I had killed him. I had killed him with no emotion present. I felt his blood on my hands even though it wasn’t there. Every time I dreamt, I had the same dream.
It was pitch black. I was running and then all of a sudden I was standing by a gnarled apple tree and there he was. Lying there limp and lifeless. His pale face buried in the grass, his hand out-stretched, clawing the ground. I screamed. I sprinted, trying to get away from this apple tree but whichever way I turned the tree would always appear in front of me. I could hear the howls from my mother and the screams from my sister. I sank to my knees covering my ears trying to keep out the horrible shrieks.
“Stop it!” I screamed. I felt something seize me by the arms and drag me away. “Get away from me!”
Their hands dug into my arms. I pulled and kicked. I could smell that familiar stench of alcohol, cigarettes and cologne. I knew who it was. It couldn’t be possible, I gasped. I knew where he was taking me. Where he often took me.
“Get off me Mike!” I yelled. I screamed for help but he put his hand over my mouth.
“Be quiet and do as I say, there’s a good girl.” He hissed in my ear. We were at a battered wooden door. He kicked it open, shoved me in and locked the door behind us.
“It’s just you and me now poppet.” Mike whispered, coming closer to me so we were face-to-face. Shafts of light lit up his chiselled features. I was terrified about what he was going to do next. He pushed me against the wall and-.
I woke up with a start. Tears running down my cheeks, my body slick with sweat. My heart hammered in my chest.
“It’s okay Nicole, it was only a dream…” I panted to myself. I wanted my mum. I wanted her to wrap her arms around me and kiss me on the top of my head. I wanted to breathe in her sweet smell of talcum powder and perfume. I couldn’t though. My mum refused to see me even though she doesn’t know what Mike did to me. Tears spilled down my cheeks again as I thought about how she had looked at me with her big teary eyes.
“How could you do this?” she had croaked. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. When she knelt down over his battered body I wanted to be sick. She had no idea what he had done or what he was capable of, I just didn’t have the heart to tell her.
Harsher tears dribbled down my face. I knew what my family thought of me. Even thinking about it made my stomach lurch. The feeling of being helpless and unwanted by my family was unbearable. I curled up as best as I could with the straight jacket wrapped tightly around me. I tried to ignore the horrible thoughts of my haunted past swirling around my head but no matter how hard I tried one would pop up when I wasn’t concentrating and then all the memories would come flooding back.
I cried for a long time in the padded room, not only because of the dream. I had realised what I was.
“I am a monster,” I told myself. “A cold hearted killer and no matter how many pills Mrs Powell and Miss Cook give me or however many therapy sessions I have they cannot change what I am.”
