Chapter 8

     Sputtering, Kat jerked upwards, her hands going up to her face to wipe the water off, her eyes blinking like an owls. She sat upright on a small bed, in a dark room, her hands clutching at scratchy, wet blankets. Her throat felt raw as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of her surroundings, and her hands fluttered at her neck, feeling nothing but the cool metal of her sister's gift against her fingertips. Reality slammed into her with enough force to throw her off of the bed, which she gladly obliged, rolling off of the side onto the floor. Her injured hand, wrapped in something soft, tried to catch her weight as she plummeted to the grassy ground, but shot intense pain up her arm when it did. Her arm collapsed immediately from the agony, and her face was grateful that the floor wasn't made of wood when it planted itself firmly into it. A scream threatened to tear itself from her throat as it did in the dream, but for some reason nothing came out of her mouth but a strangled, gurgling wheeze, not unlike a baby kitten mewling. Laying there, her mind tried to make sense of what was going on, but the pain kept pushing her thoughts in scattered directions.

     Laying there, mewling and twisting, her arm on fire and her mind in disarray, she barely felt the large hand grab the back of her hair, lifting her entire body from the ground and tossing it back onto the tiny cot. The pain from her hair nearly being torn from its roots soon replaced the pain of her hand, and her eyes shot open in surprise and fear, staring straight into familiar eyes, mere inches from her own. Fetid breath and an angry visage made her cower in fear, trying to shrink into the bed as much as possible to get away from the man she had seen before passing out. Three angry red lines below his left eye caught her attention, and with horror she remembered her lucid outburst. She wondered if the man was going to beat her now, like her mother liked to do at any given opportunity.

     The man's eyes quickly flitted over her face, and realizing where her gaze was directed, he smiled darkly, backing his face away a little and running his fingers over the wound. A deep, gutteral laugh rumbled from his chest, but it wasn't the kind of laugh Kat was used to from people who were happy. No, this laugh rang deep with violence and promise, and she could feel her soul wither at the sound of it. The man muttered something in his words that sounded similar to the kind she was used to hearing every day, but twisted and foreign at the same time. She could only stare at him and try her best to look as least intimidating as possible, like she did when the older kids were bullying her. The man raked his eyes over her and scowled, running a hand through his hair, muttering more foreign words as he shook his head at her. Not knowing what to do, more scared than she had ever been in her entire life, Kat felt her eyes start to burn, but apparently her eyes were as dry as her mouth was, not even capable of producing any tears in her dehydrated state. Growling, the man bent down and grabbed her by the front of her torn shirt, jerking her upwards, scaring her even more than she thought possible, her heart thudding in her chest painfully. His face was inches from hers again as he yelled at her, pointing at her burning eyes and shaking his head as if to tell her to stop crying.

     Another wheeze escaped her mouth as she tried to scream again, not knowing what was going on but scared out of her mind. She almost preferred the darkness over this intimidating man, her childish mind having never experienced violence to this depth before. She could feel a gibbering madness approaching the edges of her sanity, and she instinctively knew that if she had to withstand much more of this, she would break down completely, lost forever in a different kind of darkness. The man grumbled, letting her shirt go at the same time, and her body flopped back onto the cot like a boneless fish, her muscles feeling like jelly. Reaching over, the man grabbed a cup off of the table next to the cot, which Kat had not noticed before now. Her attention had been slightly diverted, to her defense. Holding it out to her, the man grunted and made a drinking motion with his friend hand, but Kat could only stare at him with horror on her face. There was no way she was drinking anything this guy was offering, she would rather die of thirst. Death would be more preferable to what she had been going through lately anyway, and she knew there was no way she could go home. Even if she could find her way back through the darkness somehow, she knew she would never survive the trek again.

     As Kat minutely shook her head and pressed her lips together, a storm cloud seemed to drift over the man's face, his own lips pressed together tightly. He thrust the cup at her again, this time more forcefully, something liquid sloshing over the edges, spilling onto the bed. The liquid was thin and tinged red, giving off a pungent, sharp smell Kat had never smelled before. Squinting her eyes shut, as if the loss of sight of the man would make him go away, Kat childishly tried to will the man away. A large hand clamped over her nose roughly, and her eyes shot open wildly, wondering if he had decided to finish her off himself. Holding the cup to her lips with one elbow on her tiny body, she jerked and struggled weakly underneath of his heavy weight as she realized his intention. Her lungs burning, she could take it no longer, and her mouth betrayed her by gasping open to take a much needed breath. Liquid followed the air as the man grabbed her cheeks, squeezing and keeping her mouth forced open. She could only sputter as she tried to keep the liquid out, but she couldn't fight it, not and breathe at the same time. The liquid had a sweet taste to it, biting the back of her throat as it worked its way down into her stomach. She could feel it burning as it trailed down, her entire body warming at its presence. Her head soon began to swim, her vision swaying, and her body seemed to not cooperate with her fogging mind. Laying there limply, she quit struggling against the man's arm, her eyelids drooping in sudden tiredness. Fluttering closed, she once again surrendered to the darkness, this time deep and dreamless.