Chapter Four – The Delusive
Helyse was unable to determine the passage of time, but being in coma, she didn't think it mattered too much… However, she couldn't help but wonder if time here passed just like in the "real world" (for lack of a better term) and for how long had she been in that place.
This curiosity was just no substantial and light if compared with more important thoughts that occupied her mind, such as the question of survival rules of this place and the first (at least for her) was to always stay as far from Freddy Krueger as she could, in case his impulse of "Letting-The-Girl-Live" ended.
The second was more an "order", coming directly from Krueger himself: Do not interfere with his business… It was pretty obvious this meant she shouldn't talk or help people he tried to kill. Helyse thought this was something he had no need to say, she already had enough problems regarding her own situation to worry about others… However, this didn't change the fact that time seemed to stretch eternally, once all she had to do was to avoid him and, inevitably, she was bored.
Krueger also behaved as if he didn't want to be near her, except for the times he decided to torture her, giving her hellish visions and such to force her to feel fear until, among the pain, Helyse felt her sanity would break or she would have a heart attack (and even desiring it). Out of those times, Krueger acted as if "the further, the better" was his politic.
"At least we got this in common…" Helyse reflected with a mix of sarcasm and bitterness. Only that, if it depended on her, he would never come near her again. Leaning against a rail and looking downstairs, she recognized she was getting used to that maze that was the boiler room as, without having what to do, she often spend time walking among the stairs and boilers.
Helyse took a deep breath, knowing that it depended on Krueger's mood if she would be tortured or not… She couldn't even confirm if those "torture sessions" happened at day or night, though she did think they should happen more during the day, when no one was sleeping.
"Yes, maybe in those times he gets bored and this is where I get in." She rubbed the face in one of her hands. "Yeah, and this makes me what? His little toy?".
She had no way to hide or defend herself. At first, she had thought that maybe she could stand it until the moment she would wake up, but the girl was starting to think this wouldn't happen. Krueger would probably kill her long before that… And for the first time, she was thinking that…
A scream called her attention.
The girl lifted her head. It wasn't Krueger, of course, if she ever heard him screaming like that, she did bet it would be enough to leave her in ecstasy. This had been a feminine scream and didn't sound like an adult's voice.
It sounded more like a child.
"So, he is killing." Helyse thought without a care. "Oh, well, this is what he is supposed to do, right? Duh." She didn't expect anything less and didn't care, why should she? Better others that her, it meant she would have some time in peace while Krueger was busy… And maybe he'd be satisfied enough to leave her alone for a while after he was done…
She wondered what sort of nightmare Krueger was creating… And who the victim was.
"This has nothing to do with you and you know it…" Even so, Helyse turned hesitantly. She couldn't say she liked to receive orders or even that it was like her to follow them without a question (laws and rules were different from orders), but Krueger had been quite clear that she shouldn't interfere… Not that she even wanted to, to begin with…
But even so…
No. She wouldn't follow that scream. Why was she even thinking about such thing? Why would she do that? What good would it do to her? Just because she was bored it didn't mean she would also do something that stupid.
"Mind your life and try to keep it" A voice whispered in her mind in a conversational tone (though Helyse judged she could notice a mocking trait). It didn't matter what was already happening or who was dying (she knew how this sounded like and it didn't bother her, either), she had enough problems of her own without acting as a ridiculous heroine with savior complex. Just the idea was so stupid…
Even with that scream echoing in her mind…
It had been the cry of a child, but so what? Why did it make things different?
"Krueger probably killed other people by now. I think I heard someone, sometime ago… And just because I didn't listen, it doesn't mean he didn't do anything… And he can have killed children too. So, this has nothing special. No reason to do anything, it would only mean trouble…" Even with this rationalization, Helyse couldn't suffocate that crying voice. It was inside her.
Still with a hesitant movement, she turned again and went to the stairs. The girl would have laughed if she wasn't between that desire to stay and go, the first much safer than the last… Trying to follow the sound, Helyse had the sensation that it didn't make any difference, if she just walked in any direction (maybe thinking about what she wanted?), she would end up in that nightmare.
"It's like I want him to kill me. And maybe he will, this time…"
In answer, another thought bloomed in her mind.
"And if doesn't?"
