Author's Note: This is a short story written for HE10. It is a story written to show deep emotion, and not for telling the plot.
Gone. All of the innocence and
love in her heart. Gone, the red tricycles and pink ribbons in her hair that
streamed behind her with a warm summer breeze lingering behind. Lost. All of
the self worth, smiles and family who she adored. Lost to the hands of
violence, of hatred, of evil, of rape. Dead.
In his hands, I wasn’t
myself. The me who I knew deep in my
heart wasn’t the me, living as me, in the world. I had been captured by someone else.
Do
you know what that feels like? To know that what people see isn’t really who
you are. That the way you act around
people isn’t really who you are inside, who you were meant to be. That you had been robbed of yourself, and who
they think you are, is all a lie.
She lies to herself, and says she’s
not affected by anything. Lying to herself
is the easiest, but believing that lie gets harder day by day, especially when
she’s reminded of the truth. The truth that she talks to people differently.
The truth that she don’t know what to think anymore. No longer does she know what she’s supposed
to think about certain things. Her stance
on subjects waver because she don’t know who she is, she has been captured by a
lie because of what he did.
Here in a cell disguised as
my bedroom, my heart thumps rapidly against my chest, as if it were trying to
run away. Away from the Terrible Awful.
Away from life. Away from unfair
circumstances. No matter how hard I try
to squeeze the thought out of my mind, it would return like a raging and
reckless bull. No longer could I deal
with this Terrible Awful, I had to do something.
Click… breath in… breath
out. Loud crack, then silence. A sickeningly
silent sound fills my ears.
Death had entered the stale
room, life had vaporized into nothingness; and yet, my heart, felt light. I
sensed the waves of an airy breath of relief passing over my entire body, and a
new sense came about me, I was in complete ownership of my emotional self.
Now, no more fear, no more hate,
no more dread, no more. Now, only hope,
only love, only peace, only herself. She
wasn’t held hostage to any other being, any longer, she had been set free, So she
rose – rose as high as she could.
Life was perfect, I was
perfect. My mind was silent, it no
longer looped and twisted and turned as if it were a tornado. All loops and twists had come together in
full circle, things made sense, my life made sense. Sadness and worrying were no longer a part of
me, I was solely me. Without all the
hatred and fear, I could be who I was born to be. The crying and whimpering that I had heard
coming from my mouth every day since the Terrible Awful months before, had
suddenly stopped, my ears rejoiced at the thought.
Alas, a muffled, familiar
sound below me, awakened me from my joyous thoughts. Crying.
There below me, my mother gasped for breath as she lay in her bed,
sobbing.
Foolishly, I had thought I
could run away from life, away from pain, away from hate, away from rape. To escape that, would be to escape
reality. The destination for being away
from it all could only be found where whiteness overtakes, and all things glow
and beauty is complete.
If abandoning life meant
sorrow for people who had loved me, I don’t think I want it anymore. No – running was not the answer, facing the
wound may hurt, but recovery would come.
There is more to life than me, and wallowing in my pain; I could make a
difference by sharing my story. Instead
of selfishness, I could be generous, and share the pain with other young
ladies. I could become the person I was
to be, I could turn my pain into my gain, and do a greater good for the world,
and the girls who feel the same as I.
There is hope…
As she goes to reach out to her
mother, she suffers a miraculous pain upon the length of her body; a horribly
bright whiteness rages all around her, with a sound like the calmness of the
ocean – then all is pitch and hushed.
