The Waning Page 6

  She was like a ghost haunting the walls of my cell. An impatient ghost. I had to get out of here, had to get back to her. She was calling to me in these excruciating memories. She beckoned me from where I knew she was curled up around McAllister on the couch, wet tears on her cheeks, sobbing into his fur. Missing me.

  They weren’t going to find me. It had been too long now; I could feel it. Hadn’t I heard somewhere that if they don’t find the missing in the first forty-eight hours, they don’t find them alive? Or at all. Wasn’t there a show about that? I could not wait here for my saviors to burst through the door to my cell, guns drawn and EMTs behind. There would be no rescue; I had to get myself out of here. I forced my thoughts to turn out of the wayward panic and circle back to escape.

  Escape had to be the hope in this dark.

  The light would blind me at first, so intense after all the darkness. I would stumble and squint as I shielded my eyes, but I would keep running. I would burst out of this hole in the ground, this dungeon in a basement, this shed in the woods. My legs would burn with atrophy, and my lungs would heave unpracticed, but I would not stop running. Even as the ground tore open my bare feet, I wouldn’t feel it.

  I would only feel the freedom and the outside air on my face.

  There would be a torrent of police and doctors and officials, and the still center of that spinning world would be Lei. She would emerge unmoved and unchanged from the chaos. Her eyes would be red from so many nights spent weeping, but the fresh tears welling in her eyes would be joy, relief.

  I would hobble to her on my broken body. I wouldn’t see anyone else but her. And when I felt her arms encircle me, when I felt her heat radiate against me as we embraced, I would know it was over.

  I thought of the reunion more than I dwelled on my plans, yet I spent the next few days plotting my escape. I never could have conceived how deeply laid Your plans truly were. I would pick the lock on the cage. I would lift something sharp off of You and school myself in lock picking. I would crouch in wait for the opportune moment. I would bludgeon You with the metal plate from my last meal, somehow enough to disorient You. I would run and run. I would find help. I would return to her.

  Idiocracy like that is for the movies. My dominos were never to line up so neatly.

  It is embarrassing to remember how sloppy I was at first. Like that first night, just lunging at You like an animal, hoping to knock You aside long enough just to run. You barely moved when I collided with You, just rocked back onto Your heels and stared down at me, blank or maybe faintly amused. You simply locked a hand around my wrist as I wildly scrambled for the door, slowly contorted me down to my knees where I belonged. I must have looked so stupid. It was a wonder You didn’t give up on me and just bury me as a failure then.

  Once the seed began to blossom in my brain, I spent a day or two scouring my options. You did not leave me much to work with. The only tool I could identify was the fork You began including with my food when I was elevated past the unidentified paste. The fork would have to be my key; it was all I had.

  I actually tried to pick the cage lock with a bent fork, like some lame caper movie. In the dark, I curled my fingers around the edge prong and pushed and pulled until the metal dug into my skin. My hands trembled at the exertion, and my breath squeezed out from pursed lips until the metal yielded. I brought the prong away from its siblings then curled myself up against the door of my cage.

  I sat awkward and hunched against the bars, the steel digging into my hip and shoulder. I could only fit my hands out of the spaces between the thin bars and only to the wrists. With both hands shoved out of different slots, wrists pressed to the point of wavering sensation, I juggled the fork between my fingers, trying to maneuver it in the direction of the lock.

  The metal spun from my fingertips and softly clanged on the floor. And my heart sank with it.

  Thankfully, it tumbled close to the cage. I moved my hands to the lowest slots and scraped my nails along the concrete. I could not see the fork; I could only hear it shift on the floor when I grazed the cold metal. I reached until my tendons whined and managed to dig the fork close enough to grip. I manipulated the fork and my hands back through the bars, then back up to the lock and out again.

  This time, I managed to point the bent prong at the lock and fumble it against it. As if I knew anything about locks or spindles or whatever the fuck was inside them. I jabbed it clumsily at the lock like an anxious schoolboy. The tip managed to penetrate, but it was too thick to be effective.

