Breathe

TW: Mental health, mentions of murder/ attempted murder and physical violence, suicidal thoughts, cuss words

The cold sent chills down my spine.

There were screams in the air.

There was blood on my hands.

There were bodies on the floor.

There was an ache in my head.

There was blood on my clothes.

MY blood.

There were footsteps outside, getting closer.

Fear gathered in my chest, stealing the breath from my lungs.

I couldn’t-

‘DAVIA!’

That’s my name. Someone’s calling to me.

“DAVIA RUN!”

They’re after me.

I need to go, need to run, to get as far from here as possible-

‘DAVIA!’

My eyes snap open, unfocused as they try to gather my surroundings, but I draw a blank. I don’t know where I am. I gasp for air, sucking in lungfuls as if I can’t get enough, because I can’t get enough. I can’t breathe. My heart thunders in my chest, fear running rampant through my veins. I- what- where-?

Breathe.

I try, and I try.

B ea he.

The word falls apart in my mind.

re the.

My mind begins to crumble, I can feel it.

Bre the.

It doesn’t hurt, it feels like….like…shit

Bile rises in my throat, I can feel it.

Breathe, I tell myself. Breathe.

But I can’t…

Ican’tIcan’tIcan’tIcan’tIcan’t-

I push off the covers, racing to the bathroom, throwing up the toilet seat. My stomach empties its contents with horrible retching sounds, sounds I remember so vividly, sounds I’ve made so many times. - Because of him. - I clench my first around my hair, holding it atop my head as I continue to throw up everything I’ve eaten in the past twenty-four hours. Tears drip down my cheeks as I continue retching, slipping down my neck, soaking into my shirt.

Minutes pass before the nausea fades and I can breathe again. Groaning, I flush, sitting back against the wall, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

I close my eyes, leaning my head against the wall, taking a moment to rest, to relax, to just breathe, but-

He’s there, I know he is, I can feel him. He’s in me. Just like always.

I snap my eyes open, forcing myself to stay awake, staying alert. I can’t fall asleep. Not now. He’ll be there. Just as he always is. Just as they always are.

Fresh tears burn my eyes, emotions settling in the back of my throat. I swallow hard around the lump that’s forming, breathing heavily. Adrenaline courses through my body, my limbs shaking, my senses hyperalert.

Five months. This has happened for five long-ass months.

It always happens the same, every night, every dream. They’re always the same.

It starts, and I immediately remember the sounds, the hushed, frantic words, the agonizing screams, the sound of bone crunching and blood splattering. I hear his laughter then, ringing in my skull, causing a dull ache to throb behind my eyes, emotion welling against my lower lids.

I remember the feel of the blood hitting my clothing, and the cold brush of clammy hands against my skin. I can feel the knife digging into my flesh, tearing and clawing at my skin, ripping me open. The scar marring the flesh of my left wrist sends a deep, pulsing sting up and down my arm as my mind dredges up the past, even five months later.

Breathe…

The air was thick that night, heavy in the scent of iron and mildew. Mold grew on the walls of the compound beneath the rust-colored stone, traveling up and down the length of the room I had been locked in. Bones littered the ground beneath my feet, some old and brittle, dating back to times before I was even thought of, others still in half-composed skeletons.

There were six of us when we first arrived, thrown into separate rooms, rooms with the walls thin enough to hear everything that happened on the other side. Fifteen days in, and I was the only one left alive. I can still smell the rotting corpses in the other rooms, the blood that had been spilled. I can hear their begs and their pleas, the sounds they made as they were mutilated beyond survival, the screams that still echo in my mind. I can- I can…

I can’t do this. I can’t relive this.

Tears drip down my cheeks, ones I hadn’t noticed before. I brush away the new fallen set, my vision blurring as I push to my feet and strip off my clothes, turning on the shower, stepping beneath the scalding spray of water, ignoring the burning sensation on my skin. I need the numbness to fade. I need it to fade.

Breathe.

But I can’t. I can’t breathe. I’ve been breathing for weeks.

I collapse to my knees, rolling forward, tears streaming down my face, sobs tearing from my throat. Three weeks of tears I didn’t cry, three weeks of emotion I suppressed, three weeks of hell, and torture, and praying- begging for a way out. Now I was free, and I- I had no desire to live.

I wanted it done, I wanted out, I wanted to be free. I was done. I was done. I’m done.

I want to be free of these memories, and no matter how hard I try to get the memories out, they dig themselves deeper and deeper into my mind. And I. Can’t. Stop. Them.

They dig and they claw, and they break me down one by one, slowly, destroying me completely, ruining me for the world to see. Yet, no one sees, because they don’t look. If they just looked, they’d know, they would see how horribly I’ve been shattered, how terribly I’m holding on.

I’m a liar.

They wouldn’t see, because I hide. I cloak myself in the dark, tucking myself away, and it works, because the dark is always there, lurking in the corners of rooms and the floor of basements. The dark is full of secrets, concealing all of which I try to hide, try to conceal. It is the murkiness in the world, the grim somber feeling deep in the darkest pits of man’s emotions. It is where I reside, it is where I lock myself away, because the dark is safe. The dark doesn’t hurt you.

I stand, shut off the water, numbly stepping out of the shower, drying off and slipping back into my clothes before stumbling into my room. I crash to the ground with a loud thud, my knees aching from the impact, but they don’t hurt. They don’t ache. I know they should, but they don’t. Ink rises in my vision, coating everything in a black hue, sealing me off from my emotions as they drag me under, threatening to drown me. The dark tries to protect me.

I can’t focus. Even through the dark, all I see are them. I see their faces, the smiles slowly fading to dull eyes and terrified expressions. I see the life drain from their bodies, I see the light fade from their eyes, and it’s then I know. I can’t be free. I will never be free, because there is no way to be free of something like this.. I will forever be haunted by the ghosts of the past. The only way out….is death.

I could be free. If I just…

No.

They deserve better than that. I am the only surviving victim. I am the only one who breathes. I may not want to live, I may want to be gone, I may be so unbearably unwell that I can’t stand it, but I have to. For them. For justice. For us. For the victims.

So, somehow, I will live. I will survive. For them. For me. For us. To tell their story, my story, to seek out the justice they deserve, the justice we deserve. I will not let them be forgotten, I will not make their deaths unmemorable and I will make sure that the asshole who did this to us pays for his actions.

So, good luck, asshole. You're going to need it.