XxX
The change in scenery was so slow that it bordered delicateness and Helyse almost just noticed it when everything around had already become different. Going downstairs, she had reached an open area, a meadow in the middle of pipes and boilers, and there was a hallway made by walls of pipes nearby, a dark tunnel in which she ventured despite her instincts' warnings.
For some time, the girl just walked, barely able to see where she was going and what happened around. The light (of where it came from, Helyse wasn't sure) at first was enough only to see figures, shadows among the darkness and as her eyes got used to it, she saw bit by bit, the cylinder-like shades of the pipes became more diffused, smaller, until the walls seemed plain… But here and there, Helyse had the impression of seeing a swelling, as if there were still a pipe hiding behind that wall…
In a certain moment, a light point appeared in front and as Helyse got closer, she managed to see that the walls hadn't just flattened as they seemed lighter at each step and something told her that the brightness ahead had nothing to do with this…
When Helyse reached that strange door and went through, the difference of her surroundings was as powerful as seeing the sunlight after hours of darkness and the girl even needed to blink. She found herself in some sort of room, with walls of a very pallid pink, almost white. There was a long table in the middle, covered by a foam-white tablecloth, stamped with fine bluish lines. In the center, there was a small vase with flowers.
"What sort of nightmare is this?" Whatever it was, Helyse was sure that it couldn't be good, but the change had left her without breath for a moment, as if she had received a punch in the stomach. Even the smell… There was a refreshing perfume in the air.
The floor was of long dark-wood planks that should have received several applications of wax judging how shining clean it was and there was also a rug, as smooth-looking as the tablecloth. Paintings adorned the walls with fields, lakes or the streets of small town and in a corner, there was a cabinet with mist glass doors.
Helyse looked around a little before going through the hallway, still spying each time she noticed another room. The rest of the house seemed to be as cozy and neat as the room she had first been. In a corner of that hallway there was a small circular table, with the same type of tablecloth, a vase and a dark haired little girl of porcelain, jumping rope… Here and there, more paintings hanged in the walls…
One of the rooms she passed by seemed a living room. She saw two bookcases and two white sofas making an L with a glass table in the center and a grey television. Cream-colored cushions lay in the sofas, looking as soft as foam and Helyse supposed the little cupboard under the TV was where the movies were kept. An interesting trick of the light made it seem as if the knobs moved… The comfort seemed to call out to her and it was inevitable not thinking about resting a little there.
"Doesn't everything here seem too… Too equilibrated? Too "right"?" oh, nonsense… Lots of places were like this and many people liked things to look perfect… But the feeling that there was something amiss persisted and the girl couldn't tell why. Just like when you forget a word that is in the point of your tongue, she couldn't point what it was that brought such feeling…
"Nonsense, it's just a normal reaction for being in an ambient to which you're not used. That's all." Indeed. And if she had come here in search of that screaming child, it was better to get on with that already and stop wasting time.
Even if this place didn't have any resemblance to her own house, it brought memories anyway, especially after she had spent so much time in the boiler room… Helyse shook her head, it wasn't time for that. Where was the person that had cried, anyway? The girl thought she had heard something, but wasn't sure…
There was something amiss here… And like a word that one can't remember, it felt obvious…
One of the next rooms she spied on was a bedroom with a tall and large canopy bedand a smooth-looking satin sheet. The gap beneath the bed seemed big enough to be used to keep boxes, but Helyse was sure it was empty… And somehow, it looked too dark…
As everything else, this room seemed to be made to be "adorable".
There was also a full bookcase with a beanbag on the bed's side and a small table at the end of it, with a porcelain doll and a music box. It was very white with a golden line along the border and, opened as it was, showed a mirror in the superior inside part and another in the inferior, near small divisions to keep jewels. Representing a lake, the inferior mirror had blue lines and a small figure of a ballerina danced at the sound of a melody. Such perfection of details and movement could easily be taken for one of those expensive clocks…
The song playing was one Helyse was sure she had heard before, but couldn't recognize it when played in music box notes…
"There are no windows…" She noticed for the first time. That was it… Until now, she hadn't seen a single window, anywhere…
Helyse knew she should leave, once there was no other door in this empty room, however, her eyes couldn't be taken off that music box.
