Heaven above

Chapter 1

I'm cold. I'm always cold here. I don't even know where "here" is.

"Come on sweetheart, Don't make me force-feed you..."

My eyes snap open as soon as I hear the man's voice, but as I look around I realize I'm lying in my bed. I shift my gaze to the stack of textbooks that scatter onto my floor as if they were merely breadcrumbs.

"Shoot, I must have fallen asleep again," I state obviously.

I feel something tickling its way down to my mouth from my nose. I reach up to scratch my upper lip but feel a warm liquid on my fingertips.

"Crap," I say unfazed.

For the past month, I've had this melancholy dream. I'm sitting in a dark room, and the only light that illuminates the area is hung over my head. I'm strapped to this chair and can almost feel the rope digging into my wrists. Sometimes I just sit there for hours and watch the light dangle above me. Those were the good dreams, those were the dreams I could wake up from and not be terrified to go back to sleep.

The bad dreams, however, made my skin crawl every single time the memory of it resurfaced in my mind. I would sit in that chair and watch the light until I would hear footsteps and the creak of the door opening to my left. Heavy steps would make their way over to where I was. The person would rub their fingernails over my shoulder, sending chills to every inch of my body. Until they made their way in front of my line of sight.

A tall, well-built man would stand in front of me, and mumble things to himself. He would then take his long fingers and reach into a pocket of his jeans, and he would pull out a jar of red liquid. He makes his way over to me and runs his nails along my face before harshly grabbing my jaw.

"Be a good girl, and I won't have to hurt you"

He would always say those exact words. Those. Exact. Words.

I never opened my mouth, too afraid of what he would make me drink. My stubbornness landed me in painful situations. Sometimes he would peel my fingernails off. Other times he would stick thumbtacks into my foot. But the worst time was when he took his long finger, and drill into my eye socket. I always screamed but I never heard it, it was like I was put on mute. He would look into my eyes, with a grin rested on his face, and say:

"Come on sweetheart, Don't make me force-feed you..."