Hidden Away

A Story by Ash

I palm the sides of my head with my hands, in some attempt to block out the screaming I hear wafting up from downstairs.

I can not, however, remove the ringing from my head or the rapid pumping of my blood through every vein in my body.

I can't just hear it - I can feel it. I can feel every vein in my body inhaling and exhaling, I can feel the erratic pulse of liquid traveling through me.

It makes me uncomfortable. I squirm and shake my head a little, trying to lose that pumping, pulsing feeling that drives me insane.

It takes me a minute to slowly raise my head and to realize that the screaming has stopped.

Something was wrong. The screaming never stopped. At least not this early.

I pull my knees closer to my chest, and stare at the spider webbed wall in front of me. It's all I can really see, in this darkness.

Most children are scared of their closets. But for me, they're an escape, a sanctuary.

A hiding place.

I contemplate sliding the wooden door over a bit, to try and let some sunlight in. But the bottom of the door would scrape against the floor, and with how frail my house is, I know the sound would travel downstairs, alerting him to my presence, reminding him that I am still here.

It's best to remain forgotten sometimes.

I instead opt to remain hidden, and lower my head again, resting it on my knees. I screw my eyes shut, and am met with the same darkness as when they were open.

I wonder why the screaming has stopped, and why it was so sudden. I wait for the signs that the fighting is over - the jingling of keys, the front door screeching open and then slamming shut. The rumble of a car engine starting, and then the scrape of tires against gravel as one of them drives away, only to return sometimes hours, sometimes days later.

But I don't hear any of that. What I hear instead is the steady thump of expensive, sturdy shoes traveling up the stairs. Not the impatient clacking of six-inch heels.

My father is coming upstairs. I don't know where my mother is.

My door is the third to the right in the hallway. I wonder if he knows that. He's never come into my room before. Not since it was still a nursery, clad with cheap white furniture and blue everything.
Tiny elephants had danced across the wallpaper.

A nursery obviously built for a little boy.

I am a girl.

I hear him thump down the hallway. And my heart stops and then plummets to the lowest reaches of my stomach when I hear his ragged breathing right outside my door. I can feel every hair on my body stand up, and I visibly shudder. I startle the white spider that perches on the web in front of me - a dot of light in this darkness.

I do not know why, but I am terrified. There is no plausible reason for it. I am not the one beaten and cursed at. I am not brought into their fights.

I am simply ignored.

Perhaps this is akin to how animals can sense an earthquake before it strikes.

I hear my door swish open, cutting the air with its sharp edges. It is the only door of anything in the house that does not make some kind of noise.

I stop breathing. There is no reason for him to be in here. No reason at all. Where is my mother?
I pray to whatever god that happens to be listening that he is not actually walking towards the closet. That he is not actually putting his hand on it, that he is not actually about to open it.

I let out a silent sigh of relief when I sense the pressure of his hand taken away from the door. I feel him stand there, for seven agonizing seconds. My eyes are wide open now.

I hear him turn on his heel, I see it in my head. And he calmly walks towards the hallway again.

I think that I am safe. However, I decide not to come out of my hiding spot until I am sure that they are both sleeping tonight, if my mother is even still here.

There was something different about this fight. And it is too risky to be remembered this time. This will not be the day that I am finally dragged into the crossfire.

And suddenly a wave of thunder rushes towards my door. I don't have time to think or even to be scared as my father wrenches the door of my closet open, practically ripping it from its base. The smell of congealed blood hits me, and I pass out.