Smother
My eyes open, hazy and heavy. I am placed in a front entrance that is missing the only purpose of a front entrance: the door. My stomach flips as my hands trace the bottom seam of the wall, chips of paint and stains tainting the perfection of the home.
Ahead of me is a long dark hallway. Crooked frames hang at eye level, a flickering light dangles midway down the hall, and at the end of the corridor sits a mirrored door slightly opening and closing from an unexplainable breeze.
I rise to my feet attempting to ignore the flips and rolls my stomach performs, and begin my hesitant walk.
With every step comes a creak or moan from the well-worn hardwood floor beneath me. The hallway seems so tight that only someone of my size and proportion would be able to fit through comfortably. Even now, I find my arms wrapping around myself in a hugging fashion; it feels better to have the support of yourself.
I cannot help but be nosy at what sort of pictures hang on the wall. The frames were at one point, a rich chocolate tone with subtle accents of gold. Now, with old age and malnourishment, they are a faded tan with chips poked out.
The first image—I know this image. I squint as if it’ll make the photo clearer, attempting to analyze why my throat is becoming incredibly dry. An onyx horse, a distinctive flowing infinity symbol embroidered upon his chest, and two very prominent horns rising from his head and making a large circular motion as if to make an unconnected O. I know him.
I know him well.
I don’t know what overcomes me—anger, frustration, sadness—something attacks my heart like Hamlet stabbing Polonius. I place my left hand ever so gently onto the wooden frame, holding it steady in a calm demeanor. My right arm lifts and my elbow forms a contracted V. Like a snake, coiling itself up for more power and range.
And mimicking a Cobra, my right arm extends with powerful force. My fist connects to the picture, shards of glass bursting upon impact and the loud crackling as if I had dropped a glass cup echoing in the hall.
The picture is gone.
Disappeared like melted snow.
But my hand still burns and bleeds from the hit.
I hear a distant laughter, an adult laugh, deep and throaty and beyond entertained. I grit my teeth.
The next image—someone I would know more from emotional connection than by a picture hanging on the wall—is what hits me like a train. Her glossy blue eyes, her young charcoal grey coat—her. Her who left me to die in the rain and the fog. Her, who viewed running away more desirable than raising her kin.
And Smother, I, the result of poor judgment.
I growl. Both hands wrapping around either side of the frame before ripping it off the wall. I am shaking, now. My hands and arms tense and my eyes wet from what I can only explain as aggravated emotions. These two, these two irresponsible, selfish, ungrateful creatures made me. And once they made me, they decided they didn’t want me.
No one wants me.
The frame is catapulting to the wall, whipped from my fingers in rage. If you’ve ever watched a slow demo before, most likely in science class, and you see the cool effects of a balloon popping in slow motion or a gun firing, that is what this was like. I watched as the frame’s corner was the first to be impacted, and after that the wood just split like a wine cork splitting from the neck of the bottle. Wood flies and explodes in every which way, the glass making an earsplitting noise as it follows suit.
My throat waters.
It just feels so good to be reckless.
I walk over, glass crunching beneath my weight, shards splitting up into my skin like a fork into cheese. The surface is soft enough to be broken, but firm enough to stop the motion. Leaning down, my hands trace the beautiful face of her, her dark grey muzzle and perfectly sculpted ears. The image covered in tiny pieces of glass, comparable to snowflakes.
She would be so much prettier if I didn’t wish her dead.
As I lower myself, knees cringing from the ache of earlier running, the photo slowly dissolves into the floor like mercury. My eyes water—possibly because of the anger still boiling my blood, but also possibly because until now I had never truly seen what she looked like. I had made assumptions, taken a guess, but never had proof of her appearance.
And there she was, real, looking at me with matching crystal blue eyes.
The hall light flickers, as if bringing me back to the realm of reality. Up I rise from a crouched position, wandering forward like some distant ghost. I feel out of body, moving across the dark hallway like a spirit haunting a familiar graveyard. Though I am real, everything I feel is real.
The broken pieces of my heart, that is real.
At the end of the hall, the darkest part of the corridor, the mirrored door greets me with my own reflection. I look haggard, broken. My hands are bloody, my feet leaving a trail of human paint along the floor, my lips a deep violent red, eyes vibrantly blue. My skin is pale, my nose accented with dried blood from a point that I must have hit my face, my hair a matted mess at my shoulders with a clear jagged cut from Quick’s knife.
I reach up to rub at the dirt staining my cheek.
To my left, suddenly, is another human.
He has dark black hair. I know his scent instantly. I know that tattoo on his chest.
He is here.
I reach out hastily, desperately, to open the door. I am shivering—cold? No, petrified. My body is reacting in a way I am not used to, I am panicking. I cannot pull the door open fast enough. My stomach feels as though it has dropped to my ankles, my throat so dry I almost feel myself suffocating.
It doesn’t take me more than a second to lunge through the open door and slam it behind myself.
