A Viper's Snare

CW: domestic violence, physical abuse, blood/gore and brief mentions of child loss.

A soft breeze whispers in her ear, a mere murmur in the dead of night. It brushes her skin, stubbornly clinging to it. It’s a cold and dull blade crusted with rust, just barely slashing the surface of her skin, leaving no trace, only the char of agony. It reignites the desire to drown the pain, a pressing want, the kind she knows better than most.

Tonight, the wind is Elise's enemy, betraying their lifelong kinship. She mourns the warm caresses of the past, gentler than those of any human. She recalls all the times it soothed terror into peace, but tonight is different. The world has grown foreign, sparing no one, not even Elise. She has become a shell of her former self, an unrecognizable, hollow hull, desperately trying to survive.

She wishes she could will the sharp steel hovering around her into oblivion if that could buy her a few more minutes of respite, just until her body shuts down and collapses; she knows she doesn't have long.

Elise's pace quickens; time is ticking. The bags in her hands drag her down. They strain her muscles into a pathetic quiver as the straps dig into the flesh of her fingers, choking the blood from their tips.

She carries two small duffel bags, jet-black tissue slack with vacancy. Inside is every object she believes is worth keeping from her thirty years of life. A pointless one, judging from how little she carries. The tissue doesn't relent, clawing at her skin, reminding her of their weight; she can hardly bear the load.

Elise’s body curves at an unnatural angle, wedging between two slivers of light. The movement buries the pain down to her skeleton, where it penetrates past its hard shell, turning bone into shrapnel in its wake, before sinking into the soft pulp. Once settled, it unleashes its might.

Elise's teeth clench with a force she believed she no longer possessed, but she doesn't stop. She stumbles along the empty streets, hiding in unlit corners between battered groans. She makes herself small as she recoils from the glow of every post in her path. Their orange fervor is too bright, too warm; that’s what she tells herself.

She doesn't admit that the darkness might be her savior; that she must conceal the drape of corruption from those who might wander the streets at this hour; that she needs it to hide her shame from the Earth, even.

But above all, the darkness protects Elise from him.

When Elise had smashed her dear mother's ceramic vase into his head, she believed he was dead. Blood gushed out of his skull in a bursting shower, spraying the room with its foul mist. She had never felt so dirty.

Every drop of crimson had come alive on her skin, hot, moist, revolting. Elise wiped the wet scarlet away with the back of her hand. She could still smell the iron. She rubbed. Two, five, ten times. Until the first layer of skin broke and burned. She could still smell the iron...

One of Elise's legs had crossed the threshold when she heard it: a bleak, lethargic moan. She hesitated, holding on to the bags she had packed in a hurry.

Rubber soles had fused to the tiles beneath. Each foot stood on a different world, each beckoned her towards it. She needed to choose. Either stay and replicate the past, or risk it all for a chance at a future.

That night, Elise bet on herself. She fled as if she had set fire to that house. A pit unfurled in her chest as she headed into the unknown; she wasn't safe.

She hadn't killed him, never had intended to, but suddenly, that failure carried the cold disappointment of defeat. The weight of sin settled inside Elise.

They’ve been together for seven years, and he has beaten her for the last six.

Five years ago, she gave birth to a son, Henry. A lovely little thing, with chubby cheeks and blond hair soft as silk. His giggling was the only light in the recess of despair that she had come to know as her life.

It’s been four years since she married this man; as any fool in love, she had hoped he would change, that the cuff on his finger would somehow turn him into someone gentle and loving. For the last three years, she has been drinking herself into a babbling mess every night; he had grown even more vicious after the wedding.

Two years ago, he had betrayed her in the worst way possible. He took away her child. The pain was worse than any broken bone or any gash in her skin. Perhaps it even hurt more than all of them combined.

One year has passed since Elise tried to run for the first time, the aftermath so gruesome she had chosen to forget. It helped that she barely felt human anymore, in a daze of heartbreak and ethanol, with zero reasons to live.

Elise still doesn't feel human. She is but a bunch of battered limbs, dangling clumsily from a torso that's been kicked endlessly and thrown around far too many times to still be whole. It doesn’t belong to her anymore.

Numbness has settled at her core; the way it does before death creeps up on its prey. She knows how it feels, has edged on the thin line between this world and the next too many times.

Soiled, torn-up garments wrap her body, failing miserably at their sole purpose. Her skin peeks through the gashes in the tissue, bare for everyone to see. Dried copper cakes her skin, her clothes, her hair. She detects it on her breath, too, and maybe even in her stomach. Elise is a bloodied mess, barely human, but she runs for one last chance at her humanity back.

With each step, she's closer to bridging the gap between worlds. Elise senses the grim reaper hanging over her, its veil caressing her already, as it waits patiently to reclaim her soul. Every second, its call becomes harder to resist. Lulled by the entity, her eyelids grow heavier, begging for a quick rest.

Elise knows she must not yield. If she does, it's over.

The hospital is near. Just a little longer. If she lives through a few more minutes of hell, she gets her life back.

