IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD

Chapter 21- The Next Four Years Part 2

Day 373-

I sat in my room, crying for the first time. No feelings, no emotions, only tears. I cried for eight days until my body literally didn't have tears to cry. But the tears weren't the shocking part; the shocking thing was that I should have died while I was crying. I was supposed to have died.

The human body can go up to four weeks without food. Mahatma Gandhi survived 21 days of complete starvation. But water is something that the human body needs to live. 60% of the adult human body is made up of water and each living cell in our bodies is in need of water to function properly.

That being said, most of us don't eat for about five to six hours and complain that we are starving. I went six weeks without as much as a crumb of food and went six weeks without water.

Scientifically, I should have died.

But I did suffer from the not eating or drinking anything. My body mass reduced significantly and my skin became weak, my body was starting to use my muscle as food after my fat content had been reduced to zero. So in summary, my body tried to eat itself from the inside out.

But that leads me to the actual significant part of this story.

This might make you feel sad or even feel bad for me but I, Katrina D. O'Conners, made this choice and was willing to stick by it. I became suicidal. So sadly the first feeling I had felt was a felling of desire. A desire to die.

The day after I had cried for eight days straight was also the mark of five weeks with out food and water. Lillian walked in my room and left the door open so that a guard could stand outside and supervise but not listen to our conversation.

"Hey," she began with a voice that was soft and sweet," Ya look skinny and sad. Everything alright?" I looked up at her and asked," I look sad?" She seemed started by my question and said nothing in return, only sat in front of me with a look of confusion.

"I don't feel sad. I don't feel anything other than this one little feeling." She smiled at me compassionately," What's that feeling." I paused and thought for a moment, pondering what my words to her would be.

"I am not sure how to explain it other than telling you this: I refuse to be an outcast and I refuse to be treated like one. I refuse to be pitied and refuse to feel pity. I refuse to speak and to be spoken to. I refuse to listen, to eat, drink, think, or sleep. I simply refuse."

She looked at me quizzically," Well, if you refuse all of those thing, what are you?" I stopped again and thought about it even though I knew what it all meant.

"It means that I am better off dead." She gasped and took my hand. I simply looked at the hand on mine and then back at her with a hard expression on my face. She pulled back realizing what I meant. I didn't want her to touch me because after all, I had said that I refuse to except and or feel pity.

"You would rather be dead. You feel sui-" She paused and lowered her tone," Suicidal." She whispered. I nodded and then slipped back into my normal state of silence and distance, not acknowledging anything around me.

She got up and walked to the door. But before she exited she said," I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can," She walked back to me and whispered in my ear," You started crying on Rickey and your birthday." She then walked out without hesitation.

I heard her loud and clear, mainly because she was right. She understood and it was apparent in her compassion towards me. But her words still didn't even begin to shake my deep desire to get my life over with. If anything, her pointing out why I cried made me even more sad.

Then a week later, I began to eat but not only that, I ate until I felt strong and then began to work out. I was seven with a large amount of free time so I did nothing other than push-ups, sit-ups, and even pull-ups in the door way. And of coarse I did other things that were possible to help me get fit in that tiny room. So by the time I was eight, I had a six-pack and triceps. But don't worry, my eight pack, back muscles, arm and leg muscles, and butt muscles all filled in by the time I was ten.

I guess you can say that that was a somewhat happy ending to my suicide story because when I started eating and working out, my want and need to shrivel up and die slowly faded away into my constant feeling of nothing.

But there is one more thing that happened in the second year that changed some things. This part changed something significant for not only me but for Hally Waters...

Day 654-

I woke up and did two hundred push-ups and three hundred sit ups, because I felt an unusual surge of energy. So, as assumed, I was one of the most sweaty seven year old's to walk the face of planet earth ever.

I walked over to the bathroom and headed to a shower. Pulling back the shower curtain, I heard other girls beginning to come into the bathroom. I quickly got in my stall and shut the curtain after recognizing Hally's unmistakable, ugly laugh.

But nothing changed. No panic came over me making my heart race and no feeling of uneasiness in my stomach from nervousness made me want to vomit. I just went about showering, knowing that if Hally wanted to mess with me, I was a seven year old with abnormally big muscles and she was a nine year old who could stand loose twenty pounds.

So I pulled off my sweat soaked sports bra and hung it on a hook on the wall. I then turned the handle and let the water start heating up. I didn't feel any emotions but I still hated cold showers.

I stuck my hand under the falling water to see if it was warm but it wasn't quite there yet so I stepped back and slipped off my shorts and underwear. Now, standing naked in the stall, I felt the water and it was perfect temperature but just before I could step under the water fall of heavenly warm water, my shower curtain was ripped open.

I stood feeling the cold air hit my back thinking, Oh crap... She is gonna start the whole Ender's Game thing. How fun!

"Nice bod," I heard a high familiar voice say followed by giggling. I turned and said," Nice... Oh wait, there isn't anything nice about you." Cold hatred burned in her eyes but I knew that she still saw my same distant look.

There was a silence that lasted maybe thirty seconds and in that time I thought, I rarely talk, so I guess I should make it memorable. Ender's Game it is.

"Your father would be proud, attacking a kid in the shower, with your buddies." I gestured to the two girls standing behind her, Jessica and Petra. She then told them to leave, never breaking eye contact with me.

I backed against the wall. Soon, Hally jabbed her fist towards my face but when I dodged it, her fist smacked against the tile with a crack. She cradled her hand and got a little teary eyed but then re-lit the flame of anger in her eyes.

She came at me again and managed to put me in a head lock. She dragged me out of the stall and pulled me toward the sinks on the other side of the bathroom.

I pulled out of the hold on my head and leaned my back against the wall. With all my strength I kicked her hard in the chest, launching her back. She slammed hard into a stall door.

Although she didn't sustain brain damage, she hurt her back and hurt her fist so I was okay with the out come. She got up and left as her tears began to flow from her eyes. I simply walked back, in all my naked glory, to my stall and continued my long awaited shower.

I wasn't hurt and I had no new emotion of any sort so things seemed to be normal. But I thought in the shower and wondered what she felt. Indeed, she felt some pain for punching a wall and slamming into the door, but I wanted to know if she felt any more anger or even a feeling of defeat.

I, for one, felt absolutely nothing.

From that day forward, though, Hally had a new spark of hatred for me but didn't have a want to try and hurt me again. She new that I was more capable of hurting her than her me, so she left me alone. Well, she left me alone until The Damian Thing, but that is a whole nether story.