What I see in front of me is something that makes me almost wish I had toughed out my awkward love.
I am in a room, each and every wall covered with floor to ceiling mirrors. It is a box like room, perfect proportions and low ceilings. The mirrors stretch out long enough to cover corner to corner, one mirror per wall.
In each mirror, a mare elegantly looks at me with a simplistic expression. Her eyes are a cold blue, matching to mine. Her coat is a glittering charcoal grey, her mane and tail a mix of pearl and onyx... She stares at me a long time, I almost feel like a deer in front of a hunter’s trigger.
She speaks, but I cannot hear her. I cannot hear her talk. Her mouth is moving, and I am desperate to listen. To hear a tone.
But I cannot.
I move closer, entranced, curious. My hand reaches out, but the woman is gone. The beautiful woman is gone. In her place is my very own reflection, dark and twisted, bloody and venomous.
Silly child, this is why they rid of you.
I feel tears filling my eyes and I pound at the mirror in frustration. I want to hear her. But she doesn’t want me to hear, she dumped me in the freezing rain for a reason. I was useless, a monster.
Suddenly an image appears at my shoulder, him and her. They are together now. I see him, nuzzle her cheek. I see her, cuddle her head. They both look so young, so happy.
I didn’t know we could cry from happiness.
A wind changes the scenery and they are fighting, angry and distant. I see her, she has a round belly. I see him, he has scars tainting his face. So imperfect, broken and shattered.
They were happy till I came along, I now know that.
Another scenery change and she is on the floor, a wet baby shivering beneath her shadow. The rain and hail scolds the woman like golf balls denting a Cadillac. She is resting against the snow and wet grass, a transition from fall to winter. I can see the baby—closed eyes, no idea of the future.
I cringe.
I know who that is.
“No,” I am sputtering, backing up. “No.”
I know what happens next. Mommy leaves her baby to die, and then daddy regretfully takes over the burden.
I had imagined it over and over again in my head. What could have happened, what must of happened. Why it happened. When it happened. I picture it all, I dreamt about if for years.
Over and over again.
And now here it is, like a really bad movie my parents were desperate to show me. Though this is no Clint Eastwood western, no this is real life.
My life.
My hands reach up and grasp my head, I pull myself into a standing fetal position and let out an enraged cry. I hear the rattle of mirrors around me threatening to fall off their hangers.
You know the feeling of being useless, regardless of the situation you are in? That feeling when you know something is unfair, you see something unjust, but you can’t do anything. Like watching a father yell at his child in an unacceptable way. You can’t say anything, you can’t do anything, you can just watch.
And all I can do right now is watch as my life is played out for me like some cinema special.
I stand, my face red and my body tense, to realize every mirror in the room is gone. There is only a trail of lights leading to a very old, antique door. My bottom lip is quivering, my eyes drenched with salty tears.
Just breath.
The hallway I enter as I walk through the door is pitch black. I see nothing, I can only feel the narrow walls on either side of my body as I outstretch my arms. There isn’t even a hint of sunlight that can help guide my way.
And then, a deep familiar masculine tone echoes in my ears.
“Thank God father kicked you out.”
I spin on my heels as if to expect my half brother glaring me in the face. I see nothing. My fists ball and my expression tightens. There is nothing, not even a presence I can feel.
“You were a disappointment to his kin.”
“No,” I shout madly, lashing out with a blow to the wall from my fist. “He didn’t give me a chance.”
“You should have been left to freeze.”
A tap on my shoulder sends me spiraling into madness. I swing out with my shoulder, hitting nothing but the other side of the wall. I let out a choking cry, attempting with everything I can to withhold weakness.
A puff of air blows at my face, like someone went to slap my cheek but fell an inch short. I lunge forward, full force, my body extending to find the source of my mockery.
A cord (I think) latches the tip of my foot and I fall crumbling down to my knees. I wince, a painful cramp lurching my legs to my pelvis.
“Worthless. Taking up air for something of use to breath.”
Something, feels almost like a boot, stabs at my back like boot kicking a soccer ball and I fly forward onto my face. My nose begins running uncontrollably, I can only bet it must be blood. My cheeks sting and my lip begins to puff.
Randomly, the lights flicker on, still yet hesitantly fading in and out with the power, giving me the opportunity to see three doors ahead and choose one. I am crawling, exhausted and sore, my left hand supporting my nose and my right hand pulling my aching body along.
I choose the door to my right, the closest and easiest to navigate to. Rising from the floor feels almost as painful as transitioning to a monster, each and every bone and muscle begging me to stop. I tip my head back to regain some liquid, feeling the pungent iron taste run back down my throat.
I am in a bedroom now. I sit on the floor, closing the door behind me quietly. To my left is a window that is sealed shut by prison like bars.
I feel something, like hands almost though nothing is visible, latch around my ankles. The same sort of feeling I had in the forest, when a presence looped itself around me and pulled me around like a ragdoll.
