11. Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Sunshine
Four years have come and gone. A concept I’m having a hard time believing as I stare down at my completed syllabus.
To say I’m excited to end this part of my life and move onto the next doesn’t begin to scratch the surface.
I’m silently elated, secretively proud I’ve survived this long, and eager to find the missing piece between psychosis and healing.
Today’s day one of the last week of school.
I’ve been cooped up in my apartment since the incident; told to ‘learn my lesson’ in isolation.
I miss sitting in the crow’s nest, listening to Professor Jacobson harp over the missing details from our textbooks and scold other students for being late and inattentive.
I’ve missed so much information from not being allowed into the lecture hall that I’ve had to supplement it with extra research.
Half for knowledge’s sake, half because of morbid curiosity.
I suppose it could’ve been worse; the Dean could have expelled me completely and not allowed me to finish my classes at any rate—ironic since Dad wanted me to take online courses from the start. I lucked out.
While I’m barred from campus, I do manage to make it to the local library, which is where I’m at with a dead tablet.
I finished my final paper and turned it in seconds before the thing kicked the bucket, and now I’m sitting here in the quiet.
The occasional broken shuffle of books and the low beep of checkout makes me smirk.
After going through the trouble of instilling silence in a library, there’s still noise—like my head.
When I get home, the plan is to gather my remaining study materials and spend every day reviewing one class at a time.
Anything can end up on the exam and I want to be prepared.
My remaining classes are the ones I dread.
I can write papers all day long and with my damn eyes closed, but the moment you put multiple choice or true and false questions in front of me, I panic and forget everything I’ve ever learned.
Mr. Kensington calls it testing anxiety, I call it being a chicken shit—there’s absolutely nothing inherently threatening about an exam, but fuck me when that timer starts.
Packing up my stuff, the area seems quieter than before.
Sometimes this happens when I disassociate and block everything out, but never in public.
An uncomfortable chill settles like lead when I look over my shoulder, feeling eyes on me.
Empty tables sit behind me with a scattered book here and there, then off to the far left is the emergency exit and row after row of bookshelves.
If there’s one thing I’m not comfortable with here, it’s that people can suddenly appear behind me—making me check my surroundings more than studying.
Sweeping the area, there’s nothing abnormal except the silence which mimics the same eerie quiet at home and in the woods.
Turning back to my bag, a gnarled face sits an inch away with breath that chars the hairs inside of my nose.
Explosively abandoning my things, the chair rockets back with me still seated, plummeting to the solid floor with a brutal crash.
Fleeing on my hands and knees, the abrasive carpet flays the top layer of skin off of my hands as I rush under the table I was studying at.
On my feet before my diaphragm can rake in another breath, I spin around to find the demon. My eyes lurch from one structure to the next as they shift in and out of focus. It’s here somewhere. Scrutinizing me so malevolently my sensitive skin practically pinpointed its location.
I still can’t hear anything other than my ragged breaths and the rustle of my clothes when I whip around, catching echoes of the shadow which plagues me.
To my left, a vacant table stands with chairs shoved to the side, beneath the surface a slow chatter of teeth draws my attention.
I know what’s there; I can’t see it but I know and the longer I stare, the more my vision narrows.
Flickering lights distract me from the evil wallowing under the lacquer coated wood, teasing me, demanding my focus so I can watch as it devours me whole. I won’t let it.
An abrupt force slams into my back, knocking me forward.
I barely catch myself before I hit the floor again.
My weight paired with the sudden stop obliterates the nerves in my arms. My head snaps left and right, trying to detect her, but it’s too late.
From under the table, her gangling limbs twist and bend where the snap of her bones deliver a massive dose of terror into my spinal fluid.
Praying the distance between us is enough to get her to burst into a cloud of gnats, I shuffle back and bump into the chair I was sitting in moments ago. Vastness anchors me in place—hands of the underworld grapple with my legs and pull them through the floor as she advances.