The notes seemed too sharp… As she watched, the ballerina's movements became faster and faster, until it didn't seem to slide, but to be dragged over the glass mirror. The mouth open in a scream that accompanied the sardonic music and its sound could be mixed in the notes, unnoticeable.
The ballerina spun in a furious dance, the sound of feet against the glass becoming a sharp cut in the air. Even with the insane music, Helyse was able to hear the sound of porcelain cracking…
A fine red line started to be made by the ballerina's feet. Yet, she continued to dance and dance, leaving behind that red line, spreading it as she span and span until she was little more than a white blur, scratching the glass along the music until they were one single sound. The deep red lines now colored almost all the mirror as if a child had tried to paint it with tiny fingers…
Forcing herself off that trance, a sudden and instinctual feeling of dread overcoming her, Helyse slammed the door. Right after, she heard a low sound, alike the one of a small crack…
Then, only silence…
The girl realized she had been holding her breath. Unsure of what she was doing, she lifted her hand to her ear, which buzzed and hurt. Her eyes still burned with the image of the blood stained mirror…
What had exactly happened just know, she didn't know for sure. Nor did she want to open that door to find out.
Once again, the girl heard the same sound she thought she had heard in the other room, so low it could be mistaken for her own breath…
Shivering a little, Helyse stepped away from the door and leaned her hand against a wall… Only to recoil it. It felt like sinking your hand into something coarse and Helyse sensed something pulsating beneath her skin, as a brief wave. Thoughts of dead flesh came to her mind… And what crawled and slid under it…
Again, she heard that sound…
"I knew I would regret this, I knew it…" There was nothing else to do, except to go on and hope that whatever that thing was, it hadn't noticed her yet. The girl could hear, hear that noise that came from inside the walls. And now, looking closely, she… Imagined she could see waves appearing and disappearing and while Helyse wondered what would that be, she knew it would be better if she never found out.
As if by the sake of irony, the house and the furniture seemed even cleaner, almost shining. At the same time, Helyse remembered the "House and Garden" style magazines that she always saw when she was in the line on the market… And felt certain that this house had nothing to do with the ones of those cover photos… This house seemed… What? Fake? Dead? What?
The perfumed air that had felt so soft before now was oily sweet and too strong… In one word, nauseating.
The colors displeased her… Not because Helyse didn't like them (she didn't even have a favorite color or anything of the sort), but due their very essence… Even the pallid ones were nothing more than copies of colors, that could be moved away and should she do it, under them…
"Stop, stop those idiotic thoughts! How can a color be false?" That had no sense.
Meanwhile, the whispered sound involved her as a cocoon. Still too low to Helyse identify what it was (it wasn't steps) and she held the hemof her dress, wanting to hold something that wasn't from that house…
Wait…
Dress?
The girl looked at herself, unable to believe it. When had her clothes changed?
Helyse started to look around until she caught glimpse of a mirror ahead and ran to it, stopping in what seemed another living room and stared at her reflection… The image showed her wearing a doll dress, Victorian style falling on her knees, of a dark blue and sleeveless. Looking down, Helyse saw she had black shoes, also in doll style and gloves.
Those weren't the only changes.
As if that wasn't enough, her hair, the same color of a lion's fur, was made into two pigtails. Her pale face was completely white with makeup, except for light pink lips and rosy cheeks.
While that strange fear still had a grip strong enough on her heart, something more made her blood run hot in her veins.
"Of all the nonsense…!".
In that state of emotions, only fear was still strong enough to quicken her heartbeat. Her anger, though genuine and indignant, was nevertheless a shadow of a feeling, especially when near that fear. What woken her from that, were sobs.
She turned back, looking around… The sounds around, now she recognized as a dozens of smaller ones in a mosaic of noises. However Helyse could distinguish low sobs… Concentrating, the girl went through the hallways walking fast until she came across a fork between them and bumped into something small… Then she saw who had screamed.
It was a little girl.
Just a little girl.
She shouldn't be more than eight, at most. Her face was marked by tears and her shoulders trembled as if, without any strength to call for help (or aware that it would be useless), she could just cry and run… Helyse judged that she was what others would call a "lovely child", with the darkest hair she had even seen and gentle big eyes, now reddish and filled by terror.