Her pace quickens. She needs the pain to end; it's close to unbearable. Elise focuses on speed. She focuses so deeply that the raised edge of the sidewalk goes unnoticed.

She stumbles. Her bags drop to the ground with a thud, stubborn as before. For the first time, she pauses. Air fills her lungs in deep, slow breaths, crisp against her insides, awakening her cells.

Thin straps lie against concrete. Elise snatches the daggerlike tissue, ignoring the silent scream of her trembling biceps, and the bite that surges from her palms and spreads through her frame. The bags now hang a couple of inches above the ground, and Elise a couple of inches closer to freedom.

Black and grey reign over a world packed with vague silhouettes shaped only by a faint, bronze radiance. Concrete and asphalt, buildings and roads, all vacant at this hour. The sky above, too, is a dull void.

On the horizon, a halo makes itself known. It's an artificial white, too brilliant to reassure. Or so that was the case, once upon a time. Now, it lets Elise believe that life is once again within reach.

She has always hated hospitals; she despises their chemical stench that clings to the inside of her nose and makes life feel sterile; she detests the monotonous white, the lifelessness of it all, at a place meant to cherish life. It's unnatural; it's where one goes to die; it's the final resting place in life, before one is once again enclosed within white. This time, among soft satin pillows, and deeper into the earth.

Elise is ready to forget a lifetime of loathing. She basks in the sight, drunk with long-lost hope. She trudges forward, one step closer to triumph. She can almost taste it. Elise wonders what its flavor might be when she feels the surge of pain.

A handful of hair rips from her scalp. Each strand burns as it fights to hold on. A thousand needles pierce her skull all at the same time. The sharp ache rips a gasp out of Elise.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The voice is breathless, animalistic.

She knows it too well; has drunk the venom dripping from it far too many times. It’s the viper that's been poisoning her life for nearly a decade.

Her body stumbles back, falling into his. Elise is standing close enough to smell his breath. Alcohol and something rotten. Her stomach lurches. She doesn’t know whether it’s because he reeks or because she has failed.

His fist loosens. Hope returns. Elise plans her escape. But before her muscles can react, he clutches her arm, tightening, crushing muscle against bone in another searing flash of pain.

Elise gasps, then chokes in a scream, refusing to reveal her pain. Her gaze holds his with unwavering ice, the opposite of what hides behind.

A hollow carves into her chest, widening as her insides rip themselves apart; Elise's throat ties into knots that she can't speak through, and her heart beats frantically, urging her to leave.

For the first time, Elise doesn't turn away when his rusty eyes turn dark, into the familiar obsidian spheres that always come before the eruption. An ominous scarlet frames them, that of the blood that has stopped flowing, and he hasn't bothered to wipe before commencing the chase.

Those same orbs carry a manic glint; he wants to finish what he started. For the first time, Elise sees his true colors.

Elise's body fills with dread; it begs her to run through stiff muscles. Her legs teeter on the brink of collapse, and it takes every ounce of will in her body not to oblige. This is her last chance.

She attempts to yank her arm from his grasp, but fails. Her resolve weakens. Half of his blood spurted out of his head, and he still overpowers her. This realization feels damning, and he seems to read her mind; he smirks. He believes he owns her.

A small light flickers inside Elise. It has been doused in blood and tears, bludgeoned beyond recognition, squashed into a tiny speck. It should've been extinguished by now, but a miracle has saved one last ember.

It flares up; sparks fly all around her, sparks only Elise can see. She won't surrender. She doesn't want this to be the end. She can't give up on herself.

With one deep breath, she summons all her might onto one leg; it trembles with strength. She can't afford to fail, and she knows it. She remembers her child, his smooth skin and velvety hair. The warmth he radiated against her skin and into her heart. The day he was ripped out of her pleading arms, and all the years she has spent wondering where her baby is.

Elise forces her knee up; it's swift, desperate, powerful. She wedges it between his legs, as far up as she can go. He tumbles to the ground, hands clutching his crotch.

She bolts. She doesn't stay to see him squirming; to see his hands reaching out at her and grasping the void; to see his eyes seething with so much rage that it masks the pain. She bolts and never looks back.

"You bitch!"

Elise ignores the hatred filling the night; she lets it fester in the air only for him to savor. It's the only thing he will be feasting on.

If she makes her escape.

In Elise's wake, two duffel bags drop. They're too heavy, and she needs all the speed she can get. Her life depends on it. Damned be those last thirty years if she can get thirty more.

Instantly, her body lightens, filling with freedom. Her sprint quickens as the end of the nightmare draws near.

She tastes the disinfectant on the back of her throat before reaching the doors. The sight of the automatic glass panes pacifies Elise as she dashes, closer and closer. She doesn't slow down; not yet. Not until she is safe inside that building, blinding white lights protecting her.

Once more, the wind brushes her face. It's warmer now, almost reassuring. It's a soft caress, the kind she hasn't felt in ages. The kind that tells her everything will be okay.