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What’s Left of Me (Part 2)

Chapter Two

By Chadlai ShadePublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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“How could you possibly understand how I feel?” I asked, incredulous. For a moment I considered yelling at Levi, then admitted, “Then again, I can’t really feel anything. Except when I do this.” I pointed to the bandaged cut on my arm.

Levi rubbed his palms on his jeans, looking uncomfortable, “When I was little… George molested me a few times. And in high school I just feel so ANGRY, like all the time. I felt like an outcast. Nobody really knew me or understood me. I, uh… I thought about killing them. A lot.”

“Killing who?”

“Well, George, for starters. Then the kids at my school. The teachers, everybody.” He cleared his throat, “That’s why I got into my line of work. I want to help people like me. I want to help all these kids who HAVE walked into their schools and done what I thought about doing. Prevent it if I can.” He ran a hand through his hair, “I just never realized I’d be having this conversation with my little sister. Makes me wonder what else I haven’t noticed.”

I sighed, “It’s not your fault, you know. I mean it’s not like you were there. I didn’t even try to tell you. By the time all of the really bad stuff started happening, you were already gone.”

He put his hand on my knee, “That doesn’t mean I don’t feel awful. I still wish there had been a way to help you when it was happening.” He frowned, “I can’t believe Mom just dismissed you like that. I mean why would she act like it hadn’t happened?”

“Self preservation?” I threw up my hands. “Who knows?”

“Look, I want you to promise me something. Promise me that any time that you feel like you need to hurt yourself, you come to me first, ok?”

“Why? What are you gonna do?”

“I’m going to try to help you figure out what to do instead. Talk about why you feel like you need to.”

I nodded, but I was definitely skeptical.

“And I want to talk about the other stuff, too, the spiritual stuff,” he said, standing. “But not tonight. We both need to get some sleep.”

He looked into my eyes, searching. I felt uncomfortable under his gaze, and squirmed a little.

“What?” I demanded.

“Are you going to be alright in here by yourself?”

I glared at him, “I’m not five years old, Levi.”

“You come and get me if you need anything.”

I swallowed hard, “Ok.”

To break the tension, and avoid further scrutiny, I got under my thick blankets and snuggled down into my pillows and shut my eyes.

I jumped when I felt a light kiss on my forehead.

“Good night, Maddie,” he said.

“Night,” I mumbled.

I rolled my eyes when Levi walked to his room without closing my door, but I didn’t get up. My mind was buzzing and I felt more alert than I had in ages. I was sure I was never going to fall asleep.

Sleep came for me anyway, and I knew it had claimed me because I was back at the Door.

In my sleep, and sometimes when I was awake, I would suddenly find myself at the same odd space in my head. It was like I wasn’t quite dreaming yet, awake in a way that didn’t require physical consciousness. The landscape was always the same. I was on a cliff looking out over the ocean. The air was warm and creamy with heat and humidity. The sound of the waves pounding the sand below me filled my ears. And there, to the right, was the Door. It stood on its own in the springy, coarse grass, but the area around and behind it was shrouded in impenetrable fog. No matter how many times I tried to walk through the fog to the other side of whatever it was hiding, I always circled back to the cliff and there would be the Door.

I knew that if I didn’t open it, I would be stuck on the cliff until I woke up. The wait was unbearable. I could either walk through the door and face the dreams behind it, or I could stay restless and mostly awake on the cliff until morning. As benign as my little seaside cliff was, there were times when I hated it. Even my dreams weren’t normal. Why wasn’t my brain as dull and asinine as everyone else’s? Why couldn’t I just dream about being at a Justin Timberlake concert or some shit, like other girls did?

Feeling frustrated, but knowing I’d give in and walk through the door anyway, I stomped over to it and shoved the creaky wood open, revealing a dark hole in the fog bank. I could never see what was on the other side.

Stealing myself, I walked into the clammy darkness and heard the door shut behind me.

The swirling sensation of falling through space took over my senses, but it wasn’t a mad rush like the free fall from the top of a roller coaster. It was more like the descent of a feather, or a stone sinking through water. I always landed lightly on my feet, and then I could see.

Tonight the dream was not just a dream. Talking about my past with Levi had brought me back to a place I never wanted to return.

I was back in the house next door to my childhood home. I was standing on the filthy brown, curly carpet of the upstairs bedroom. I knew from experience that I couldn’t leave. The door was locked, the windows unbreakable. I knew what I would see if I looked at the floor, but like a train wreck, I couldn’t help but stare.

There was my nine year old self, sprawled face down on the musty carpet as my seventeen year old neighbor pounded himself into me. Bodily fluids were splattered all over the bed and the walls and the floor. The room smelled like death; an awful combination of blood and sweat and the reek of fear and pain.

Tonight I saw the end, as he stood over me and laughed, taking himself in hand to piss all over my bruised skin. And then I saw something I’d never seen before.

Out of every dark corner, like smoke streaming up out of the baseboards, thick shadows billowed into the room. Horrific Halloween masks of faces manifested out of the ectoplasm and screamed in triumph, their voices worse and more terrifying than hearing the Ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings at an IMAX theater. The pealing cacophony was like listening to a mixture of psychotic laughter, the mad screams of rioters, the tortured pleas of the damned and the sound of nails on a chalkboard all at once, in horrible, echoing stereo. There in the midst of them was the boy, his laughter joining in as his body dissolved into a puddle of black oil that oozed over the floor to engulf my flesh. As it started to drown me, I realized I was lying on the floor, no longer observing. I was one with my younger self, dying in the ocean of black that was consuming my flesh. I opened my mouth to scream and the black tide filled my lungs.

I could hear myself screaming, despite the fluid that was being pumped into my chest and felt my cheeks burn as my mouth stretched wide to accommodate the frantic wailing. I gasped when I felt hands in the darkness and struggled to get away, but the grip only got tighter.

Levi was shaking me.

“Snap out of it! Wake up!” He stage whispered frantically.

I closed my mouth to cut off the yelling and sobbed with relief, my entire body shaking like I was holding a jackhammer.

Levi sat heavily on my bed and pulled me into his arms. I wasn’t usually okay with being touched, but his embrace was grounding in a way I so desperately needed. I drank in comfort and felt the shaking begin to ebb. My brother murmured softly and rubbed my back in firm circles, and my sobbing quieted.

After a few minutes, I felt fully awake, and the realization that I was in bed with somebody holding me suddenly jolted me back into the present and I pushed Levi away.

“Go away,” I croaked. “Just go away.”

“No,” Levi said, but he stood and left the room.

For a moment I was puzzled but then he walked back in with his pillow and an arm full of blankets, which he spread out on the floor next to my bed. After rolling himself into a burrito, he took one last look at me before closing his eyes.

“Try to get some good sleep,” he said.

But there would be no sleep for me, I thought. The clock said it was five thirty in the morning and I wasn’t about to get trapped in that dream again. I closed my eyes anyway and listened as my brother started snoring softly. For some reason, it made me cry again.

The tears ran from the corners of my eyes and dropped down into my ears and pooled on my pillow.

My brother cared.

My brother CARED.

No one else had ever cared.

I fell asleep, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I dreamed of absolutely nothing.

trauma
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About the Creator

Chadlai Shade

Holding a lantern up in the dark.

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