revealing the unmistakable features of Rose. And then, like a bolt of lightning on a stormy night, the memories of the previous evening came flooding back images and sensations that crashed over me with breathtaking force. Moments that were all shady now flashed before my eyes, a recollection of frustration, anger, and conversations choked me.

Denial was sighting tight in my defense, a fragile fortress I clung to with desperate fervor. "I would never do that," I protested, my voice a weak whisper, a pathetic attempt to convince myself, to convince the world, of my innocence.

"I would never do that to my doll," I repeated, using the affectionate nickname I'd given her, as if the mere utterance could conjure up a reality where I was still a faithful, loving partner. But the words rang hollow, a cruel mockery of my own deceit, as the evidence of my infidelity screamed out against me, a chorus of shame and guilt that I could no longer silence.

The passionate marks on her body, like a sinful map of our illicit encounter, etched a damning testimony to the reality of my worst fears.

The tender bruises, the gentle bites, the soft whispers of fingerprints on her skin, all served as a brutual reminder of the night's crime, a physical confirmation that the nightmare I'd hoped to confine to my subconscious had, in fact, played out in gruesome detail. The sight of those marks, like a cold wind on a winter's night, extinguished the flickering flame of denial, leaving only the bleak, harsh truth in its wake.

The recollection of her touch, her lips, her whispered pleas, all came rushing back, a sensory onslaught that left me gasping for air, my mind struggling to keep pace with the sheer agonizing remembrance.

I stumbled backward, gasping for air as if I'd been punched in the gut, my eyes fixed on Rose with a desperation. I crawled toward my clothes, my hands shaking like dry withering leaves in storms, my fingers trembling with a weakness that bordered on paralysis.

I yanked on my clothes with a frantic urgency, the fabric tangling around my legs as I struggled to cover myself, to hide from the reality of what had happened.