An Innocent Mistake (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 16

I bury my head in the pillow and sprawl the body on the bed. I allow my arms to slowly fold below the chest and strain the eyes directly to the ceiling, which has a fan rotating in low speed. I rotate my eyes around with it.
Today, I feel like I have something sitting in the corner of my head, unsettled, since after I have come back from the forest. As I was coming home, it didn't annoy me as much. But now when I am making my way to sleep, it suddenly spikes out like deer horns. Internally, trouble slowly grows, tying me to an anxiousness and gallons of fear pumps throughout.
I properly remember the exact words of Ragenite, when she spoke out her pain. Whatever I was feeling then, now it is ten times worse. I shiver in panic. The place that I have taken for my safety under being homeless- appears strange and start to give me goosebumps.
What if that happened to me? I think. What if Ragenite was evil like her mother?
My palms become sweaty, and heat releases under the skin. I feel so unusual with the exception of past days in this house.
But why?
Why am I so serious about this?
I blame my sensitivity for all the frantic reaction since I always take things to my heart easily, and for this I am diving extra deep. It is as if I want myself to be under a huge rubble and then cry for help.
I take my eyes away from the fan and regard the attention somewhere to the walls. Meanwhile, I realize that I am having a battle inside of me. No side is winning. Neither I am able to throw away that anxiety.
Stop thinking stupid, Bethany, I consistently reminded myself. Ragenite is a really kind person. She is none like her mother. Nobody is ever same.
I keep squishing in the positive thoughts, so the power of negative brain fails. I have always been bond to think negative and desperate that, I barely want to take a glimpse of good side.
Not everything is bad about the world and its people. It's the fault of some people, who don't think outside the confined box. If everyone sticks with one idea and never offers themselves to check out the other side, then always bad would come out of people. I don't want to make it seem bad. I don't want to fall thinking that Ragenite is against me, without any evidence. Instead she tells me her story that has happened years ago, in her childhood. She is different now and that's the reality.
I shouldn't let any crazy ideas occupy my mind. It would be better if I jump to another topic. I shake myself out and pretend that I am not thinking about anything. Nothing stays in my memory. And begin with a brand new mind.
It must have been nine past that's why there is no noise from downstairs. Perhaps Ragenite has gone to sleep. She might have been tired like me, stretching my muscles. Not much happened today, but I was still drowsy as to know that night guarded outside. I can't lull myself to sleep by staring into the sky, because window holds me in like a prison. I can't never look out the covered view.
I stifle a yawn and slump in the bed. My eyes are too weary to keep them open for longer. At the last moment before hugging sleep, I mutter, Ragenite is a very nice person. She would never harm me. I don't wanna think anything wrong. Then my lips met together and not a sound spills out.
🔸
I am shaken out of the deep slumber, around midnight. My arms touch around the body to assure that I am not hurt under the attack, as I think due to the sudden pounding on the walls. I am far from figuring where that loud distant noise has struck from. In the subdued environment, I restively charge around to willingly sigh that everything is in its place and there is no one in the room. Then immediately wish to drop back to sleep and blow it past my memory as a nightmare, that I don't wish it to see again.
I dissolve into the broken unconsciousness, not taking a second to shelter down the eyelids. This particular moment has disconcerted me very bad. At the end who wants to be forcefully pulled out from entangled threads of deep sleep to something silly.
Not long after, the object being violently tossed against the wall and lasting with a endless series of clanks, perhaps on the floor, I bolt up on the bed like a spring-set figure acting to the trigger. Eyes stick open in a shocking manner, piercing wide into the space.
What is that sound? I react, tensely. So annoying.
Whatever it is, it has totally stolen my beauty sleep. I can't go back to it, no matter what coaxes me. I am better able to see from the true awaken eyes, which always tells that one is no more dreaming.
Determined, I come out bed and clumsily motion towards the room door. The floorboard under my feet don't creak or groan. All through it, I decisively keep it sharp as a blade silent.
Slowly, twisting the steel knob the door opens and I begin peering outside, down the stairs. Steps dipped in black ink, are harder to see as they descend. I muster up the courage to take on the stairs to find out what is going on. I am very unknown about what would come in my way, but don't resign the idea of refusing. After all I don't want my sleep to be discomforted again.
In the midway, the pounding happens once more from somewhere close. I realize that Ragenite's room is merely down the stairs, against the wall. But I am extensively confused, that why is that loud noise keep happening. Is Ragenite involved in creating the scene. But my predictions are too vague to circle out the accurate reasoning.
I loosen the clasp from the banister and thrust to the opposite side. I stealthily glue my ears to the wall against me. Specifically at that while, no noise is produced, as if it never existed. But after having waited to couple seconds, steady to listen to the pounding and discover where it came from. Instead I hear something being dragged down the floor, shrieking as the two surfaces scratch against each other.