  The fork fell again, as did my hope. As if You would give me a utensil that I could manipulate into freedom in any imaginable scenario.

  I retrieved it once more only to cover my attempt. I grunted until I bent the prong back, hopefully unnoticeably straight again. Then, in the dark, I ran my fingers over the metal repeatedly until I convinced myself it was restored to an original and unsuspecting condition.

  The morning after the unsuccessful fork debacle, You lifted the lock in Your hand and hesitated. You turned it in the dim light just a bit, to ignite the scratches. My heart completely stopped, and I heard the void of my pulse in my ears. I could feel my eyes spreading wider and wider.

  You smirked out of the corner of Your mouth and just resumed Your task as planned. I remained frozen in panic as Your hand entered. I did not know what to do. What is he going to do to me? Is he reaching in to snatch me out and to my punishment? You extended past me and collected my used dishes, as if I could have bent the fork cleanly back enough to disguise its utility. In the dim light, even I could see the mangled angle of the bent prong.

  Pathetic plans that never had a chance in this hell or any other. Yet I survived in the dark on these sad little fantasies. Breadcrumbs of hope. I enacted every detail in my mind until I felt that exhilarating wave of relief and freedom. Then I lived off that imagined reunion with my life.

  After the fork disappointment, my mind turned to physically disabling You long enough to run. Yet You continued to only let me out for my bucket. Physical urgency captivated my attention when You released me, and shame left my resolve wilted when I was done. I just crawled back into my cage a little more broken each time.

  I did not have the balls to face You, to challenge You in Your arena. I was only proved a failure, a victim of all my fantasies.

  You knew. You knew all along. I was transparent to You. Apparent to You from the moment You pressed that cloth over my mouth. Maybe even before. I fooled myself, briefly, that I was being crafty and concealing my intentions. I told myself I was still my own person; I still had my secrets and privacy in my head. Gradually, even that illusion fell away. Then I knew that You knew.

  After the fork, I told myself that maybe You did not notice. You had not reacted, aside from that sly smile of knowledge, and more importantly, You had not punished me. Yet on the one occasion I mustered the courage to feign a step at charging You, I caught a look in Your eye that dismissed the intention from my head.

  Your eyes were not angry, and certainly not scared or surprised. Yet they were not lifeless and detached in purpose as they usually were. There was a depth and a connection in our brief eye contact that made me shutter. It was a semblance of an understanding I saw in Your expression.

  You knew.

  You would always know.

  Somehow, You were deeper inside my head than I was even able to be now.

  In that split second where our gazes mingled, my dream of escape wilted and died. You would always know; You would always be one step ahead of me. The hope that I had been sustaining shriveled up in my chest, leaving it feeling cavernous. My heart beat slow and hollow in the empty space.

  A small part of my mind fell away, and I abandoned myself to mechanically following the routine.

  Food and water.

  The bucket.

  Then again, You were gone. I was left alone, lying in a puddle of my ineptitude. Still trapped here. Still Yours.

  9

  I clung to my rage agai
nst my swelling and crushing despair. I felt the sorrow well up inside me, like a warm, thick, suffocating blanket, but I pushed back against it. I focused on the anger, became emotionally singular. I dug my nails in deep and clutched it close, along with the torturous visions of Lei, McAllister, even my office.

  Julie’s annoyingly warm smile and alarmingly chipper voice with my glorious morning coffee, steam curling out of the mug as the few drops of cream still twirled into the brown liquid.

  McAllister tripping over his floppy puppy front paws while his back legs kept pumping, grinding his little nose into the grass before he realized to stop.

  Lei singing softly to herself woefully out of tune while she kneaded elbow deep in a mound of dough.

  Hold onto them. Hold onto that life. You’re going back.

  This was Your fault; You were doing this to me. You were keeping me from them, and I would get back to them. I would take my life back.

  Fuck You.