A scream erupts from my vocal cords when she rushes.
My arms lift to protect myself, covering my face with my forearms. I can’t tell if she’s real or a lie.
Not with how violently my heart’s racing behind a cage of bones, slamming into them with brute force.
I can’t even tell if the low crackle I’m hearing is the demon or my body trying to give in.
Darkness claims me as I sink into the abyss, surrounded by snarls and jagged teeth that threaten to snatch my flesh sinew away from the framework of my tormented body. Plunged into hell, I gasp and thrash, shoving and kick, pray away and refute the pissed-off demon battering me to the ground.
Her acid-like drool splatters onto the side of my face in a fine mist. Then, when I turn to protect myself, the hot, bubbly, rancid fluid melts into my skin—burning through to the muscle and bone beneath.
Even the slowly exposed roots of my teeth ache under the sweltering singe.
The pain is unbearable, radiating in waves through raw nerves when the vile fluid eats through, and into my mouth.
With every bit of strength I have, I keep the embodiment of my demise from crushing me—away from where rotten teeth can pierce my mottled flesh. I don’t know how long I can hold her or if I won’t buckle under the force, but I have to. I have to make it; I can’t let her win.
The long wet drag of a tongue drapes across my face, from the sharp line of my jawbone up to the corner of my eye—lapping the acid and unrealized tear from my skin.
She’s trying to get back inside of me. It’s been days since we attacked Chelsea and here she is, wanting to corrupt me all over again.
It wasn’t enough she burst out of my psyche and walked the Earth in my skin, now she wants back in.
Where she relies on my seams to keep her tethered to my splintered soul. I won’t let her use my body as shelter.
The same blackened tongue stabs its way into my mouth—determined with its strokes and decomposing muscle that sleuths off and sticks to my teeth.
The second I gasp, lungs burning for air, I’ll be hers.
A puppet for this lunatic, a doll she can contort for show and use, a mask.
If she takes control, has full reign of me, what happens to Liz and Naamah?
Where will they go? Are they to be gnawed through too—they’re not worth protecting, but they let me be a girl.
One with too many faces and torments, but a girl nonetheless.
Deeper her curdled tongue goes, past my gag reflexes, tonsils, and into my throat. My epiglottis doesn’t have a fighting chance when it surges through the small gap to lick the insides of my ribbed esophagus.
Seconds snap by with a deafening clang from a nearby ticking clock. Little by little, oxygen breaks down in my blood stream, depriving my brain of the air it needs to survive. The lights, once too bright, begin to dim until it’s just my demon and I existing in a black tunnel.
Finally, she begins to ease back. I cling to the last bit of air dissolving in my lungs. My ears begin to ring and just when the pressure’s too much to bear, I hang on for a little longer.
She finally bursts, her tongue explodes into dust in my mouth only for her body to follow suit, coating me in a thick layer of filth.
Loudly, unapologetically, I suck in the harshest and deepest breath. One so large it’s as if a second life has been puffed back into my lungs. Akin to the first breath you feel as an infant; alveoli rapidly expanding to enrich your blood and begin life anew.
It burns my insides but I roll onto my side to prevent asphyxia anyway.
Coughing, the pulse of my heart pounds outside of my head, pained from the agonizing minutes of deprivation.
Once I make it to my feet, overhead lights brighten like the final boss has retreated and I’m safe once more.
But her uncanny growls start again and I bolt.
Snatching my stuff from the table top, I rush to the door without looking back.
Bursting into my apartment, I drop everything, shuffle down the long hallway to the main area and cross it to my room.
I need my pills. The demon tailed me all the way home.
I could hear her in the squeak of my shoes and honk of cars as they whipped by.
Rushing past windows and doors wasn’t any better; her shadow loomed on my back, our eyes meeting in the reflections when doors swung open in front of me.
