Every breath feels like my last as I struggle to put one foot before the next. Feeling the heat redefining the shrivelled, hardened flesh of what used to be my lips.
Skin no longer serving a purpose. I
drag my limbs along with my soul to where nothingness lives. Walking for miles, hours, incognizant of my whereabouts. Just searching for some of that colourless liquid that seems so rare at this point. "Water". It even sounds exotic in my head.I think I may have just lost my damn mind. My eyes are shutting down gradually but I can still scope out that conspicuous domicile that I may be approaching within an hour if I trudge fast enough.
I say a little prayer in my mind, giving no power to the thought that it may be abandoned. The flashbacks are resurfacing but I push them as far back in my head as they can go.
The sun is beating my face yet my vision is becoming crepuscular. "Don't give in". Continually whispering words to yourself definitely does not give you a lot of motivation.
Abruptly I felt as though I was choking, my throat so dry that I'm afraid to even cough. My legs felt fluctuant and my hands grew numb. Reality was hitting that I definitely would not make it a few more steps, more less a mile.
Darkness swarmed in and heat took over, casting me into an oven of despair. I was no longer able to lift my eyelids and keep them open. The sound of my invigorated heart beat echoed throughout my head.
It sounded so similar to the distant rhythm that I heard at the holding.
Fear riveted within me like waves of displeasure. My head pounding and my mind swarming. This must be the end. I wanted to laugh at myself for even thinking that I had the slightest chance of making it out alive, but I could not even part my lips.
Pong, Pong, Pong, Pong, Pong
I opened my eyes and found myself on cold, hard, tactile ground. So familiar, too familiar. Looking to the left my eyes settled on the same pool of blood I laid in hours ago.
I felt my heart shatter, I wanted to scream. But we all know what happens if you scream in this place. First you hear the chains dragging, then the rattling of the bars from a distance, coming nearer with each footstep. Then he appears. Smiles and all. Psychopath.
Opening my cage is always sinecure for him which I never understood. I tried my hardest to release myself from this metal hell hole, but constantly overestimated myself. I felt inefficacious and baffled.
He would take the chains and wrap them around my neck and drag me around the cell, knocking my head on the walls. With breathing restricted and my head being knocked around I was bound to pass out. Then he would stop to hit me in the sides with a rusty iron pole. Didn't have the audacity to even get proper torture weapons. Imbecile.
You know what? Fuck this. I started screaming. I'm about to scream until he gets in here and beat the living daylight out of me. My eyes were shut. I am ready to die. Ready to be free. I will never stop screaming. I feel my throat begin to sting and a tingling sensation in my scalp. Like fingers running through them.
Instantaneously I felt hands grabbing my sides and my arms. Almost pinning me down. I started kicking at them with absolute force. He has never brought anyone to help him before. I must have made an impact in security after I escaped.
I kept trying to scratch and kick at my antagonists, my eyes still shut. Then I heard something. I heard someone yell. "Don't touch her!". And almost immediately grips loosened, though still holding me.
One thing about the holding, he never talked. I have never heard his voice. This was definitely strange. On that note my eyes fluttered open. My vision blurry.
I saw multiple faces. Clean faces and neat hairstyles. White walls surrounded us. "Where am I?" I heard myself whisper with a raspy voice. Pity over-washed a few faces. "This is the Sanctuary." A very rosey, bald man replied.
My head pounded. "Not the holding." My eyes closed once more as I felt myself draw nearer to unconsciousness.
Sanctuary....