A/N: Written for the Non-Flash Bingo at the AMF, #174 – imagine.
The Killer of the Keys
She just wanted something to believe in. Something to live for.
He ripped it away from her.
She fucking hated him. It was his fault anyway. If only she could rage and scream. If only she still had that pipe in her hands; if only she could bash it over his head this time, and again, and again, until he wouldn't move any more.
If only she could have ripped those hands that had dragged her by the hair. Ripped off that blasphemous mouth –
But he was her father.
And it was already too late. He'd crushed that feeble hope she'd managed to cling to. That hope that things would be worth it. The university position she'd lost because she hadn't been able to pay her fees. She'd saved. He'd stolen her savings and squandered them. And her mother had done absolutely nothing.
But she couldn't hate her mother. She quaked in fear in front of him too.
That bastard.
Only when she was alone. When he wouldn't immediately turn around and slap him almost loud enough to break her neck. Enough to make it hurt. Enough to make her wish it really would snap, so then she wouldn't have to wake up to that pain again.
But there was something she clung to. That hope that a path to heaven would open up for her.
It was too late now. Her father had said it one too many times. He'd broken the only thing that kept her going.
He'd cut off that sliver of light. He'd left her shut up in that little room.
She stared at her paper-thin and revealing dress. At the ties that hung open, that allowed exploring hands easy access to her assets. How they'd been wound around her wrists to tie them together and above her head. How they'd been lovingly curled around her neck to make her doubly gasp for breath –
She slowly pulled the ties loose. Thin, but strong. They hadn't broken yet. Not with her pitiful struggles – those struggles against the voice in her head telling her it was all for God, all for that passageway into heaven. The only way she could keep going. The only way one of those shaking hands hadn't managed to cut her wrists.
Her father had done a lot of things. Hit her. Hit her mother. Squandered all their money. But she'd been keeping that bank book safe. Thinking that was her way to a better future. To any sort of future at all. And then her father took that too.
She'd never hated him more. But all she could do was cry and despair. All she could do was want to drown while searching for a tiny sliver of light to hold on to.
Her mother took her to the church, to the pastor. And there was her light.
Something to believe in. something to live for. No matter how her life changed after that. So long as she had that hope.
But he had ruined that sermon. Acting like a heretic. Acting possessed. Calling the pastor and his men frauds. No-one believed. No-one cared.
But then it grew. His rage. His label. He was branded a demon who had been abandoned by God. A demon trying to cut off their path to heaven. And it was so believable. Hadn't he denied her happiness? Her future?
But then something changed. Doubt seeped in. And he came. Dragged her back. And she watched them from the church, from the believers in the village, crazed with blood. She herself had been crazed with blood. Bringing up the pipe. Smashing it down on his shoulders. She'd never done such a thing before. She hadn't the courage.
She still hated him. But she believed him and she wanted that feeling gone because believing him meant there was no more hope left.
The struggle left her soul. He dragged her home. Threw her in that tiny room. She pleaded. One final time. For him to tell her it was a lie.
He told her it was the truth. Her fate.
He shut that final door. After shutting all those doors before.
That was why she still hated him.
Even as she wound that cord around her neck and to the doorknob. Even as she waited for when he would, finally, open the door again.
He would be the one to kill her.
There were no doors to open.