Tangled Up In Him (Complete)

Chapter Six: Comfort in the Dark

        I was awake but my eyes were closed.  They were pinned shut by dry tears and for some reason beyond me, I didn't bother to open them.  I enjoyed the darkness my eye lids provided me.  They gave me a blank canvas to imagine anything; to pretend I was at home in my own bed, warm, safe.

        I can smell the warm aroma of my vanilla perfume; the one I brought out in the colder months.  The plush purple sheets rub softly on my cheeks and tickled my nose causing me to wrinkle up my face and open my eyes to my brightly lit bedroom.  I breathed in a heafty breath of the crisp winter air flowing through my cracked window.  Some how, in that one simple breath, I could smell all the pines that grew in my backyard; I could smell the frozen earth that my house sat ontop of.  I could hear the brown leaves being plucked from the trees by the light breeze that wrapped around dead branches.  My senses were hightened, I felt every thread on my comforter laying lightly on my warm skin.  I never have been so happy to be in my own bed.

        I layed still and embraced my comforter; the same one that my dad had given me all those years ago when he actually cared for me.  Little did he know that this comforter would be my only so called "comfort" for my later years when hed become distant from me.  I grew up most of my life taking care of myself and learning how to live on my own.  I grew to not be upset by my dads loss of affection.  Once I grew out of my "adorable stage" he didn't seem to care anymore.  I was used to not having a father; he became simply the man who gave me life, nothing else.

        My warm sensation suddenly became deathly cold, so cold that my body stiffens and falls to the ground with a hard thump.  The winter air is filling my lungs and almost suffocating me, chilling my insides.  I begin to shiver violently out of control.  I try to focus on calming my convulsions, I breathe slowly but my heart pounds out of my chest as if I'm having a night mare.  

This is what happens when you fight.

        The sentence lapses over my mind over and over.  I can hear it being whispered into my ear, as if Alec is hovering right above me, his warm breath is almost a comfort from the harsh weather around me but his cold words dig deep into my chest, raking my eyes with tears.  I closed my eyes tight, gulping down nervous saliva that appears in my mouth.  I shake so violently I almost convince myself I'm having a seizure.  My breaths become more rapid and quick and I soon find myself gasping for air until...nothing.  

        I open my eyes to the stone walls of Alecs dungeon and frozen earth in my mouth.  My body is shivering slightly but it seems more of a hum compared to earlier.  I find the strength to push myself from the cold ground as a small pile of snow falls from my bare arm.  I crawl over to the metal bed that harbours all my fear and crawl up and onto it.  Although my innocence was takin in this very spot, it provides me with the only comfort I have in this darkness.  I pull the dirty sheets up to my stomach as well as my knees.  I sit in dried up blood, staring at the wall as I shiver uncontrollably. 

        It took me a couple minutes to realize that everything was a dream.  My warm bed, the fimiliar smell of my perfume, and Alec's taunting whispers.

This is what happens when you fight.

        The dream was over but his words still linger in my head; as my body slowly warms from the blanket, my mind stays cold with these haunting words.  The words stop my heart, dead in its tracks; it sucks the breath out of my lungs and wisks all the surrounding air away from me.  I can't breathe when I hear these words.

        I soon began to wonder if lastnight was all a dream as well.  Alec scooping me from the ground to safety where I curled up in his arms willingly and embraced his touch.  It felt so real at the time but remembering Alec's cruel words distanced the thought of him being in any form, caring.  I wanted it to be real.  I wanted Alec to have some compasion inside of him; I wanted him to be at least partly human.  But what he did to me the other night was keeping me from believing there is any good inside of him at all.  He's abducted me, locked me up inside the darkest of rooms, and left me.  He left me to starve, he left me to suffer, he left me to die, here, alone.

        I looked down at my pale body.  My toes were shades of purple along with my finger tips.  They spent all night barried in the snow, I wouldn't be surprised if I had frostbite.  I held my toes tight to warm them up; they stung and burned when my hands touched them.  That's when I noticed my wrists.  There was a three-sixty,  deep red, ring around both of them,  dry blood clots formed as new blood seeped out of cracks and cuts.  As soon as I noticed my wrists, thats when the pain began.  The stinging, burning pain of severe rope burn.  I can't imagine why I hadn't felt this enormous pain earlier; I knew exactly what it was from; trying desparately to get away from Alec while he was teaching me a lesson.  I pulled on my wrists so hard that the scratchy rope dug gashes into my wrists.  I tried to wipe some of the blood away but my hands shook from the emence pain.  I cried loud, almost screaming.  I laid back into the bed and watched my wrists bleed out slowly.  The sting grew and grew until suddenly it subsided and my eyes rolled into their sockets.  I welcomed this darkness.  I used to think that I liked the dark because it gave me a chance to dream, to get out of this place.  But now I realize that darkness only temporarily subsides my pain.  And then I wake up.