I am no one, I'm nothing

Capitulo Once

The veil was lifted, though it tried with passionate ferocity to cling on, shield the garish light of reality, dull the immortal sting of realization as Aldonza slowly, with difficulty, opened her eyes. Her head was spinning, causing the air around her to pulse with an invisible beat. She felt indescribably weak, as if her insides had been torn with rust, inexperienced hands digging around and grabbing, pulling, breaking until she was breaking, her exterior covered with the mangled flesh and bone and muscle and heartstrings. She was throbbing with pain. A web of thoughts, like spastic nerves, erupted in her line of vision, causing her to quickly blink with disorientation. The room was becoming smaller, closing in on the young woman as hands of thick, spicy smoke began to consume her, smothering her, forcing their way through her nostrils, lips, ears, eyes. Blinking back tears, she felt a low rumble physically stir inside her. It began to tumble inside her crumpled form, like a toddler doing messily-repetitious somersaults. Slowly, it crept up her spine, dancing with hard, convulsive steps to an uninhibited salsa. It filled her stomach, caused her sides to split like a burst seam, worked its way through her ribs like a rogue pinball in a rusty machine until it was filling her mouth with bile and rough, acidic stomach juice.

Aldonza was physically flung forward as she began to wretch, hot tears gushing from her puffy eyes as she heaved, pools of sick spewing onto her lap, the pure white sheets with which she was covered. Bringing shaky fists down, she gripped the sheet and flung it off of her as it landed with a wet smack on the wood floor beneath her. Stumbling out of bed, she fell to the ground as another violent wave of nausea hit her, where she proceeded to empty the contents of her stomach until there was nothing left but unforgiving stomach acid. With a desperate, hoarse groan she collapsed to the floor, a pile of weak, pale limbs. She shook and trembled as feeling washed over her, affecting not only her physical body but her heart and, finally, her mind. With a hard blow to the head knowledge came to her, and she remembered why she was acting like this, why it felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest and eaten in front of her.

It was because it had.

It was because the only person who made up what she considered her family was dead.

It was because she had been forced to kill him.

Letting out a woeful yowl, Aldonza pounded her fists on the ground and kicked her legs, a renewed bout of energy wracking her frame with angry shouts, flailing limbs and clawing fingers. She dug her fingers into her sides as though she was trying to physically hold everything inside, attempting in vain to keep it buried away. She pushed and prodded and held, though still it came tumbling out with each painful, wracked sob. Why had God punished her with this situation? Why had he decided that she-the useless whore who had already dealt with more in life than most anyone wanted to think about-needed to add one more painful event, one more reason to hate herself to the endless list? Why had he allowed things to become so good, so bright, only to have storm clouds gather and deliver a fatal, gruesome storm?

She shook and rocked and screamed and cried until she could no more. Trembling against the dirty, hard floor, she fell into an uncomfortably restless sleep.

---

Aldonza was floating, airily drifting through the clouds. She felt the wind softly caress her face, kiss her eyelids, her mouth, her cheeks with a sense of motherly love that she had never known, had always had to supply herself. The breeze drifted through her figure, renewing her with a rehabilitated energy. She was no longer weak, exhausted, pathetic, but now lively, young, carefree. Slowly she was set atop a particularly fluffy cloud as another one drifted over to her, like a lost puppy. It nuzzled into her skin, reaching her bones with airy contact as it hugged her with its cool yet warming presence. She was peacefully content, kissed by a dream.