The Last
Faint sounds of the game travel to the kitchen as I prepare our dinner. The chain to my shackles clatter against the hardwood as I glide to the table to set our places. I hope, not to God, that everything goes smoothly tonight. I don’t think I can handle another episode. I place the salad, freshly tossed out of the spinner into the intricately detailed wooden bowl. My fingers trace along the crevices as I finish the table, treating it as a jigsaw puzzle.
“Kai honey! Dinner’s ready” I toss out of my throat, controlling the shakes as best as I could. I feel darkness behind me, making the hairs on the back of my neck shoot up. He takes his seat, eyes raised to mine motioning for me to do the same. When he talks, it’s not to me, but every so often he shoots me a quick glance acknowledging my presence. I decide to speak up asking him about his day, but I am accompanied by the toss of the table, shattering the silence. He walks out the front door leaving me to his mess. I quickly scatter to gather shards of broken glass big enough to pick up with my hand. My eyes darted to the lonely steak knife, under the cabinet’s trim. My hand clings around it’s chiseled base, begging me to use it.
It feels as though I just blinked, though now I’m running out of the house, fresh air hitting my face for the first time in weeks. The skin around my ankle aches as the chilling breeze hits the open gash. Freshly raw, the moonlight acts as a soothing agent, illuminating the pain for just a second, while highlighting the black and blue stains on my wrists. He's sick, twisted, nothing I've ever quite seen before. It’s been twenty seven days of torture embedded with dissociation, and not one more day I will live before going back. My body’s numb, as my naked feet sink slightly into the damp soil with each leap I take, tasting the earth through my heavy pants. I hear him screaming. His cries travel towards me, piercing my ears and seemingly shaking the trees, causing birds to scatter frantically in all directions. I can’t run forever, I need to stop him, I need to end this. His heavy footsteps near the cliff overlooking the ongoing blue. It would be so easy just to make him trip, to see him slowly getting smaller as he leaves my life forever, but do I have the strength to? I am weak. I was taken. I was made into his personal marionette doll. I’m not brave, I’m no hero, just a sob story, but I have to be the last. He broke me, and I put myself back together. I made myself strong again and I will make sure that he can never hurt anybody ever again.
Immersing from the wall of trees, I look the sick bastard in the eyes. The same icy blues I was lost in our first night together, though then oblivious to the treachery that was to come. I take my last breath as I throw myself into him, sweeping him off his feet.
“Your eyes, my soul. Your name, my mantra. Alison, my love” he cooed our last exchange leaving both of our pain and suffering behind.