Short Stories

Dark

When I was a little girl, boy's thought it would be funny to trap me in a closet by myself.

"Let me out, Please" I could only hear the sound of little boys laughing from the other side of the door, as they laughed even louder after hearing the soft sobs of a 7 year old girl. One of them actually had spoken, "You're not going anywhere" the unknown boy said laughing hysterically at my miseries. I never liked being alone, especially in the dark.

"Please let me go" my eyes started shedding tears, as I tried with as much force I could put into pushing the door. But of course, the door hadn't budge one bit. That's when fear had started kicking into my system, I was hearing small screeching noises and to a 7 year old kid, your imagination tends to run wild. My heart started beating erratically unable to contain its normal pace, beads of sweat was dripping from my forehead, and my palms became clammy to the touch. I had a fear of being alone in a dark enclosed space, and he knew it. To which I learned the term as, claustrophobia.

As an even younger child, I was told to hide when something bad was to happen. My mother said that she would hide me for my protection. I never had seen the bad sides of my family because of it. But I wasn't dumb enough to know that something was wrong. I had ears of course, My mom would hide me in an empty wooden toy box that had a single lock on the outside. As soon, as she felt that something wasn't going to end well she would tell me to go inside and wait until she comes to get me. She would tell me to plug my ears and could to ten and when I was done I was to count again.

Everytime my mom would come back with a smile on her face, and lead me out of the box and tuck me in for bed. Sometimes I would find bruises on her face, or scratch marks on her arms but every time I was taken out of that box she looked at me with a smile.

I didn't know that my mom would put on the lock when she would put me in the wooden toy box, but I realized when the next time 'something bad' was happening. I witnessed something for the first time, I saw my father angry and drunk and I almost got hit by him. My mother blocked the way and ran me to my room shutting the door and placing me in the empty toy box. This time she was shaken, I saw the eeriness on her face. I heard the lock shut, and I heard my father burst into my room.

"Where is she!" I heard the yell faintly even with my ears plugged. I couldn't stop the sound from invading my ears, I started counting to ten.

"She-e's not in here" My mother sat down on the chest.

"You're lying to me!" I heard the stomps of his feet and a loud slap of the skin.

My body started trembling and I started counting faster, "You Damn Right Know Where She Is!" I then again heard another slap. I didn't plug my ears but yet instead I hugged my knees to my chest. Not one word was spoken out of my mom.

"Why Won't You Speak Lady!" A loud thump was heard on the floor as well as a grunt of a woman's voice only knowing it had been my mother. "Where Is Eric?!" My father demanded, my mother did say a word but I heard the sound of a wince of pain and the ripping of hair strands.

"I said, Where Is Eric!" Within a second I could finally hear the voice of my mother. "He-e-e's sleeping over at a friends house".

"You must think he's a lucky bastard" I heard him say and I heard as he continuously beat my mother, I was unable to do anything at any given moment during that time, I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I couldn't cry, and I couldn't scream. I felt as If I was paralyzed, Unable to move at all, as I suddenly lost the ability to talk. I stayed there the rest of the night, and I stayed there till morning sleeping in the cramped area of the wooden toy box.

It was taking too long for my mother to open up the box and I slowly realized that I should try to get out. But as I attempted to try and get out that was when I found out that the box had been locked. Everything was fully active. I was able to speak and move again but all I could feel was fear.

I jumped from my spot and started shuffling in the small area, I started to panic. I yelled for help and I wasn't getting an answer. It was 5 hours later until someone had come to my rescue. I was starving and I was crying and I was scared and I was shocked. I was exposed to the light finally to see Eric and my older brother open the chest and my grandma behind him. I cried as I got out of the chest and I saw a stone cold body of my mother laying on the bed.

My father had choked her to death, and I didn't understand that till my grandma had explained that she wasn't just sleeping on my bed. My father got arrested with murder and I lived with the trauma of enclosed spaces the rest of my life. I lived with my grandma with my brother Eric and he thought of my pain as funny, as when his friends came over they thought it would be a funny idea to lock me up in my bedroom closet. Where the memories of the constant darkness I would be in and then the memory of not being able to come out started to scare. With what I used to be fine with as a kid scared me today, The trauma I live with now still stays with me.

That's why I am so afraid of the dark.