  Such silly fucking delusions. Rations I fed to myself to keep me from focusing on suicide instead. And Suicide was increasingly becoming a very tempting mistress. She lay down beside me in the dark, running her hand down my back like Lei used to do when I was exceptionally stressed. She whispered in my ear that she could make it end; she could make the hurting stop; she could free me from this place. More and more every dark day, she seemed the most compelling option to rescue me. Her embrace became heavier, more seductive.

  If it wasn’t for Lei’s huge dark eyes that always appeared to dilate when she looked at me, even when she was pissed at me. Especially when she was pissed at me. If it wasn’t for the thought of those stupid fucking bracelets on her soft wrist.

  Between the sweet caress of the idea of flight through death and the haunting memories of my life stripped away, I felt insanity spreading through my cells, making a home in my chest cavity and skull. It felt almost comforting to exist with such abandon, to be at the mercy of my instincts and mental collapse. No worry of what a partner would think of me, no thought to what someone could use against me, no pretenses, no goals.

  I simply was whatever the torrent in my mind fell upon at the moment. Waves of claustrophobia swelled in me and sent me crashing in a wild frenzy against the bars. Hopelessness dropped a black veil over my brain and reduced me to wasteful tears and sobs. Anger had me screaming until the sound of my own voice echoing back at me assaulted my ears.

  My mind was a vengeful blur of images and emotions, a swirling tide growing stronger with each splat of those falling drops.

  Drip, drip, fucking drip.

  I shook the bars with all my might then softly cried myself to sleep. Day after day.

  You were breaking me down. More brilliantly than I could realize, lost in my strife. You were leaving me alone to turn on myself, break myself down to something more pliable for You.

  I wish I could have appreciated the beauty of it in my misery.

  I couldn’t take another day of it. I couldn’t take another day of nothing but food dropped in front of me and being dragged to my bucket twice. I could not go on like this. Dogs had better lives.

  The door moved; the light poured in. My body felt drained and redundant in this increasingly familiar and fluent dance of fear. Hours spent trembling against these bars quickly outweighed years lived on the outside; the resonation of distress through my cells was quickly becoming my baseline. I embraced it so easily; it infected my mind so effortlessly. For all I ever thought of my mind, it dissolved behind the beast at my core before I had the time to starve myself.

  The room animated beyond my tomb. You hesitated in the wake of the door as usual, but You had a commanding presence that reminded me of my first night in Hell. You looked up, looked down at me again. I found excitement trimming the edges of my anxiety, and that, in itself, disgusted me.

  Yet I could not help it. You broke the dark; You ended the isolation. With each passing second locked away, the fear and the pain You introduced me to seemed like the lesser of two evils.

  I curled up over myself, folding my legs beneath me and wrapping my arms protectively around them. I put my back to the far bars of the small cage. I waited, almost rocking on my heels. You stood in the doorframe briefly, as before, then stepped forward.

  You squatted beside my cage. I simultaneously wanted to press myself back through the bars to escape and to leap forward into Your lesson. The contradiction again surprised and disturbed me. I did neither. I waited silently on edge.

  What the fuck does this mean?

  As You reached in and dragged me out, I felt my fear rising. I would not feel this way; I would not be relieved to see You; I would not find comfort in Your presence.

  I would hate You as I should.

  As You yanked me to my feet and stood me in front of You, I felt my heartbeat quicken. Adrenaline was pouring through my veins; my muscles wanted to flinch. I stared down at the cement floor, noting the cracks I could see under the swinging light bulb and forced myself to breathe.

  Hold on to the rage. Hold on to it. Fuck this motherfucker. Fuck him.

  I steeled myself, forced her—that bitch hiding inside of me—to rise back up to meet my flesh.

  Fuck this guy. Fuck this guy! I screamed to myself in my head until I could wrench my head up to meet Your eyes.

  They were, in a word, terrifying. Your eyes were such a dark brown that they looked like two black holes in the middle of Your eyeballs. Holes that I could see taking me in and swallowing me whole. Holes that were empty and revealed nothing as to what You had tucked beneath all Your composure.

