Page 8 of Bound by Affliction
Stopeverything.
Instead, the sharp metal slices through my shoulder and I cry out, unable to hold it in. Fish swim through my thoughts, how they’re cut open and fileted some of the time when they’re still alive. Never thought I’d feel like a fish, but now my sympathy for them is great and makes me never want to eat fish again. Is this normal? The crazy, random, make no sense thoughts when you know you’re going to die. Shouldn’t I have some poetic thoughts? Yet, here I am comparing myself to a damnfish.
“You little cunt.” Len punches me hard across the cheekbone, red fire exploding behind my eyeball. The small bit of hope that it’ll knock me out is soon forgotten when the sleep doesn’t come. If he’d just hit me harder, maybe I could pass out. The next hit snaps my neck hard, and black spots form in my vision. Darkness begins to creep in, so I close my eyes reaching for the nothingness, where the pain and fear don’t lay. Where your brain turns off and you’re able to relax if only for a small while. I relish it, welcome it with open arms, but like freedom, it’s out of my grasptoo.
“Say it!” he roars, holding up a phone, but my eyes are cloudy. I hear Bristyl on the other line of the telephone, at least I think and pray it’s over the phone. Len pulls my hair hard, ripping it from my scalp, and burning pain radiates from my head to my toes. I’m able to hold back the scream, only giving a small whimper. I don’t want to say the words he wants to hear; rather I wish he’d cut my throat and end me. He’s told me what he was doing, and the darkness hasn’t overtaken me to get me out of saying the words to my bestfriend.
He yanks harder, tearing the hair from my scalp in clumps, each chunk of my hair searing me. He doesn’t stop, just grabs more and more—yanking and pulling and tossing the tattered hair to the ground. I don’t want to say them—I don’t want her to come here, but I want the pain to stop. I want him to stop pulling my hair because it’s not helping me with the darkness I desperately want; no, this is only causing more and more pain. Flashbacks hit of when Bristyl and I would do our hair all up to go out for the night, making sure each curl was in place. Now, I’ll die with most of my hairgone.
“Come to my parents’ house, now.” The words come out as a cry and each one I hate because I know I’ve just brought Bristyl to this, and that guilt weighs heavy on me.Please just take me away from this. Put me out of mymisery.
I can only hope now that she doesn’t come alone. No matter what they tell her or what she thinks, I need her to be smart enough not to comealone.
He punches me again, this time with the phone, releasing my hair; guess he didn’t like my hesitation, then swipes the phone without another word to Bristyl.Please, Bristyl, don’t come here alone. Bring your boyfriend and his guys. Bring Green. Please.They won’t let them touch her. Bristyl will be safe withthem.
Green, his eyes, they comfort me even in this hell. I always love movies with the instant connection but never thought it was real. Now, I guess I’ll never know for sure because the flutters I felt when around Green will never be fully developed and blossom into something special. Instead, I’ll be rotting, but thankfully the pain willcease.
I’m almost there, into the darkness, my eyelids get heavier and heavier as confusion begins to take root. I’m right there on the cliff, so high I can almost see the bottom where the beautiful water lays and peacefulness will overtake me. If I could just fall over. Topple. Freefall. Plummet. Please let me getthere. When I try to open my eyes, they won’t cooperate and I count this as a blessing, as a sign that it’s coming. The end. The calm. The peacefulness. The point where the agony will cease toexist.
Time ticks on, with Len inflicting more misery, and I drift in and out of consciousness as he touches me, hurts me. The tears come and go, letting him know if I’m alert or not. It’s like the moment I get to the brink where I won’t come out of it. He changes the angle and the level of pain increases, jolting my body back to awareness. I never knew so many tears could come from one person before. But I’m living proof there aremany.
My mind has given up, but my body is involuntarily still fighting forlife.
Then I hear it off in the distance… Bristyl’s screams for me. I’m able to minutely crack open an eye, seeing my best friend in the doorway to the room. Guilt pounds me in the head like a sledgehammer. She shouldn’t be here and what’s worse, there’s no one behindher.
Panic grips me like neverbefore.
I did this, and the action creates a deep, black mark on my soul. I’ll die knowing I brought her into the depths of hell right behind me. I’ll die knowing her slow, agonizing death is on my hands as much as theirs for getting her here. I’ll die knowing I screwed over the person I’m closest to in my entirelife.
The knife slices deeply across my rib cage, a horribly sensitive place from the brutal beatings, and I’m sure with this cut he hit someorgans.
“About fuckin’ time you got here.” Len slices into my arm, and I let out anotherwhimper.
“Stop! What are you doing?” Bristyl screams, walking into the room, the look of utter shock and fear crossing her features. My mouth feels like sandpaper, and my brain is shutting off. The fight within myself is like a war of two sides, neither wanting to relinquish control. I want to warn her, but can’t get the energy out, but I fight likehell.
“Want her to die?” Len asks her, calm as canbe.
I quickly hear, “No!”
“Then you come with me. And, bitch, you fight me, I’ll gut you. Then I’ll come back and gut your friend. I may have to fuck her, too. All this shit is gettin’ me hard.” Bile threatens to spill and I fear choking, but it would be a better way to go. I welcome it, although it doesn’t come. That’s one thing these assholes haven’t done. Cut me down there, yes, but actually stick anything inside me, no. It’s been the only blessing in this fucked up mess. I have tensed for it, prepared for it in my mind as much as I could, and my only reprieve has been that it hasn’t happened…yet.
Bristyl takes a step further in the room. “Where?”
He points the knife, that is dripping in my blood, directly at her. “No fuckin’ questions. You make a fuckin’ sound, I’ll slit your throat. Got nothin’ tolose.”
Len doesn’t wait for her to answer, he gouges the knife into my side as I cry and scream so scratchy you can barely hear menow.
But I clear my throat as best as I can, needing to say something, because the guilt is riding me hard. I don’t want my last memory of my best friend to be this. “Get away from him, Bristyl!” I try to scream, but it comes out hoarse, cracked and laced with pain, as he picks up the blade and punctures meagain.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch!” Len twists the knife already lodged in my flesh, creating agony through me. Numbness doesn’t come, but I pray that it will. Some sort of relief. With Bristyl here, I don’t want to die. I want to try to save her, then I can die. Fighting back the splashes of colors dancing in my vision, I hold onto reality as hard as Ican.
“Okay! Okay! Stop!” Bristyl yells, trying to get Len’s attention, waving her arms in front of her sporadically. “I’ll go. Come on. Right now.” I came to terms with dying here today, but I can’t let Bristyl die withme.
“Don’t!” I crack, but it again comes out haggard and broken from the level of trauma made to my now fragile body. I never realized how much energy it takes to speak. It’s another thing in my life that I’ve taken for granted. Just talking to the ones I love, now it feels like I’ll never be able to speak again. Yet again, another level of fear, realizing I’ll never do things like talkingagain.
Len lifts his fist and punches me in the temple so hard my eyes roll into the back of my head and close. Mumbled sounds come from my lips, but I have no comprehension ofthem.
“No!” Bristyl says faintly in thebackground.
