Blood dripped from the tips of my fingers as I etched the letters into the crumbling mortar. C.A.M. My name in initials and reality. After all my legends, there would be a permanent reminder of it. That scared me. My name would be here for years to come, open for any viewers, anyone could know me.
Know I had been here.
The mattress was just a rock underneath me, all comfort had long since been exterminated. The sheets were stained: dull crimson patches littered on the off-white from where I had returned from my daily 'talks'. Dr Steve would pull some psychoanalytical bullshit on me on how I must be 'deeply disturbed' to leave the mansion and then she yanks me aside and beats me to a pulp. I used to resist, give her a bloody nose or dislocated shoulder but now I let her kick me, punch me, pull my hair out, cut me. She can't hurt me. Not when I have nothing to lose.
I give her happiness. I can tell. Every time I flinch involuntarily, every time I whimper in pain, a smirk gets plastered on her face. And I get a slap. My life is a cycle of pain. Having to live in my father's room, sleep in my father's bed, knowing he was once alive here; it's hard. I would scream in the first days, whenever I caught sight of his own initials – M.A.M – that were now only a few inches below my own. Father and daughter finally reunited. The mystery answered. I could feel a flutter of sadness in my stomach and cold tears fell down my cheeks without me realising. I brushed the foreign substance away and returned to my empty state; I could only now feel the ache of my malnourished legs after kneeling on them for… I had no idea how long for. Time simply didn't exist. I could have been here for a year or a week – I no longer know.
I no longer care.
This cellar would be my home until I died. That was fact. Whether I starved, fell ill or got beaten just one punch too many, I would die here. In this stone house situated in the Austrian Alps. There are only four rooms: my room, my captors' respective rooms and the other room. Where my blood stained the floor and my body had a permanent imprint on the ground. Where my boyfriend's mother and teacher would relish in my agony.
I can't remember how Zach smells. I can't remember how my mother walks. I can't remember how Bex talks. I know one has a British accent but my ragged mind can no longer match fact with memory. I know I love them all but I no longer feel it. I can hear them call for me, scream for me, in my dreams but each voice is a stranger's. I know one thing: I had sisters all over the world. I know I should love all the members of the Gallagher sisterhood but when one of them makes your body cry out in pain, the others quickly fall out of favour. If you had asked me, whilst I was tucked up safely in Virginia, to choose between myself and my sister, I would choose the latter without a second thought. After being here, I suppose I've become somewhat selfish. I would save myself because then I could at least hope that my next day would be better than the previous. That hope is quickly obliterated.
The next day of this existence would be a repeat of today. The only thing different is the length of time until death. I could die on that day or the one after or the one after that. I would be buried in a makeshift grave next to my father's and the Morgan family would mourn one more missing member. Life would move on and I would be forgotten. That is, unless, I already have been. That's the logical assumption. No one's come for me, no one's kicked down the door and carried me in their strong embrace, no one's killed my kidnappers for what they've done.
No one's cared enough to want revenge.
I let out an angry scream at that thought. My sisters are living their days, thinking of only makeup and boys whilst mine consists of beatings and bleeding. My mother spends her time training girls to become the next generation whilst I train myself to keep control, to not satisfy her with pain. Zach flirts and runs through life whilst I am trapped as a punching bag.
And I hate them for it. How carefree their sheltered lives must be. I pound my fists at the crumbling mortar: one punch for Zach's rashness, one punch for my mother's abandonment, one punch for her happiness, one punch more until the blood from my fingertips are matched by the blood of my knuckles. The flow begins tentatively, scared to enter this world but quickly flows fearlessly, draining between my clenched fingers. Drops met the stained sheets and began to spread so in only a few minutes, I was kneeling in a sea of crimson. My anger dissipated at each beat of my slowing heart and my mind began to become unable to cling to emotion. The grey of the cellar turns to white and then suddenly black as I lose consciousness with my life source escaping me.
:::
Shockwaves brush my spine and impede upon my throbbing head until my weary eyes open in discomfort. His eyes meet mine, the eyes I had seen when I was dipped in the foyer, the eyes that had been disguised under thickset eyebrows, the eyes I had seen before the tombs filled with light, blinding my vision. Well, a replica of his eyes. Those dark eyes burned with bravado but the version that meet mine only scorn with malice.
'Morning Cammie.'
I don't answer her. Despite my acknowledgement of my future life being with her, I refuse to be civil. She smirks at my defiance, showing crystalline white teeth, and promptly slaps me in the face: this is the daily routine. His voice resonates in the stone, calling me from above:
'Cammie, it's time to begin'
Her smirk grows and she gestures at the bolted door. Through years of use, the lock has rusted and so I wait, like an obedient infant, for her to cross the room and unlock it. The lack of strength on my part forbids me from doing so myself-it's still demeaning. I drag myself up the crooked steps until another wooden one reaches my view. I push it open.
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