Tumbling into the ensuite, the counter catches me by the hips, digging into the thin skin while my shaking hands fumble for the Risperdal. The last few tablets clatter inside of the orange container helplessly—I’m getting low and can’t get a refill until I see Mr. Kensington again, fucking great.
Counting them out—only five left—I pop two and chew.
Fuck drinking water, I need them in me now and not thirty minutes from now when they finally dissolve.
Lithium is next. Pulling the capsule apart, the contents pour into the space under my tongue.
It’s bitter and jarring, pure chemical twang, but will absorb faster there.
Mulling outside of the bathroom door, my demon snarls, sniffs, and claws where the carpet and tile meet—fuck, I hope she doesn’t dig through. Watching the door, the wood flexes with inhuman breaths, pushing and pulling as my mind spirals out of control.
I’m terrified, I know this; trapped in a world too dark to compete with. Shit like Alice in Wonderland or that weird-ass flying bed—Adventures of Little Nemo—movie would be heaven sent right now. This is real, devouring every sense I have.
BANG!
A yelp screams past my lips and I shrink back, ceiling debris rain down as carnage rocks the supporting frame—shaking what’s left of my mental stability. I can’t stay here. Bolting, my shoes slap on the tile one, two, three times then fall silent when they hit the carpet in my closet.
I don’t have a whole lot of clothes in here so they’re localized in the furthest back corner—the only place I feel like I can burrow and still feel safe enough to survive whatever’s about to breach the wood. My poor tattered clothes are the last barricade between me and the darkness.
Another loud bang precedes a scrape of claws and clenched fists rapidly slamming into the door. Tears sting my eyes, knowing my time is running out.
I can’t do this. I don’t know where I went wrong with the meds; this hasn’t happened for years and my childhood before then.
The memories of my adoptive father’s shouts join the demon’s—bickering and scolding me.
Promising to rip me out of my hiding space for something as meaningless as a few tears.
Covering my ears, I slip back into that house.
“You worthless girl!” Daddy shouts at me, then looks over to Momma and points at her.
“You did this. You just had to have a child when we were perfectly fine! We could go and do as we please, have friends over at a moment's notice, go to the ballet that you always complain about. Now we have to find a babysitter who doesn’t get the creeps long enough for us to be out on the town! This is your fault! Never should have let you talk me into buying some knock-off-brand kid. Look at her, she doesn’t even look like us, the least you could have done is picked one that looked remotely like us. But, no. You chose this… ghost!”
Clawing my nails into the back of my ears, my head shakes, body rocking to and fro while the demon replays the worst memories. Her lies mimicking the same angry shouts that would drag me out of my dreams and the cries I’d wail until the sun finally rose.
“Don’t call her that! She didn’t choose this, or her parents. Blaming a child for things she cannot control does nothing to fix us, Carl! You should be ashamed of yourself, putting the weight of our failing marriage on her.”
“And you didn’t, Victoria? You bought her to fix a problem we didn’t have. A Band-Aid in hopes we would last past seven years. What a damn joke.”
“Don’t…don’t say that. You know she would have ended up in the system like all the other kids do, she deserved a chance.”
“A chance at what, exactly?”
“Life!”
“Has it ever occurred to you that some kids are better off dead!”
Hot breath blows through my untamed hair, steaming at the side of my neck and ear. I’m frozen, cowering in the smallest space I can fathom, losing myself to round after round of panic.
Hurry… please hurry. I beg for the Risperdal and Lithium to kick in, to poison my blood stream and put me under where there’s no demons, pain, or hatred. Where the little girl inside of me can run free and swing her arms and legs in the sunshine. Instead, I cry, sobs wrecking me.
Fingers hook under my chin and lift where empty black eyes score mine and I come face to face with my puppet master.
Her onyx fingers skirt over the pale strands of my eyebrows, then her thumb brushes away tears to lick from her smooth thumb print.
She’s hope and a calamity parading around as my savior.
Lowly, two words numb my terror.
Sleep, child.