Tonight, Tonight She's Not Alone

I pulled a wooden chair away from the dining room table and dragged it across the floor to where she stood. “Sit.” I demanded, gripping the back of the chair. She did as told and sat down. “I’ll be right back, don’t you move.”

I slowly backed away, keeping my eyes locked on her fading figure to make sure she didn’t run. She quietly sobbed as I left and slouched down, resting her head in her hands. I blindly made my way around the house scrounging up some money to take with us. I grabbed a duffle bag from her closet and began filling it with her clothes and the small amount of cash I had found.

I was nearly done and was about to zip up the duffle bag until a sound reached my ears and caused me to jump: the creaking of the stairs. I stood up and crept along the hallway, quietly and slowly. I saw a dark figure reach the top stair and peer down the hall. It was hard to see but I imagined their eyes growing large when they saw me. The figure raced down the stairs and I quickly followed. It was her; she had disobeyed me and was making sure I was busy so she could get her chance to leave.

I frantically chased after her, nearly falling down the stairs. “You fucking bitch!” I heard a voice scream. It was my new found voice… but those couldn’t have been my words. No, they weren’t my words. They were my monster’s words, it was his voice.
“I’ll fucking kill you!”

She did a sharp turn into the living room and tripped over the couch that was set in the middle of the room. As I tried my hardest to follow her, the sharp turn caught me off guard and I was sent crashing into a wall face first. I tried to make a fast recovery from my accident but the amount of pain that was surging through my face and up to the core of my brain was too great to get over quickly. I felt warm liquid start to gush from my nose that had seemed to shatter under the force of my face colliding with a wall. I blindly felt around to get an estimation of the damage and felt that all was fine except my nose and mouth, which had been cut up from my teeth on impact. I got up and brushed away the blood with my hand and carried on my search for her.

“Where the fuck are you?!”
Not a sound penetrated the silence that lingered through out the house, keeping her hidden in secrecy. “I’ll fucking find you, you whore…” I growled. I felt like a rabid wolf stalking its prey, making sure I kept light on my feet and was prepared to attack at the slightest amount of movement.

The throbbing pain from my broken face brought itself to the front of my mind and I could no longer ignore it. I fumbled my way through the darkness and guided myself to the nearest bathroom by running my hand along the walls and large pieces of furniture.

Once in the bathroom, I ran my hands along the walls for the door and a light switch. I quietly closed the door and locked it and then turned on the light. I studied my face in the mirror and had to grab a large amount of toilet paper to wipe away all the blood that had been pooling on my top lip. Some of it had already dried and was hard to remove but with all of the red out of the way I could see the damage done to my face. My nose and the entire area around it had swelled and was turning a dark shade of purple and black. My eyes were streaked with multicolored bruises consisting of mostly light purple, pukey green, and red. My bottom lip was split in half and was slowly oozing blood as well. I pulled down my bottom lip and examined the inside of it. Well defined marks from my teeth biting into the flesh had swollen and gave me a mouthful of blood that I forcefully swallowed.

The salty taste of the blood churned in my empty stomach and the amount of pain I had caused myself by feeling around my face and pulling down my split lip caused me to dry heave a few times before acidic stomach bile raced itself up my esophagus and into the sink before me. The acidity of the liquid as it passed through my lips burned the wounds inside my mouth and brought tears to my swollen eyes.

I slunk to the floor and began to cry. Was all this really worth it?
‘Shut up,’ A calm, deep voice growled. It was my monster. He was inside my head and was pounding against my skull. ‘We’re not finished yet, get up.’
I ground my teeth together as he whispered to me and stopped crying. As I picked myself up from the floor I carefully wiped the tears away from my eyes and unlocked the door.
‘She’s still out there, go get her.’ I didn’t want to listen to him any more but I had no choice, he was in control, not me.

I slowly pulled open the bathroom door with a shaky hand and stuck my head out. I looked left and right but she was no where in sight. I inched my way out into the open and studied my surroundings with the light that was given off from the bathroom. A noise caught my attention and dragged me into the kitchen. There was hardly any light, making visibility limited but I did my best to feel around to find the cause of the noise.

My eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness and I could make out the usual shapes such as the empty wooden chair that had been left in the middle of the kitchen and the table. I saw what seemed to be the flick of hair from around the corner at the end of the kitchen and crept further to check it out. As I got closer I could hear subtle but quick breaths get louder and louder. Maybe those were just my breaths, but I was sure it was hers too.