I go sliding against my will to the bed, and then get tossed onto it like a teddy bear onto a child’s pillow. I quickly try to scramble off but the feeling of something pinning me to the blanket keeps me from rising.
I feel something lace up my leg like a string toying with the surface of skin. I am whimpering now, my stomach tensing with every touch. I feel the texture of a hand wipe at my cheek, the presence wandering up my thigh.
“Do you know what it is like to be tortured?.”
Quick.
Her voice is dripping with eagerness.
“Let me show you, my friend Smother, what it feels like to be murdered.”
I bite my lip and swallow. I will not show weakness.
I feel what it is like to be stabbed by a knife in my liver. I know the feeling of metal entering skin, the blade cutting fat. The coldness that overwhelms your body.
I feel what it is like to be suffocated by a cloth. The rush of panic. The jolt of air desperate to escape.
I feel what it is like to be choked, tortured, touched, taunted, teased, mutilated, bruised, battered.
I wish I could narrate everything I experienced.
I wish I could tell you what it feels like to be murdered.
I wish I had been murdered just to end the thought.
….
I am left, cold and sweaty and shivering, on the floor. The bed has disappeared, like so many other things. Along with it went all of my dignity, courage, and boldness. It took what I needed to survive the terrors. Now… now I am an easy target.
The room is cold, empty. There are no mirrors, windows, furniture.
There is a light, a small one hardly enough to reach the floor.
I am curled up in a ball, stroking my legs and pretending to mend my ripped clothes. The air is so chilled that even a parka wouldn’t be enough for me.
“Waste of skin.”
The voice, him, booming around me.
No I am not, I think but I am too weak to speak.
“I thought my daughter would be better.”
She, so judgmental, so cruel.
“Worthless.”
My brother, half brother.
I cover my ears.
“No!” I am screaming over and over again, “No. Fuck off. No!”
A CD with a scratch that continuously repeats.
“Shut up. Shut up.” I am screeching like a bat, rising from the floor like an elephant waking from a long nap. My legs are so incredibly weak that I hobble from my own weight. My arms are so mutilated that they shake at their own discretion. My face is so swollen that I can feel the blood molding around as I maneauver myself. I can hardly breath, my nose is destroyed.
All three of them keep talking like they are right against my ear. I hear them so clearly that I feel I can slap them by just spinning with my hand out. But yet I know as soon as I go to do something, they won’t be there. Their voices will be, but not their bodies.
“Goodbye, Smother.”
“What?” I question.
And then the floor disappears.
I land in a heap, a level down. I am in a room with ten doors surrounding me. Some wiggle and move from the monster it hides, some are silent with a questionable glow around the rim.
Three shadows stand before me. No faces, no true body, just shadows.
“You thought you were so strong and capable, didn’t you Smother-dear?” She says, I can hear the smirk.
“She thought she didn’t need anyone, foolish girl.” He speaks with disdain.
“Come on dad. I always said she was a piece of shit anyways, we don’t need her.” Arrogance rings from the third shadow, I practically feel the slap of his words.
I sit there, staring at them with wildness curling at my smile.
“Fuck. You.” I spit at their direction, blood trickling down my face.
“Tsk. Tsk. Didn’t mommy teach you manners?”
My jaw tenses.
“Haha, oh right. You never had a mommy.”
I lunge forward, as if strangling a shadow is a possibility. I fall forward and scramble to rise but my feet are latched onto and I am dragged back. I am pounding on the floor and screaming in absolute aggravation. If I am to die, which surely I am, I will die fighting.
I feel my arms get pinned to the floor, the cold concrete biting at my skin. I kick out violently, the laughter surrounding me. I am a toy, I am playing hard to get, I am nothing.
Someone is pulling at my right leg as if to detach my limb. I am shrieking as my muscles stretch in a way that shouldn’t be possible.
I don’t know how I suddenly get released. They got bored of hearing my distinctive cry or they decided to let the mouse think she has a chance to run, but either way I utilize the moment.
I am crawling on all fours like a mutt, I don’t look back I just feel myself gliding across the cement like a squirrel. My fingers latch onto the door handle almost too high for me to reach, and I am spinning it open frantically. I cannot open it fast enough.
Something jerks me back and I let out a wince.
Every bit of me holds onto the door handle for dear life as someone, something tugs at my ankles. The door swings open and my hands latch onto the doorframe. I hear more laughter and giggling.
“Silly Smother.”
“Foolish girl.”
“Stupid Smolly thinks she got away.”
A bright light shines as the door swings open and I feel my predators loosen their grip. I am pulling myself as if to do a pull up into the frame.
Leaning against the wall I slam the door shut. Engulfed by the bright light.
You can assault me, call me names, taunt me, tease me, but you can’t break me.
I exhale, closing my eyes and muting the complaining aches of my body.
I am OK.
