This was written straight after watching the Boxing day episode of Eastenders. This is pretty much a stream of consciousness style one parter but there is so much that could be written with recent events I bet I'll find loads more to write. Please let me know what you think.
Another Dark Forest
They did not give you a chance to wash the blood from your hands. At first it was warm and thick and it made your hands shake. It soon dried while you sat watching the dead body of your father, waiting for what you don't know. In the back of the police car your breathing had only returned to normal as you watched your tears clean tiny tracks when they dropped into your cuffed hands.
Sitting in the cell, cold and alone (but you have always been alone) the dried blood now a murky brown colour flaked away and turned to dust and you wish the rest of you could follow it. But the blood had stained your fingers an unnatural shade of pink and even though they act as a reminder that the last few days had not been some terrible nightmare you can't look away.
Two family members have died in your arms in under a year and you wonder if you are just as poisoned as he was. You are glad at the lack of reflective surfaces in the prison cell because you're terrified you'll see him lurking right behind you with that dark gaze that had unnerved you since you were a teenager.
He was dead; your father had been murdered. No matter how many times you replay events in your head they refuse to become real. Numbness dampens any feeling of grief (something you wish you are not so familiar with) or relief and maybe you are just too tired to process it all. You are reminded of all the times you wished him dead or thought your life would be so much better without his constant mind games. But now he is gone he is still in your head and you can't make him shut up. Maybe you'll be tied to him for an eternity and you will never get your life back on track because you are too contaminated. Maybe it is all your fault anyway.
You wish you could fall into a dreamless sleep forever but the cell is cold and you can't stop shivering. A uniformed officer seems to walk past at regular intervals spoiling any sense of privacy. It takes you a long time to realise that he is checking to make sure you don't harm yourself or become hysterical again. You wish you had the energy, you wish your dad had taken you with him because you never had the strength to kill yourself.
Roxy did not believe you when you said you had not killed him. She tried to but in her eyes you could tell that your baby sister still had doubts. So did Jack and all you had wanted to do was to fall into his arms and for him to take you far away from all the trauma and pain that was personified in the body of a dead man. But you had not been able to do anything but sit and stare and feel nothing. You had never been good at reaching out.
Not so long ago the man you love had told you that you were just like the monster who was your father. It had been something that you could never let go and now the monster was dead the words replayed endlessly inside the numbness of your brain. Would you carry on his legacy of causing pain and suffering? You prayed that you were just being dramatic but you could not seem to stop hurting people. You had failed Danielle and the poor girl had played the ultimate price. You had even let your unborn baby die.
You think about fading away. Roxy could survive without you, you had never told her but you were proud at how much she had grown over the past year. She did not need you anymore and you'd most likely only cause her more pain. You could not do that to your little sister, to Peggy and little Amy. You would not be selfish and hurt them like he did just because it hurts so much to let them go.
You wonder if your hands will ever be clean.