Suddenly there was a loud scream and something shiny caught the little amount of light that was peaking around the corner from the open bathroom door.
“You bastard!” Her voice echoed through the house and the shiny object flashed again and again as she raised it above her head repeatedly. Both hands had a tight grip on the end of the object and she seemed to be using every muscle in her body to drive it down as fast and as hard as she could. Her eyes kept shut as she blindly swung up and down and her face scrunched up and turned away from me.

At first I felt nothing until she stopped swinging the knife around and my body crumbled to the floor. I saw her run away in tears and drop the bloodied knife to a few feet away from me. Then came an immense amount of pain, like nothing I had ever felt before. These were not nauseating stomach pains from not eating and swallowing disgusting amounts of blood, these were not the pains of running face first into the wall and destroying half of my face, these were something else.

I shakily raised my hand and ran it up and down my bare abdomen. The coldness of my skin was met with the warmness of a blood trickling out of each wound she had put in me. I realized I had stopped breathing for a moment and gasped loudly, taking in as much air as I could. After that, each breath I tried to take in was shallow and stopped short by the throbbing in my chest and stomach, causing me to make a low hiccupping sound.

Unexpectedly, the lights flicked on in the kitchen and I was blinded for a short moment. I saw her standing over me, tears running down her face and mouth ajar.
“Oh my god,” She sobbed, staring at me with large, watery eyes. She didn’t move as my body convulsed beneath her on the floor. The convulsion grew more intense and I felt my eyes roll back into my head.

Everything was quiet inside my head and I was all alone. In front of me was a golden ladder, surrounded by darkness on either side, beckoning for me to come closer. As I approached its calling voice, I heard it tell me it was time to go home; all I had to do was climb. I agreed, willing to find my real home among the others that were just like me. I grabbed the fourth rung up and placed my right foot on the bottom rung and started to climb. I had climbed about three rungs up and couldn’t go any further. Gravity was pulling me back down along with a frantic voice crying for help.
Faith, at least, in the form of gravity keeps me low at the ladder.
Time to crawl to the salty heel that pins my life…

Light once again flooded my eyes and my vision returned to normal. I could feel liquid running down the sides of my abdomen, dripping down onto the floor and pooling around me. The amount of blood gushing from my nose, chest, and stomach was making me light headed and I began to roll in and out of consciousness.

While unconscious, I was slowly making my way up the golden ladder inside of my head. Each time I would black out, I would start back at the bottom of the ladder and climb higher and higher. There was a black platform at the top and I could see a white light peaking over the top, waiting for me. I was destined to reach that platform and see the other side. Never before had I cared so much to try and find my home, the place where I truly belonged.
I never cared, never cared to try until now to find home…

While conscious, I was thinking of a million things all at once, but the one thought that had stuck itself to the front of my mind was: Where was my monster now? Had he died when the knife had entered my flesh repeatedly? Did he leave me to save himself? Where was he and why had he left me all alone?

I then started thinking of more reasonable things. What will my parents think? Will she ever talk to me again? What’ll happen to me after all of this is over? Then it hit me: Fuck, I’m dying. I didn’t have to worry about any of those things. I wouldn’t have to worry about anything any more. I was going to finally be set free.

My body was shaking again and the pool around me was growing larger. My breaths started to slow and become shallower and I was getting colder. A shiver went up my spine, causing me to arch my back and bring added pain upon my already aching body. I silently cried in agony as tears flowed from my closed eyes.

I let out one last sob before I lost control and felt my eyes roll back inside my head. In the distance I could hear faint voices coming near but as they got closer they seemed to disappear all together. I was back on the ladder and was climbing higher to reach the top. As I got further away from the bottom, my pain started to fade away and I was no longer hiccupping to breathe.

I reached the top of the ladder and pulled myself up onto the platform, being blinded by the white light that was waiting for me. I shielded my eyes with my arm and started to slip off the platform. I was falling and could see the ground below me, getting closer as my body hurled through the air.
The distance grows as the ground approaches...

For the time I was flying, I felt amazing. I was weightless and knew this is where I was supposed to be. Nothing else fazed as I grew closer to the ground; everything was gone and everything was over. Everything that had built up over the years of my life no longer existed. No more worries, no more Mark, no more lust, no more monster, I was free from the world.
Climb, climb, climb, to fall.