Can that be normal?
I climb down one more step and the wall ends. Ragenite's room is visible on the right side. From the bottom of the door, the flash of orange light pours out. That is a sign that Ragenite is awake and she must be practicing the disturbance.
But what is she doing?
I watchfully handle my every step and close myself enough to her room. But the door slightly swings open, hinges creaking, portentously breaking the outside silence and I am dumped in fear. I push back to the stairs to hide. The same orange light, supplements in the darkness, and slowly grows as the door manages to fully open.
I am struck to see Ragenite stumbling aimlessly out of the room, smacking herself on the wall and unconventionally blathering like a maniac. She trips over the fallen chair and goes falling on her face. Then barely puts an effort on her hands to lift herself up. I want to go and help her out, but am afraid of being caught red hand- spying on her.
I wonder what is wrong with her. She does not seem normal, as I witness the change in her voice, deep and heavy from the throat. Words came out of her mouth like she tried all her effort to suppress them and someone still forces through her unwillingness. One time when I hear her say something vivid and understandable. I discover that she is blurting out curse language, so harsh and gruesome. Some of it occurs to me as something nonsense, far from any knowledge of language I possess. I cover my ears instantly. I can't stand listening to an impolite, coarse change rolling in an intense words. They mark a terrifying impression on me and probably to those who have heard it.
I run upstairs to the room and fasten the door to any sort of lock. Stunned, my face is dry from seeing an enigmatic scene downstairs. That moment keeps repeating in my head as if a reel of movie is stuck in there. I am challenged to grasp on something unusual in midst of night. No matter how much the scene is rewinding and playing back on, I can't meet it to any sense. It truly appears as an alive nightmare.
For a while, I feel fake standing in this circumstance. I try to bypass it as a horrible dream, and close my eyes so when I open it, it would be gone. There would be no trace. But it isn't what I think. It is really happening. I am constantly hearing the screams from downstairs.
At last, I jump back to the bed, wrap the pillow to my face, covering the eyes to both ears. The outside shouts travel to my ears as muted muffles. They draw away from the protection. I feel a gulp wiggle down the throat from the slightest relief. Later, slowly, I uncover my face, and look forth to what is left.
Thump of the slamming door bounces among the bare walls and the shouts were gone. At least they are barely audible. I fight to fill in the pure waft of oxygen and calm down. The wind of chaos has passed and everything is stable, like after a thunderstorm and I go back to sleep.
Next morning, few knocks rattle the door. I trail out from dense sleep, with raised heart beat.
Oh, no. She is here!
I rush to the door to not let Ragenite in. The thoughts from last night are a haze in my eyes. Only thing that echoes in my head is the screaming and objects banging on the walls and floor.
"Bethany, the bright morning is waiting to meet you." Ragenite sweetly calls me. "Come on little child, get out of the bed."
Her voice is delicate and normal. I expect a distinctive call roaring at me to come down. I am standing against the door for my safety. I try to get used to voice calling me to come downstairs.
"Get up! Get up! Say goodbye to the sleep and open your eyes," she calls, alone voice in the house, like she is talking to the invisible air.
After using the bathroom, I inject a neutral expression across the already nervous face. While hands and feet quaver to move.
I go down, afraid, bound into one thought, despite I try to stop repeating the same idea over and over. I notice Ragenite in the kitchen fulfilling her morning task. On the table, there is a bowl, presumably containing cereal. As I pull out the chair to sit, the noise responds Ragenite that I have brought my presence down to her calls.
She comes out of the kitchen and gleams with endearment, as if I am her true close one.
"Had a great sleep, huh?" She stands inches away from the kitchen, optimism not leaving her face.
I crack an unreal smile and say, "Yeah, it was good," voice shaking in terror.
Ragenite comes near me and rhythmically drum on the table, with doubt coating her tiny eyes. I don't look up to her after the first time. Instead I pick the spoon and start to eat like everything is ordinary. I know she is glaring over my head, but I simply nod it away. Never depict the surprise.
"I knew it. That's why you slept longer. Just keep your eyes close and ......" her voice thins.
Then I am bit shock. I want her to replay the last line and explain what exactly she meant. In spite of all that, I don't dare to question.
Later, she goes back to her work and I comfortably eat. I scurry to stuff the spoons full of cereal, milk almost leaking from the corners of my mouth. I wipe them off with my arm, then dab the arm from the bottom of the shirt.
When I am done eating, I leave the bowl on the table and head my way upstairs, that Ragenite calls me midway, to wash the bowl because she has been working from early morning and her hands are sore. She is too old to work all the time.
I have never touched the soapy sponge and scrubbed any sort of dish. I worry how I am going to perform this task, even though it is just a bowl, probably doesn't worth much work and time.