Ruin And Darkened

I had blacked out at one point, my body and mind both giving out when it became too much. When I became conscious again, I was lying on the wet floor, cold, bleeding, broken, and trembling. Every single muscle in my body hurts. Every time I moved, from how hard I was trembling, pure agony ripped through me. In this hell I've found myself in, I only had one small mercy: my mind was completely blank.

I heard soft footsteps, and white sneakers filled my vision before he crouched down, and those blue eyes were what I saw next. This time, the agony that shook my body came from my very soul, came from what was left of it.

“Oh, my sweet girl,” he whispered as he picked up a strand of my hair, rubbing it between his fingers. “Where does it hurt? Tell me, and I will kiss it better.”

His friends snickered, shaking their heads, and everything in me flinched when I suddenly became aware of them. 

“You’re sick,” one of them chuckled. 

He was. He really was. People have talked, and I had listened, but apparently, I hadn't listened enough. They'd talked about Michael and how twisted he was, how deranged. But nobody ever took it seriously because it was just mere words, and there was no evidence to back up those claims. But they kept talking. Now I was seeing it firsthand: it wasn't just rumors. 

“Do you know what you were, Siri?” he asked softly, still rubbing my hair. I didn't look at him. I just kept my eyes fixed on a blank spot, praying for the agony to end. Praying for the coldness that death brings. “A bet. That is all you were.” 

He dropped my hair, but then his knuckles brushed against my cheek, and I flinched so violently that something pulled in me. I squeezed my eyes shut, panting, my breath a wheeze. He just went on, his voice still cool.

“You see, your father is a right bastard. And you’re a fat, pretty bitch with a good-looking ass. A virgin. We, the good people of this town, have been watching as your father married his second wife only to ruin the poor woman, and we thought, ‘Why not ruin him too?’ And so we aimed for his pretty, only child. We placed a bet on how quickly it’ll take you to fall in love with me and spread your legs, offering your cherry for me to pop. You just made me a thousand dollars, by the way. Thank you for that.”

But they have it all wrong. My father doesn't care about me. He doesn't care if I was torn into pieces or the world was falling on my head. So it was for nothing. They did all this for nothing! For a man who wouldn't even blink at me and acknowledge my existence! 

“Please,” I pleaded in my head. “If there was a god out there, make it stop. Make it all stop, and just end this. Take my life!”

But of course no one answered, and the torture went on, and I kept breathing. Tears spilled out of my closed eyes; my chest was so tight, breathing was a chore. 

He grabbed my hair suddenly, and I cried out, my eyes flying open to see his face so close to me. His eyes were hard, his breathing harsh as his grip tightened on my hair and pain exploded on my scalp. 

“Look at yourself, Siri,” he snarled into my face while I struggled weakly, trying to free my hair from his tight grip, but my struggles only made him tighten his hold further, and a sharp cry ripped from my throat, my voice breaking. “Do you honestly think that someone like me could love you? Do you think anyone, for that matter, could love you? No. You’re fucking pathetic, and will only ever be a plaything. You were a bet. An easy one. So clean those tears and get out.”

He threw my head to the side, and I barely stopped it from smashing into the floor. I was sobbing now, the sound ugly and from the deepest part of my ruined soul.

Michael turned away from me, about to follow his friends who were already leaving, but then he paused and turned back to me. 

“Ah, yes.” He held up the camera with a grin, that cold and hateful expression vanishing from his face like it was never there. “I’m going to use this video to beat my meat, and I'll think of you every time.” 

He blew me a kiss and was gone, the doors shutting, and I was left all alone. 

I curled into a ball on the floor, agony blinding me as I sobbed until I couldn't. 

He had looked me in the eyes and told me he loved me. He had held me, kissed my hair, my nose, my lips, and said he loved me. He didn’t blink. There was nothing in his eyes that gave his lie away.

He had lied through his teeth. 

He lied. 

He had lied, and I was just a bet to him, something to ruin and darken. He had succeeded. 

I didn't know how long I stayed there, curled into a ball, naked, but when I heard the doors open, I flinched but didn't move. There was no dignity to preserve anymore. Nothing to fight for. Everything has been taken from me. 

The door to the bathroom opened, and a small gasp echoed in the space.

“Oh, Lord above!” a small voice cried, her voice filled with panic.

I heard her hurried footsteps, and I felt something heavy but soft wrapped around me. I raised my head to see the janitor lady staring at me, her eyes wide with tears. 

“God, who did this?” she cried, her body shaking. “I’ll take you to the hospital. I-I’ll call the police. We have to–”

“No, please,” I said softly, my voice too thick, too cracked. I shook my head. “No hospital. No police. Just… Please just find me a taxi to take me home.”

“But you’re bleeding!” she cried.

“Please, ma’am. I just want to go home.” 

She dressed me up, cleaned me as best she could, and then sent me home. I didn’t remember the ride, or how I got home. I didn’t remember dragging myself into my house at the crack of dawn, when the neighborhood was still dark and asleep, no one around to bear witness to my shame. But I remembered vividly stepping inside and seeing my father on the couch, his eyes flat and fixed on me.

“Where have you been?” he asked, his voice just as flat, his eyes trailing over me, and his nose wrinkled in disgust. 

Disgust.

DISGUST. 

I remembered clearly how rage had consumed everything in me. I saw the vase, and I didn't remember picking it up. But I remembered the crash, flowers scattering across the floor, water rushing to my feet, glass breaking beneath my hand.

And then there was a piece of broken glass in my palm, held so tightly it cut into my flesh, bleeding, but I didn't feel the pain. 

I remembered the look of shock on my father’s face.

And I remember, very clearly, every single second, as I screamed and ran to stab my father.