'It'll all be all right'

I can hear them shouting and even though the sound itself isn't all that loud it hurts my ears like someone's banging a drum or blowing a trumpet right up in my ears, millimetres away. They're not just shouting; screaming too and I can hear a definite thump and smash now and again which probably indicates they've already started hitting each other. Well, Dad's already started hitting mum; I know she'd never do anything like that.

I pull my knees up to my chest and hug them close, as close as I can get them and watch as a single salty tear detaches itself from my eyelid and rolls down a loose strand of hair, making a small darker spot on my blue leggings. The door slams and I hear a bang on the wall, I can feel the wall shudder. I shift up my bed a bit more and pull a pillow up my knees, as though it will protect from the world; from him. I hear his heavy breathing and the thump thump thump as his feet collide with the steps and I watch as his head slowly comes up the stairs into view, notice the anger and hatred in his face, the fire that's roaring in his eyes.

He turns to look at me and grimaces before continuing up the stairs and I listen as he goes into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him with so much force I feel the whole floor shudder as the door makes impact with the door frame.

'It'll all be all right' I whisper to myself, comforting myself in the way my mother comforted me. But it won't. How can it be? I am in the house. Alone. With him. 'Everything is going to be fine' I whisper into my knees, determined to stay positive, trying in vain to convince myself everything would be just right.

But nothing will ever be right again. From the moment I was born, everything went wrong. My mum isn't here, who knows where she is and my dad is manic, a monster, he's like some character from a nightmare, someone you expect to wake up and find doesn't exist.

But he is real. And he's like he is because of me.

It's all my fault.

As soon as I came, happiness left my mum so as soon as I go, happiness will surely return to this world; or my mum's world at least. I seize a pen from my desk and tear a piece of paper from my notepad, scribbling a simple not.

I love you, mum.

And with that final thought I open the drawer I know my knife resides and begin to cut, slitting any vein I can, cutting the bonds that surely make sadness, breaking the chain of disaster I lead around the world.

And I'm gone.

So now it'll all be all right.

-Checky x