  Now, my heart was literally pulsating against my ribs, sending vibrations through my skeleton. I was sure You could hear it. I had no doubt You could smell my fear, probably thrived on it.

  “What the fuck do you want?” I spit the words in Your face, mustering all the ferocity and venom I could. “You going to fucking beat me again? Pussy.”

  The slap somehow surprised me. The blow was so clean and precise that my head snapped to the side. I felt my teeth sink into my cheek and tasted the iron flavor of my own blood on my tongue. My mouth hung open in shock.

  “Like I said,” I stuttered. “Beat me again, you pussy.”

  I was literally gagging on my fright, feeling my throat quiver and clench around every word. I didn’t let it show; I forced it down away from my face and out of my voice. If I could hide being a lesbian for so many years, I could hide this. If I could be that office cunt every single day, I could fight You. I could give you the fight I should have had in me the first night I met You.

  Your hand collided with my jaw again, exploding the same pain through my skull again. I felt it deeper; it throbbed harder. My nerves, my instincts were shrieking, Retreat! Shut the fuck up!

  I did not speak again. I couldn’t. My mouth was saturated with pain and the infectious taste of my blood. I could feel the ache radiating through my entire head, permeating my brain. I did not want the pain again; I could not ask for it again.

  No. I could not just give up. I could not comply, could not submit. I could not let You win. How could I just let You after You took me out of my life, after You locked me in this awful fucking room, after You had me living like an animal, after You beat me senseless and left me to tumble into insanity? How could I accept that without a fight?

  There had to be fight left in me. Somewhere.

  I dug deeper, rooted around in my soul, if I still had one. I snapped my head up to face You and opened my mouth to assault You again. I even started to raise my hands. Fuck it, I would strike You, too.

  You snatched my wrists hard, pinching until I felt my fingers tingle. You contorted my arms back until I felt the burning twist in my bones and muscles. I cried out and began to bend back to ease the pressure. You released one wrist and brought a fist smashing into my nose.

  My sight exploded. I saw white then red then the swinging light again. My brain stuttered and flickered like movie off the reel before settling back on the sight of You stan
ding over me. The anguish thumped across my face; each pulse of my heart raising the sensation. I could feel blood spilling into my mouth.

  All thoughts of fight had been knocked out of my head.

  I felt so weak. I felt so helpless. I felt claustrophobic again even outside of my small, metal box. The tears welled up over me as quickly as the pain had overtaken my body. I dissolved into blubbering. The convulsions shook my torso so hard I started to wilt before You. The anger and rage turned inward on me, burning hot down my cheeks. An avalanche of despair threatened to block out the small light above us. Thoughts were decomposing; coherency was abandoning me. All that was left was the singularity of my depression, the weight of my hopelessness, the finality of my loss.

  I didn’t see the vicious punch to the stomach coming. I only felt the harsh impact and all the air forced out of my lungs. I tried to cough, but I was deflated. I no longer felt my face as the sensation detonated in my gut. My lungs burned as they groped to draw breath again. My abdominal muscles cramped tightly, forcing my body to wrap into itself. It was a heavy, sinking agony that drew me down into it. I simply relented and curled down around the pain until I felt the cold concrete on my skin.

  You stood over me unmoving, but I knew it was ill-advised to remain puddled at Your feet. I heard my mother’s voice in the distance. Dry it up before I bust your tail. I wanted to die right here. I didn’t want to fight; I didn’t want to snap to attention. I wanted my heart to stop beating and release me from this hell. I never wanted to see Your fucking face again.

  The threat of more punishment menaced over me in Your eyes. I did not want more pain; I could not take more pain. I held my breath until the cries subsided; then, with my head buzzing, I dragged myself to my feet, stacked my feeble frame back up for You.

  I stood silent before You with my obedient eyes cast down. I tried not to cradle my aching body. I tried to stand up straight as I stared at the floor. I was quivering on the inside, and my mind was consumed with the inventory of my injuries.