s k i n s

DEUX

P R R S E N T      D A Y 

. . .

SHE HAD LOST ALL HOPE OF BEING FOUND

Maybe it all began when she realized her whole life had changed. 

When she realized no one was coming. 

No one. 

No one. 　　　　　　　No one. 

She had to repeat it to herself over and over again, just to realize her family wasn't coming, her boyfriend, her friends. 

All of it. 

It was lost. 

And she was broken. 

Chained and beaten. 

Till there was nothing left but an empty soul. 

. . . 

I could swear that the gash in my arm was only a few days from being infected, and then death would come. 

Sweet relief, I'm surprised I'm not dead already. 

From the torture. 

My jaw clenches and I wince in pain, it travels down my whole body and I feel my bones start to shake. 

Somehow I always felt that way. 

Shaky.

I look up from where I am. Hands zip-tied behind my back. At least I could move my legs.

He didn't always have my hands behind my back. When I was first brought I would spend hours chewing at the plastic, waiting for it to snap apart in front of me. 

And each time I came close enough to it, he brought the chains and for a while that's all that binded me.

The cold metal, digging into my flesh.

I was nothing but prey here, and he knew it. 

. . . 

My stomach clenched from hunger and I vomit acid, he sedated the water I was given so I was rarely in pain. My body numbed to the core. 

So much so that I couldn't even feel anything anymore. 

Or maybe that's because I'm trapped here, having not seen the sun since then. 

No sounds. 

But darkness. 

My surroundings were horrible, walls wet so the air is thick. 

A blanket on the floor and a mattress on the opposite wall. No pillow. 

A concrete floor and a door. 

A door I'd been dying to open since my eyes first adjusted to the green lighting of the room. 

He'd locked it, bolted it and from others sounds either lodged the handle with a chair or moved something in front of the door. 

I don't have a window, well a small strip of glass I could slide through now but I couldn't reach the ceiling. The ceiling being too high. 

And so, here I am, sedated, malnourished, dirty and bruised. 

But I would say the worst part about it is the nightmares. Even asleep I don't escape because I dream of darkness and shadows and demons and wake up to the sound of my own screams.