Page 105 of Twisted Revelations

My tears started to slip along with my composure. A long ragged breath escaped as I attempted to hold in my weeping sadness. Luke had to get it all out and tell me the full story, even though I knew it would continue ripping me to shreds.

“Whenever I’d fall asleep, the rats would attempt to make me their food. After a while, with my captors not giving me food anymore, the hunger ate at me so badly I started to eat what was eating at me. I’d suck up the moisture that soaked through the ground for a water source.”

At this point, I couldn’t keep my body from shaking, and my damn throat was so tight I gasped for breaths. I knew Luke had experienced something traumatic, but this was worse than anything I could have imagined. He squeezed me when I should have been the one consoling him.

“I think I’d gone feral, wild. My father never paid, and they never opened that door again, not that I knew of. The tunnel I’d started digging paid off as I broke through to the surface. Time wasn’t something I could discern, so I can’t say for certain how long it took me to dig. The surface was only about three feet up, but I’d been digging at an angle with no real strength. Once I shoved my body through the hole, the first sign of anything familiar was the glow of the moon. I’d been in the darkness for so long that even the darkness of night hurt my eyes. I stumbled and fell through the wooded area behind the house until I happened upon a creek. I drank from the creek until I drank myself sick, threw up, and drank more. The dirty creek water was the best thing I’d ingested in so long that it was hard to stop.”

I wiped at the wetness clouding my eyes, attempting to control my constricting throat, swallowing the audible cries I wanted to release. I had to stay strong for Luke while he was releasing this heavy burden he carried. I’d fall apart after he finished.

“I was so out of touch with reality, and had gone so wild, I’d catch fish and small animals and rip into them, consuming them raw. I’d hide myself away during the daylight hours, fearing the sun touching my skin. I stayed in those woods for weeks until the local sheriff stumbled upon me sleeping next to the massive hollowed out oak tree I used as my new home. No matter what was going through my head, at night, I always searched for the moon. It was the first thing I saw when I climbed out of that hole. It was the most beautiful thing I had to look at. It kept me company, helped me sleep when I struggled.”

That explained his pale ivory skin. He’d learned to embrace the darkness, the one thing that had helped to trap him.

“The sheriff ended up having to sedate me to get me to a hospital. The hospital staff got me cleaned up, and I found myself strapped to a bed in the mental ward. It took me months and a lot of coaxing from the nurses and the sheriff who never stopped checking on me to convince me to start talking again. My mind started to make its way back, to make sense of the world, and flashes and signs of understanding proved that I was still human. I found out that I’d been down there in that hole for over two months, so malnourished that even the doctors were amazed that I was still alive.”

Unable to hold back, I started to rain kisses all over his face, grateful he’d found his way back to reality and safety. My actions caused him to chuckle. I was thankful he could laugh, considering what he’d been through. Once I settled down, he continued.

“The one thing I didn’t reveal to the sheriff or the doctors right away was who my father was. I pretended I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was better off in the system. It took me a while to figure out that being in that hole had changed me into someone who wasn’t afraid of the darkness, danger, or even being hurt. I went from the hospital into a group home, with help from the sheriff after I revealed to him my father was the reason I’d been out there in those woods. They placed me in a home with about twenty other boys, most of them troubled by one thing or another. While most of the boys got into fights, I was quiet and detached. If I wasn’t reading, I was in the gym trying to figure out how to become bigger.”

My smile spread wide because he’d done a magnificent job and had become so deliciously big.

“The sheriff continued to check on me from time to time. After I expressed to him that I wanted to go into the military, he helped me obtain my GED. He was the one who talked to me about becoming emancipated and what it would mean. A week after my seventeenth birthday, I was in the military.”

My smile didn’t drop. This was the part of the story I could deal with.

“Before I was shipped off for training, I took the two-hour bus ride to visit my father. I found him drunk and scratching off lottery tickets. He thought he was seeing a ghost when I appeared in front of him. He’d had the nerve to apologize for letting his ‘friends’ take me. I wanted to kill him but knew he’d suffer much worse living in the hell he’d created. I left my father that night and never looked back.”

“Thank you for sharing that part of your life with me. ” I was grateful that I had a deeper understanding of him, but saddened by what he’d been through.

A deep, hard kiss followed, hopefully, easing him of the horrific past that had been unleashed on him.

“Will you tell me about your past?” His rebuttal made the heat that was starting to build in my body, instantly dissolve.

Now I was in the hot seat.

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