SEVENS

GRIT AND GRIND

A|N: this chapter has gore

When I peeled my eyes open it came with the panic of not being able to breathe. It took me several seconds to connect my limbs back to my body and then differentiate the pain from the panic. I felt tight across my abdomen, and when I moved to reach toward the gag I felt filling my mouth my stomach gave no warning before lighting up like it was on fire.

I tried to breath in but choked on the gag. The resulting coughing only made the burning across my stomach worse. I reached in panic as I only choked and coughed more, hooking my fingers into the spit dampened folds of the fabric gag. It slid from my mouth like a slug, trailing my own spit down my cheek.

The first couple breaths were closer to coughs which set my  side on fire. After, I breathed slowly on my back letting my elevated pulse calm itself. When I felt stable enough I raised the gag which was still gripped in my right fist so that I could see it. I could feel the vomit rise in my throat as I registered what it was that had quieted my screams.

The pair of lace underwear lit by the midday sun was petal pink and stained.

As quickly as I could I flung the garment across the room and climbed the counter to my feet. Struggling to my feet stole my balance and it took several seconds of convincing myself that the room wasn't actually spinning to actually believe it.

Slowly I placed one foot forward and then placed weight on it. I fell forward into the wall like I had planned. There was no way for me to move other than to grip onto the nearest thing and fall until I reached where I wanted to go. I didn't trust my legs to hold me upright without help.
So with the room seemingly whirling under my unstable feet I fell from one wall to the next moving unstably to my room. The laundry room door had been closed in what I assumed was an attempt to forget about me, and place me out of mind. I struggled to open it without also falling with it. When I got through the door I slid along the hallway wall struggling to stay righted with nothing to grip. Several times I had to pause in my twelve foot trek to allow the heat crawl up my chest to cool.

As much as I wanted to go straight to my room and collapse to the mattress I knew I needed to inspect the damage. I stopped halfway down the hall, across from the bathroom door. It would hurt, falling across the hall. I knew it, but so would bandaging up whatever mess Mark had left me in. I let myself take my time though, there was no point in rushing. I flexed my fingers against the drywall, taking in a feeling other than pain. My lip trembled. I pressed my forehead to the wall, and hissed as the cut to my temple reminded me of its presence.

I took one last breath before turning to face the bathroom door. I took one step and let my body fall into the other wall. My knees buckled and I only just caught myself with my hands. The quick movement pulled yet again at my stomach. Once I was able to bring my feet under me again, and place my body weight on them I moved. I took the next steps to the sink as slowly as possible using the porcelain edge of it to keep myself upright.

I looked into the mirror and from the one look at myself I knew three things: the first was that just by looking at the state of my tee shirt I knew that I should be feeling more pain than I was, second I knew that if I removed my shirt that pain would be multiplied by a thousand, and third I knew that the only way to properly take care of it would be to remove said shirt. And yet that was only my stomach, I also would need to take care of the gash on my temple.

I lifted tentative fingers and pressed at the skin around the gash. The thin scab that had begun to clot the wound broke. I hissed at my stupidity, cursing the invisible dagger that sunk into my temple. Blood bubbled to the surface of the cut and began to carve a path down my cheek. I had to slam my hand back to the counter to keep from falling over from the pain.