Dipping Into Together

Ch 23

I almost scream in delight, but I don’t know who or what is near, so I don’t make a sound. Instead, I simply look around, trying to find the hole going up back into the underground dirt tunnel. I find it, about a yard or two away from me. But then I realize that I’m going to have to get up there somehow, and in order to that, it’s going to require something to step on. I’m way to short for these types of situations, I’m telling you. Sighing, I glance around, and my eye catches on something. There are rungs going up to the sewer opening.

Go figure.

Thinking back to how scared I was to jump when there was a ladder there the whole time, I almost felt like laughing.

Almost.

I put the flashlight in between my teeth, gripping it, and start to climb up the ladder. My muscles ache, my stomach growls, my bones tremble. To say it in short: I’m in really bad shape. Some food in my system would do wonders for me right now, but alas, there is no food to be had.

I climb up and heft myself up, immediately switching off the light when I’ve successfully maneuvered myself into the dirt tunnel. Perhaps I’ve just walked into a trap and Uncle is down here, waiting to take me. I know for a fact that there are many ways out of the sewer tunnels, so he must’ve taken one, because I know he didn’t come back this way. Crawling through the darkness, the flashlight tucked into my pocket, I hold my breath.

In a way I feel like I’m crawling my way to my ultimate death. I’m venturing back into the pits of hell, and I’m scared shitless. Holding myself together best I can, I continue to crawl, a part of me thinking that I’ve been crawling for what seems like forever, but what has actually been a mere few seconds or a minute. The dirt is soft against my palms, which are smeared in blood. My wrists ache, for the cuts made by the handcuffs are deep, same with my ankles. I have rings of open gashes on my wrists, which are bleeding even now. They must’ve cut pretty deep when Uncle was holding me above the water and also when I fell asleep hanging. My ankles don’t hurt as bad, because I didn’t really ever put much strain on them, except during my drowning escapade.

Sighing, I’m about to stop crawling a rest a little, when my left pinkie finger brushes up against something soft. Something a lot like fabric.

After trying so hard to be quiet. After keeping my shit together so well and my emotions in check, I throw it all down the drain. I can’t help it.

I scream.

Shooting back, hitting the right side of my body and part of my back against the dirt wall, I scoot away. It takes two seconds for me to be scooting backwards, grasping at my pockets for the flashlight.

I hear rustling, and scream again. Then, there’s another sound that silences me. There’s another scream. A female scream. A scared, broken, female scream.

I flick the flashlight on, and stare in horror, tears instantly welling up my eyes.

Because there, handcuffed, gagged, bruised, eyes wide in terror, is my mother.

For a long time, I don’t move. I simply sit there, staring at her. At what she had become. Her cheeks were sunken in and there were cuts on her face. Her eyes looked dead, defeated. I know the look, for I had seen the same expression on my face when I looked at myself in the mirror what seemed like so long ago.

I know that she couldn’t see me. I am shining a light in her face, and I am covered by the darkness.

For a moment, I think about simply turning off the light and crawling backwards, slipping back down into the sewer and never coming back. Because if I run away, I won’t have to face this. I won’t have to look at my broken mother and realize how real this was. As long as it is happening only to me, I can almost convince myself that it isn’t  really happening, that I am in some sort of a dream-state, and when I wake up, everything will be okay. But if I have to witness what has become of my mother, what he has done to her as well, then it isn’t a dream anymore, isn’t even close.