My demons (book 1)

Forced entry

The halls were empty, everyone was still in class. Aisha had always enjoyed wandering empty halls but today it just made the feeling of uneasiness grow inside her chest, making the urge to empty her guts growing stronger, the need to leave the school intensifying with each step she took. Her heart was racing and she had to lean against the wall to try and stop the walls from spinning. 

She groaned at the new sensation of her emotions overpowering her. She usually buried them so deep inside, they could barely be visible under the hardened façade, on ever since her mother had walked away. 

She didn't think she had lost control over them in years. She supposed it was just easier not to care. No one could hurt her. And when her mom left she swore to herself she will not let anyone else hurt her that way, that she will never let her emotions take the best of her. Feelings were a weakness she couldn't afford. 

And there she was with her thoughts scattered all over the place, panic swirling just beneath the surface making her feel as if she was suffocating.

She pushed herself off the wall she was leaning against and finally took off. As she walked out of school her heart beat started slowing down and with the increasing distance, it had gotten easier and easier to control her breathing again.

As the fog started clearing from her brain, she decided to go to the one place that could always calm her down; the forest. The peacefulness of it overtook her as she walked deeper and deeper into the woods, feeling better with every step she took. When she determined she was far enough from the town to not be found by anyone, she lay on the forest ground and stared at the sky. 

Dark clouds were forming and her thoughts wandered back to my mom. Where was she now? Was she watching the exact same clouds? Was she happy? 

She hadn't seen her or heard from her since she went missing when Aisha had just turned ten. Dad told her she ran away with her lover and she never cared enough to learn if that is true or not. Or at least that's what she had been telling herself. Maybe knowing the truth would only cause her more pain. Maybe, she didn't seek out the truth in order to protect her already shattered heart. 

All she really knew was that her mother had left her. She tried not to think about her at all. After some time, she mastered the art of shutting every thought of her down and eight years after her disappearance, her mother was nothing but a shadow of a memory. 

Until today. 

As she lay on the cold forest ground, she could see her again, her image so vivid as if she just saw her yesterday. Aisha's eyes started watering and she got mad at herself. She fought hard to stop the tears from spilling, she had cried enough for that woman.

Her disappearance was never truly explained and while most of the time she could ignore that fact, push it so far back in her brain she nearly forgot about it but In the light of todays' events, it pushed its' way to her consciousness again, gnawing at her insides with doubts and fears she had tried to supress for so long. 

She couldn't decide if she felt relief upon connecting her feelings for Alina's disappearance with her mother but she figured it might be why she had bene feeling so much, her past trauma making itself known yet again.

And just as she finally started recognising the shape of the clouds above her, her mind formed two simple words, echoing in her head long after she left her spot to wander deeper into the woods. "Forced entry, forced entry, forced entry..."