The child stepped back, almost tripping, her hand raised in a gesture of defense, as if expecting to be hit. Helyse noticed cracks in her arms, alike the ones that appeared due to excess of old makeup… Except that she could see blood drops running down the girl's arm.
"Please, don't hurt me! Please!" Somehow that child had become a living doll, and was being broken, was that it? The image of the ballerina figure came into her mind, the blood stained mirror and instinctively, Helyse ran her hands by her own arms, feeling her skin still warm and alive…
Yet…
"I… I won't hurt you…" But Helyse hesitated, not knowing what else she could say. Had she come all the way here really to help or merely moved by curiosity? She didn't know that and for a while, nor what to do. The girl looked at her still hiding behind her bloody arm, different emotions on her eyes.
Helyse decided. It didn't matter why she had come, what mattered was what she was going to do now.
"I want to help you."
Even under that desert-like artificial light, the little girl's hair seemed almost bluish and was done in the same hairstyle that Helyse's. And like her, the girl wore the same kind of dress, except that hers was lilac with a white ribbon on her waist.
"Really, lady?" A ray of light illuminated her eyes. Children in bad situations always seemed desperate enough to trust anyone who said something like this. It made Helyse think about people who'd kidnap children lost in a shopping or in a park. Though she had never really loved children (not that she had ever spend much time with them, but Helyse supposed she didn't), she felt… A bit sorry for that one.
The little girl grabbed her arm as if fearing the older girl would disappear.
"I-I'm Amanda. Please, lady, get me out of here! I'm scared!".
The noise Helyse had heard before was closer now, getting louder and louder... She wanted to get out of here too and what would the harm be in taking Amanda with her? She was about to ask if the girl had seen anything, if she had seen Krueger, when they heard a bursting sound behind them. Amanda shrieked, hysterical. Helyse turned back…
And screamed, screamed until she felt her throat burning.
Bugs.
Centipede-looking, dirty brown, almost black… Of the size of bulls, they touched around with reddish antennas as they moved their heads, hitting their jaws. They had devoured a hole in the wall, forcing their way into the house and crawled avidly one above the other, through the walls and by the floor, in the girl's direction, as if able to smell them.
"RUN!" Helyse held Amanda's hand, pulling her along by instinct, hearing the nonstop "clack-clack" of their claw-shaped paws behind as the creatures followed.
In her mind, Helyse remembered Mr. Collins talking about centipedes in class and describing how he had once seen one of those devouring a rat. The details played over in her mind along with the sounds of the bugs behind and Helyse saw, mentally, images of what those things would do if they reached them…
"It held the rat with its claws, wrapping itself around it…"
Being of that size, the girl could easily imagine three or four of those creatures over her, holding her body with their claws in a hug…
"Their paws end in a small claw, which has a poison that it's used on their prey…".
But Helyse could bet anything that, if those centipedes had a poison, it would be only a paralyzing one… Then she would be really a doll, ready to be torn apart alive, watching and feeling those antennas running over her body as a man would lick a delicacy before finally eating it…
"Then it keep holding the mouse down and started to bite it…".
She run and run, her legs screaming, but the creatures were close. With the corner of her eyes, Helyse noticed one of them running at her side, over a wall, its antennae reaching out. The girl tried to run faster, feeling that long thing sliding over her skin when the centipede tried to grab her…
"Until it opened the flesh and started to pull the meat out".
Those things would bite and bite until they could feast upon her body and she would still live long enough to see, see her own flesh and organs being pulled and chewed…
"In the end, all that was left, was an empty carcass…"
The ends of antennas touched her ankles. Shadows on the walls… The creatures were close, too close!
Where could they go?
What could they do?
The two girls run upstairs and Helyse entered a room, closing the door immediately and pulling some plastic furniture to make a barricade. She doubted it would be of any real use, but it was better than nothing…
She was more than regretting that she was there. Her heart thundered in her chest and she had no idea of what she could do to save herself and now, they were trapped.
"That won't stop those things… Shit! You never, NEVER should go upstairs when being chased, isn't that what everyone says when watching horror movies?" And she agreed, when occasionally watching one. "And, in the time of put this in practice, I screw everything up? Helyse, you're an idiot! I shouldn't even be here!" Always rational, how could she have let this happen? What was wrong with her?
