Breathing Underwater

by LylaMackenzie

Johnny is used to being jumped, beaten, and tortured on a regular basis. But one day it goes too far, and when the gang doesn't hear from Johnny they go to his house to find him broken and unconscious. Will Johnny make it through the wrath of Hell or will he finally succumb to the years of anguish he's suffered?

1. Chapter 1

He heard the footsteps before he realized the man was standing before him, and the stench of alcohol permeated the air and hung heavily in the small room. The boy lay still, not daring to move, preparing himself for whatever may happen next. His heart sped up and his breathing quickened, but he kept his eyes closed, and though God wasn't a part of his life, he said a small prayer anyway, just in case. But it didn't seem to matter; the man moved closer to the single mattress that lies on the hard and dusty floor, its rips and tears reflecting the reality that was this hell. The boy was small already, but seemed to curl in on himself as the sound of a belt being taken off cut through the otherwise silent household.

He should have been used to it by now, should have known how to make himself numb to what was about to come, but every time he was surprised by the amount of pain, even with the horror still ingrained in his mind from the last time. He was through pleading for it to stop, to be over, learning that it only made things worse. Sometimes instincts kicked in and he fought back, but the alcohol the man consumed seemed to give him extra strength, made him try harder to inflict his own agenda on the small, frightened boy.

"You should know better Johnny." The man said. He raised the belt above his head so that it arced high in the air and came down with a sickening crack against the slight body of the boy. Johnny sucked in a breath, hissing between his teeth. He knew he had done nothing wrong, but it didn't matter, he was always going to be at fault. The man knocked over a lamp and it was Johnny who should have been paying attention, the shades woke him up too early after a particularly bad bender and Johnny would find his backside torn apart by the nearest sharp object. He flinched as the belt struck him again. There was no telling what the cause was this time and he wasn't about to ask.

Again and again, the belt sliced and bit his skin with a searing burn that sent waves of pain across his entire body. Most of the blows hit his back, but a few glanced off of his cheek or arm. He lay on his side in the hope of eliminating at least some of the strikes, that at least one part of his body might be spared. He tried so hard to not show any emotion; that could set off a whole new set of licks, but a few tears managed to escape anyway and he turned his face into the mattress. Luckily the man didn't notice; he was too busy wailing away on the boy's frail frame.

Johnny could hear him breathing, almost straining to get a breath, and he pictured the sweat that broke out of the man's face and travelled down his neck, dampening his shirt. He saw the man's teeth becoming gritted, almost smiling, a sick smile that took pleasure in shattering the boy's body, his spirit. Whatever plagued that man, whatever caused him to feel angry, was taken out on Johnny. It always had been, and Johnny was pretty sure it always would be.

He fell asleep in the lot many nights, an escape from the horrors, and he wished he were there now. For some reason he had come back here, come back to the mattress that smelled of piss and old blood, to the scent of stale booze that encompassed every corner of the house. He felt new wounds open and old ones blister and ooze blood that ran in rivulets down his back and legs. His dark hair was matted to his forehead, his shirt sticky with new blood. Everything in him told him to cover his face, but he was afraid if he moved to cover himself more thoroughly the man would notice and it would lead him to direct the blows towards his head. Most likely he'd had more than one concussion, but wasn't itching to have another.

The man finally discarded the belt and resorted to using his hard boots to kick the places he'd just opened up. Johnny felt himself getting dizzy from the searing pain he struggled against, the hurt he couldn't escape, and with one final blow to the back of his head, the small amount of light that filtered into the room began to fade, and his father stood over him blurring into the darkness that eventually overtook him.