|| Inevitable ||

III

A/N: 113th in horror? Can I get an Amen up in here for our creepy protagonist?

*Shouts Amen to empty house*

Seriously, you guys are amazeballs.

Fear.

They say fear is the greatest motivator in life. It moves cities, forces the hand of leaders, and sits waiting in the shadows of each of our hearts. When you are at your most vulnerable, it seizes you, squeezing and crushing the very light that makes you. It replaces light with darkness, taking you over until there is nothing but that soul crushing black of acceptance. The acceptance that your life will never go back to how it was. Because when that fear finally leaves you, crawls from your body like a crippling illness, it takes a part of your soul with it. Leaving you just a little bit less whole. That is when you sigh, and vow to move on and forget all that had consumed you. You walk in the light of day, despite the emptiness that you harbour within you. But it's not the same, and you know it. You can try to pretend you were never touched by such an evil, but that would be the biggest lie you have ever told. You may live through it, live out the rest of your days without even a thought of what lurks in the shadows. One day you may even be comfortable and happy, truly content with your existence.

And that is when fear returns.

I went through many theories as I sat in that cellar.

Day one, I believed that after he shut that door, that this would all be revealed to be some sort of sick joke. Played on me by a group of sick strangers. Day two, I believed that someone would pop out and say 'Surprise!', saying it was all part of a strange television show. Day three, I believed that this man was one of my long lost relatives who had finally come to my rescue on the lonely streets. Day four, I believed that this was all a dream and that I would wake up at any moment. I spent the day slapping myself in the face. Day five, I believed I really had been recruited by a government agency, that this was all part of my training. Day six, I couldn't take it any longer. I broke the lamp by my bedside and used the glass to cut a deep gash down my arm, hoping I would wake up at age sixteen in my pink bedroom and surrounded by my family.

I didn't wake up.

Day six was the day I accepted it. The day that fear won. That he won. I cried hopelessly in that corner of my cell. The blood from my arm gushed out and pooled around me, soaking my clothing to a red and bloody mess. There was no hope anymore, tomorrow he would kill me in some gruesome way, so why not end it all now? I stared blankly at the opposite wall as my life drained away with each drop of blood, and every single tear. Fear had already taken my soul, why should my body wait around?

I expected to die that day, but I didn't.

I had closed my dry eyes, praying for God to take me away. But he didn't. I passed out with the loss of blood, there was so much blood. I could see my own reflection in it's murky surface. Fragile and pale, I looked ready to die. Yet, I didn't. I woke up in the afternoon, on my bed. The colossal amount of blood in the corner was mopped up and my arm was stitched and bandaged. I felt woozy from whatever painkiller I had received, but anger still spread through me. It twisted and spiralled into rage. Pure, unadulterated rage.

How dare he stop me from ending my own life?

I tore that room apart. I teared the mattress to shreds, tipped over the table, threw the chairs at the walls. I went berserk. Tossing everything in my destructive path. I screamed, roared at the top of my lungs. All emotion went into my cries. I threw all the remnants of the room at the wall facing the end of my bed, which I had come to realise was a two-way mirror disguised as a plain wall. I knew there was cameras, but there was a fucking window for him to watch me through too.