What did you do? You hurt her! You hurt my daughter, you son of a bitch! Amy, wake up baby, please!”
But I can’t wake up, the pain is too much.
“Sign them!”
“Okay, I will, but I need to know if she’s still…”
“I said sign them!”
“Okay, okay.”
“And you, there’s a marriage license on that stack, sign it!”
“What? No!”
“I’m going to fuck him up! You and I are getting married. Now, sign it.”
“No! I won’t!”
Another gust of wind, another split second and I feel it again, this time, the blow is so hard, so painful that I just give in to the hazy white fog behind my eyes.
1
Gasping awake, I look around and wonder, my head hurting so bad, I wince at the pain that shoots through my head.
Who was that incredibly sad little girl? What happened to her? And oh God, why can’t I remember her name?
There’s something about nightmares that make them seem like they have the ability to bleed into your stream of consciousness, arresting your mind to the point where you feel like you’re drowning in agony, falling to a bottomless pit of nothingness.
The heaviness in my lungs makes it hard to breathe.
My body is covered in a sheen of sweat, and as the chilly breeze from the open hotel room window wafts through the room, I’m chilled to the bone.
I try tossing and turning, desperate for some semblance of warmth, of peace, but I can’t stop shaking.
I’m half unconscious, half almost screaming from the nightmares and the pressure in my chest that I can’t make stop no matter what I do.
I try to fight.
I try to scream.
I try to kick, clawing at my chest, my nails digging into my flesh, but it does nothing. I feel nothing but more pressure, an acute pain and terror.
I feel like I keep being dragged down, like someone tied a ball and chain to both my legs and cast the ball to the dark depths of the unknown.
No!
I guess this is my punishment for everything I’ve done; being subjected to the dark where I’m barely existing, barely alive, barely breathing through the torment.
But I didn’t do what I did on purposes. I didn’t choose to be a bitch to people, they provoked me!
Please, make this stop!
I toss to the left, biting my tongue to hold off the cry trapped in my chest.
“Mia, the wages of sin, is death.”
I freeze as soon as I hear the gloomy echoed voice.
Mom!
She used to say that! And now, after killing her, her words are coming to life.
It’s not every day that you find out that you are the reason behind every shitty thing to ever happen to your family, so it’s not like I have reference points to learn from, but right now, I think the wages of what I did are now being paid in full because right now… I feel like dying.
I want to die. I want this pain ravaging my insides to stop.
“Please stop,” I whisper, the desperate cry sounding shrill to my own ears.
But it doesn’t stop.
That’s the thing about desperate pleas. They always mock you to your face and make everything worse. Hope never really works with desperation and self-loathing anyway.
“Mia, do something!”
“Mia, what did you do?”
No, no, no…
Please stop.
The horrors of what I did echo in the room, the voices and shouts drowning me back into that dark, cold and empty space where I see what I did to Nancy play over and over, like the crime is caught on a loop in my head.
It’s like there’s a weight pressing down on my chest and throat. I can’t breathe. Can’t move, shackled to a ship that’s drowning into the deepest, murkiest waters and no one will find me.
I feel so hollow inside, so empty and numb that I can’t think or function properly. All I want to do is curl into myself and disappear.
But nothing I’ve ever wanted with my entire soul has ever happened.
Not love and affection.
Not true friends and happiness.
It’s all illusive, strange and almost impossible for someone like me.
I’ve always received what I deserve and right now, I deserve this kind of pain. I deserve feeling this horrible inside with voices rattling in my head. I didn’t know this, until this very moment. The moment where my world collapses without a fight. The moment where everything I thought was true, is a lie and every lie I thought I understood is actually all my fault.
I did this. I caused all this hell to break loose.
“Please stop…” I