"Are we safe?" Amanda asked in a fragile voice, stopping Helyse's thoughts and claiming her attention. Although the girl regretted coming when she cared nothing for who died, there was also a strange sensation… Amanda had been in need of help, Helyse had been around and, in the end, she was helping (or trying to) that child…
Could she regret this?
Could she regret helping a child?
A child just like… Well, no matter! She had to find a way of… Defend them both against those bugs. She looked at the bookcase and table she had pulled against the door.
"As if they would use a door!".
"No, but this may give us some time" She hoped with all she could that she would be right, at least this time.
"Are you sure about that, bitch?".
They lifted their heads and Amanda started to scream as if her sanity had been finally consumed by fear. Freddy Krueger was above them, having taken the doll house's roof off and stared at them as a scientist would to rats being eaten by a snake in a sort of amusing experiment.
"And somehow, that's what we are… Exactly that…".
"Well, why are you crying, Amanda?" Krueger laughed in a mockery of innocence. "You were the one who said that liked to play will dolls!".
Amanda hid her face on Helyse's dress as if thinking the older girl could protect her, but all she could do was look from Krueger to the door as she heard the centipedes chewing their way inside the room and, once more, she had a too detailed vision of herself, those things coiling her as they bit…
She smelled fire…
Looking up, she noticed that Krueger held a lighted match. The yellow flame shining near his face, reflecting in his black eyes and the Dream Demon smiled, baring his teeth as a shark.
"I told you to mind your own business, didn't I? You can only blame yourself" Without waiting for an answer, laughing and laughing, Krueger dropped the match on the bed. A strong smell of burning plastic and cloth overcame the air, mixing with that ever-sickening perfume…
Amanda only screamed, reaching the limit where all her mind could do was cry and shut on itself, unable to deal with was happening. Helyse held her shoulders strongly, forcing the child to pay attention on what she said.
"Amanda, wake up! Wake up" Helyse herself was shivering and soon would be screaming even more that Amanda, screaming above the sound of fire devouring plastic, the hits of the centipede's paws and their chewing as they torn the plastic apart.
"I-I tried! I al-already tried!" The child yelled back, tears falling in her face. "m-My brother! He told me that if I d-dreamed with a man with cl-claws I had to try to wa-wake mysel-self up! So I hit myself, but it didn't w-work!".
Fire surrounded them. Helyse felt sweat drops on her forehead. Amanda's makeup ran down her face, her lipstick looking like blood, the cracks on her arm stained with dried blood. The furniture on the door shivered, pincers appeared through the walls as the bugs opened their way, and their pincers dropped something alike saliva. Their antennae moved avidly on the air.
Amanda was either a heavy sleeper or had tried to avoid sleeping for some time, it made no difference. A slap wouldn't be enough… But seeing the cracks on her arms, Helyse hesitated… What if she ended up breaking her? The image of the music box came back… The blood… What if…
She grabbed a lamp that had fell down and turned back to Amanda, who apparently didn't understand what the blonde had in mind… A thought passed by Helyse's mind.
"What's your brother's name?".
"K-Kurt… Kurt Locker…".
"Why I am not surprised?".
"Tell Blake said "hi"…" She muttered dryly, almost with despise before hitting the lamp down, against Amanda's head with all strength she had left, only having time to briefly thank that the girl had not stepped back, as she disappeared with a cry of surprise and pain.
"YOU DAMNED WHORE!" Krueger roared, making the floor tremble and the bones on Helyse's legs shivered and she thought she couldn't be more frightened. Krueger's eyes burned with murderous intent and yet, they remained cold…
Helyse couldn't escape anymore. The centipedes were already entering, fire got closer… Maybe she should jump on it, it sounded a little better than being devoured alive… But something dark knocked her down and Helyse had time to see a pair of pincers and antennae touching her…
"It's over…" She closed her eyes, feeling paws running over her body, ready to…
Without warning, the weight came off her for a second, before something else wrapped her body. Something firm and warm closed itself around her body and she felt she was lifted up.
