A Bleak Midwinter

12/31/14

The pattering of the rain on the pavement outside was a constant, dreary reminder to Shay that, in life, she was alone. Blood dripped from the long cuts on her wrist, pooling at her feet as silent, soulful tears fell to accompany it. Her gaze was locked on the bars on the window, cut lip trembling as she reached out to stroke one, feeling the cold, unforgiving metal sit in the palm of her fragile hands. Outside she could just barely make out the lights of a dying city, residents all victim to a spreading depression of many sorts. Fallen into anarchy, what used to be her home was now nothing more than a shell of what it had used to be; The people mere dolls forced to fight on in vain for as long as they could sustain themselves. Here, crime was a stranger to no one.

She turned with a start as footsteps began ascending the rickety old stairs that lay just outside of her prison, fear and adrenaline overcoming her. Knowing there was nowhere to run to, Shay backed into the furthest corner from the door, fresh blood trailing after her as she sank to the floor, knees drawn up to her chest in an effort to make herself feel smaller and safer, though, as she knew, it was all for naught. She listened as key was inserted into the lock of the old door, a blinding light taunting her from behind the figure of the man that held her there, her father's very best friend, the man she was told she was to trust the most, he who believed he owned her. 

Upon entering, his gruff, domineering eyes found the spatter, took in the blood on the bars, on the walls, on the floor and on his captive, who meekly sit curled in the corner as if that could her protect her from his aggressive sexual desires. His jaw tightened and muscles flexed as the door closed, a low, cruel chuckle seeping out from his throat as he watched the girl fight a futile battle. It was this that had drawn him to her in the first place; The look of self-confidence and power that he hated so much he felt he had to break, and break her he did. Two years had passed with her frail body imprisoned up in the small of attic of his home, with no objects to call her own save an old mattress that lay, virtually unused in the corner beside the door. Too many painful memories had accumulated there, where she lost her virginity, her sanity, her sense of self, that to look at it would send her reeling.

As he walked towards her, smirking, she shook, fear and adrenaline telling her to run, though there was nowhere to run to. In her mind she knew she would have to submit eventually, but somewhere deep, deep inside of her was telling her that she was no victim. It was that seed of fighting spirit that had kept her in touch with a sense of reality, however bleak and far away it may have seemed. The anger in her captor's eyes was blazing, for, he had told her many times, only he was allowed to harm her. The punishment was for him to enact and him alone. He hadn't known that the bars on the window had begun to rust, crumbling in her hand and leaving sharp, splintered metal behind, but that he did he would only fix them, leaving her to wallow in an intense depression without an outlet. 

He reached out to grab her thin wrist and instinctually she smacked his hand away, his surprise at the action mirroring her own. It was dizzying, the satisfaction that came with the small show of defiance, fueling her hate for the man before her.Funny, how little he expected from her now, for still he stood there in shock, unsure, unaware of the feelings boiling to the surface in the girl he had made his slave. He snapped back to attention as she stood, eyes fixed on his in the same way they had been when he had first attacked her. In his mind, something clicked, his need to crush the power in others. An old rush came in, him ready to take her on full force again, even though his large, tough physique foreshadowed who the winner would soon be. 

He laughed and lunged at her, grabbing her arms and flinging her into the wall, pushing her towards the mattress that held so much negativity for her. As she hit the wall, her head smacking against it with a sickening thud, her vision went black, the world around her appearing to be somewhere far off. Her knees buckled and she fell forward, unconscious.