The Pretty Poison

PART 29 - Chapter 18

PART 29 – Chapter 18

The first thing I feel is the pounding of my blood rushing through my skull. Its thump-thump flutters my eyes open against their will and sends my thoughts into a blurring storm. Yet as soon as my hands reach to massage the pain away, I fall forward from the unwilling balance.

My head is jerked violently as my wrists catch themselves around the thin trunk of a tree behind me. They’re secured together by a strip of ripped cloth haphazardly wrapped around them. The floor of the forest spins and I can feel the world turning. Bark rubs on the veins below my palms and the tang of blood flavors my lips. They’re bleeding with the sting of the dirt pushing its way through my bloodstream. My hair falls in my face as I realize where I am and what just happened. Following Rachael into the woods, being knocked unconscious, the nightmare, Westley. It’s all too much. A shrill exhale squeezes out of my lungs but is blocked by the gag I chew on. I’m trapped.

And I thought these past few weeks have been hell.

Panic floods into my muscles, making every one of my thought pure terror. I pull at my wrist bindings thinking of all the insane reasons why she would want me dead. The narrow piece of fabric slips loose very easily, freeing me from the tree. My ankles are unwrapped next with my fingers fumbling with the rather exaggerated bow. The gag chaffing the edge of my lips is thrown down with as much force as I can manage. Large gulps of breath let me finally clear my mind enough to consider of all the ways she could kill me. I feel the blood from my lip and lick away the pain as best I can. Looking back on how easily I got out of my bindings, my hands rub my face abrasively. She didn’t this for me to die here, only to torture me from my own fear. Either that or she wants to toy with her prey.

My eyes flit though the trees. Where she is now and is she still watching me suffer from my impending demise?

I sit there waiting for the demon girl knowing she can’t be far. The hair on the back of my neck stands at attention because I can feel her there. Her inhumanity fouls the air I breathe. I back against the tree and watch the woods searching for her skin and anticipating my punishment. Any minute now my eyes could close forever. Every pulse could be my last and every shivered breath could be the end of my existence. Oh god, I don’t want to die!

Leaves whisper in the wind, forcing me to pinch my eyes shut from anticipation. Seconds go by and dread continues to tense my muscles. A minute more...

And nothing happens.

There is no wicked laugh or broken twig from the steps of her moving closer. The crickets sing their mating songs and the birds flutter their wings high in the trees. High in the sky, the sun still struggles to break through the dense leaves and thickening clouds. A squirrel on a branch beside me finds my gaze. After staring at me for a while, it moves away merrily, looking for whatever it wants. Nothing surrounds me but the quiet and stillness of the woods.

Collapsing on the ground again, my nails dig into the dirt. Snivels turn more into sighs as I try and calm myself down. I’m so tired of this anymore. Hope drains out of me with the tension of my muscles. It’s exhausting to try and be perfect while only being beaten and abused for my efforts. I don’t want to be scared anymore and I can’t go on doing it. If this is all my life will be, I don’t want it. Oh, how easy death would be compared this hell of a life.

A sliver of a branch lies on the ground beside the tree I was tied to moments ago. Knowing it most likely fell from when Lucy attacked my skull, my hands pick it up gingerly. It’s about five inches long and the broken insides of the tree are so bright compared to its dull bark. It’s how I’ve always felt about myself: bright on the inside and dull to everyone else. What if I broke down for good like this stick? Would everyone see how alive I used to be? I cradle the broken thing before wrapping my fingers around it with fury. This is my life. Shouldn’t I want it for myself? It belongs to no one else and now I’m taking it. I am finished.