Tiptoe Through the Tulips

His room was the downstairs of what must have been an ordinary house, small, white washed walls with random small photographs of a family that clearly wasn’t his. The side of my face was aching, throbbing with every second that passed.

The soles of my feet ached, sore from standing, one bruising from where his heavy boot had stamped. The carpet was thin, scratchy, irritating the increasingly hard skin. A strange time to think of wanting a Pedicure.
My back was about half a metre from the wall, the lower section curved awkwardly, I needed to sit down. Each breath stung across my ribs.

He was sat still, over the small wooden table just in front of me, scrawling something I couldn’t make out. Another notebook was open next to him, the pages I could see just covered in pencil lines, the same scrawled scratch again and again.

There was movement in the corridor, the sky outside the window was darkening, but I was losing concept of time, how early did it get dark now? How long had I been in here?

He snapped the notebook closed quickly, muttering to himself as he stood, rubbing a bruising fist across his tired eyes. “You hungry?” his voice was normal again, almost concerned, he met my eyes and I shook my head slightly, my body betraying me as my stomach let out a loud rumble.
I hadn’t eaten since I had been here.

How long had that been, three, four days? I was finding it hard to tell.

“You’re going to get ill if you don’t eat...” still calm, still nice. I shook my head again and he sighed, walking to the door and murmuring to the guard.

I dared lifting a hand to my face, wincing at the swelling on my right side, it almost felt like it was separate lumps for each of his fingers. He came back into the room, his boots heavily treading against the floor, he approached me, one hand wrapping around my wrist. I didn’t fight.

I had been in his room less than a day but I couldn’t anymore.
Everything hurt, I felt sick, confused, scared.
I hadn’t heard anything from anyone, there was no sign the others escaped, no sign of a panic.
But still no sign they had been executed.

I prayed it was because he was still interested in whatever fucked up game he was playing with me.

He pushed me to sit on the floor, my body sinking slightly with relief as my legs could finally have a break, he stood, walking back into the back room. It was locked, the key remained on his belt, he was in there a couple of minutes before reappearing, once again locking it behind him and moving so he sat behind me, legs open and one either side of me.

I heard rustling, him picking at something but didn’t dare turn my head, I stretched my hands in front of me, my bony ankles digging into each other with my legs crossed.

I had come to the room as planned, begged to make a deal. Of course he couldn’t resist his ego. I had begged for Beth and Carl to be let go, they were children, no bother.
He had listened, pretended to care, to give it some thought.

I had said I would rather they be free, have a chance and fail, become Walkers in the end than be shot in the back of the head.
This had made him snap and the beating had began, he did it silently, his strength seeming to multiply, my fighting useless. Finally he had stopped, my body screaming in pain. He had made me undress.

And then he had left the room for a few hours, leaving me locked in, desperately searching through anything I could, although every moment made me want to burst into tears.
Finally he had returned, the voice had turned calm and he offered me a deal instead. If I did exactly what he said he would spare them, not to be free, but to help, be part of Woodbury.

“Children shouldn’t die.” He had concluded, by now bathing the side of my face, rinsing the blood and washing my hair into the plastic tub from a sink. He kept speaking, his words floating in and out of my head, I was so tired, so hungry, my body was going to collapse.

What were the other’s doing?
They were supposed to be long gone by now.

He was never clear with his words, spinning them in circles around me, agreeing with me, not, angry if I answered over the next couple of hours.
Taking my words as serious, debating them, trying to force his ideas on me.

By the time he finally finished it was dark, that must have been my second night at Woodbury, he had told me to stand against the wall, if I stayed there until he said I could have food, painkillers, he would let me sleep.

I stood, my body screaming, each time I dozed off I was awoken with a slap, the stomp on my foot, a pinch. He never slept, he kept questioning me, forcing his opinions to hit me, to seep into my brain, if I didn’t agree I was struck again.

I was delirious when he finally stopped, I couldn’t feel half of my body, but the rest flickered and curled in pain. He had sat me on his bed, finally given me the water I had begged for, given me pills, some kind of painkiller, of tranquiliser.

I don’t know how much I slept, I felt like there were bugs crawling up my skin, inside me.

Everytime I closed my eyes I saw the others in a line, blood spluttering up the wall as the bullet pierced through their skulls.

Morning came, I woke up properly, I was sick.
I was punished for being sick, made to clear it up.
Made to talk to him again, or rather being talked at by him.

I had a moment, I felt suddenly truly awake, the pain, the tiredness, the hunger wasn’t important and I had snapped at him, hit his hand away as it lay on my bare thigh. I had been made to stand up against that wall again.

Until now.

It felt as is my stomach was eating itself, I was sure my ribs, which I think had been broken since before the prison were never going to mend. One of his hands was on my upper back, the thumb tracing up and down the protruding shoulder blade as the other ran a brush through my hair.
He didn’t speak, the bush trailing through my hair easily after time, beginning to irritate my scalp.He was gentle, his hands soft, his actions smoothed.

I was confused, on edge, my body tense throughout.
I knew he was fucking with me, getting in my head, but... why? He had no reason to, a bullet would stop me being trouble.
But he wouldn’t do that.
That’s what he said.

I felt my eyes drifting shut.
_______

It was the middle of the night when I awoke, he was asleep next to me, his chest rising and falling slowly. I sat up slowly, trying to keep the hisses of pain silent. I struggled to my feet, stumbling to the bottle of water on the table and drinking it in two gulps. I was dehydrated.

I didn’t feel right.
I slipped to the wardrobe, each small movement taking minutes as I tried to stay quiet.
I wanted to leave.
But... there was a but... his words swarmed in my mind.
I would never leave my friends here. I wouldn’t leave them to die.

But he must be keeping them alive, I would have heard.
Perhaps they were dead and he was keeping me here just to add to it, to wait, keep me hopeful.

I had never met someone so manipulative.
He was beginning to get to me, I was finding myself listening, eager to keep him calm no matter what it took.
He was poisoning my mind; there was no doubt about that.

The door was locked, of course. I pulled a shirt from the wardrobe and slid it over my body, the bruises forming into streaks that looked like camouflage. I would have to use the window, unless there were weapons in here, perhaps in that other room.

I needed the keys.

I could smother him as he slept. I lifted a pillow, holding it loosely in my hands.
I could...I should.
But I can’t. My hands wouldn’t physically move forwards, my feet were rooted to the spot.
I simply could not do it.

Before, when we were first brought here I would have done anything, killed him with no thought.
What was wrong with me?

______

The body was a warning to the others, strung up with hooks like a deer, the blood dripping slowly onto the floor, pooling slightly below it. The throat had been slit open, the voice box almost hanging out between the torn flaps of skin.

It swung slightly back and forth, silhouetted in the weak light, that familiar curve of a face shattered, bones splintered through the skin, teeth sticking to the dried out blood of the formally smooth lips.

It was a warning.
A sign of what was to come.