Krueger held her in his hand. Helyse bit her inferior lip, were he planning on crushing her? Considering what she had just done, it was what she expected, her body involved by his flesh…
"Didn't I tell you to not get in my way if you didn't want to die?!" Krueger growled between teeth, his words sounding metallic. He held her tighter, making Helyse cough, having trouble to breath. "You're just teasing me, aren't you?".
The girl, somehow, still thought about some answers, but prudence made her stay quiet; ignoring how her tongue itched with sarcasm. She had no energy left… Her interior was in knots, as if her organs had exchanged positions randomly.
"If he's going to kill me, let it at least be quickly, please… Please…".
She couldn't breathe… Would Krueger smash her bones? Flashes of white pain as her head ached… She would throw up her organs if this carried on…
Then, he let her go.
Helyse still expected to fall among fire and centipedes… Instead, she saw herself on the boiler room's floor. The girl remained still, breathing slowly… The fall hadn't been much to hurt, but her body was burning inside. Her legs pulsated in agony… Her head…
"Hey, at least I'm not wearing that dress anymore…" It was a stupid, drunk-like thought, but it was a thought nevertheless. Still weak, she tried to sit as she opened her eyes…
Only to feel herself freezing when she looked around.
She wasn't in the boiler room at all…
"No…".
She was in a dark room…
"No, no! This… He can't… He has no way of knowing!".
She recognized this place and dread, unlike any other, closed her throat as every sense dissolved along with the notion of where she truly was. Rebelling against her, her body shivered…
It was dark, so dark… And even so, she could see enough. She knew this place.
She shrunk herself, hugging her legs, the only source of warmth being her own body… But this only made the coldness around stronger and darkness held her, glutton for whatever bright thought she could try to force her mind to conjure…
Always so cold and so dark…
She knew people often said "dark as night", but the night was glorious… It was bright, thank to the stars and moon… This? This was only emptiness. There was nothing… Nothing… Nothing, but…
Coldness was like invisible bugs, she could only feel it biting her skin. She didn't like it, but it was there and there was nothing she could do… Like it or not, it made no difference… None…
Her hands ran over her arms in spider movements, fingernails carving her skin, almost cutting… If she could only enter herself, maybe she wouldn't feel like this… Her throat trembled, wishing to make some sound to break the silence, but unable to… And what for? There was no one around, she was alone… Always, always alone…
There was nothing.
Not even herself.
Adding to the darkness and its natural coldness, there was also the ice of the chain, a serpent biting her ankle and ready to cut her flesh if she wandered too far… On another hand, it twinkled as a silver bell when she moved and any sound was welcomed… Even if the chain bit her, it had a nice sound…
If only darkness wasn't so eager to devour it, she might have… Almost enjoyed the noise.
Was she there? Was she really there or was she part of that nothing?
She held her arms tighter, digging fingernails against flesh and wished she could cut herself… Then she would have her blood come to warm her a bit… So cold, so dark… So alone… She wanted to do something, but the idea was formed by blurred images and sensations that made no sense to her… It overflew from inside, from eyes and mouth…
If she knew it, would she feel better?
Her throat still shivered, not with a scream or that unknown thing, but something else…
A door opened (oh, yes, there was one, every place had one way in and out, but she couldn't, couldn't, never that door, right there) and a shadow came in and near her. A darker shadow.
Like an animal, she shrunk more. When whipped by that voice, there was nothing beyond what she already knew… She knew who it was. She knew and would know forever that smell, that voice, the sound of those steps just like she knew the touch of the chain and that darkness…
There was nothing else in the world to know.
"How do you feel today?" The person asked her, mockery and disgust in that voice with other feelings she didn't have words for… But feared them. "Still alive, I see… How was your food?".
"Well, how do you expect me to die, if you keep feeding me?" Something inside her made her speak, whatever it was she had no idea. The moment the words escaped, the cold grew stronger. Oh, God, had she really said that? Why? Why did she do it? Oh God, she never spoke like this!
The girl without a name felt something. Something telling her that this was different, this was… What?
A low chuckle broke her doubts. Her muscles became stiff with tension as she tried to make herself even smaller, at any moment now…
"I only give you food" The voice became softer, almost gentle, but what lurked beneath it… "What would your mother say if I didn't take care of you? You should be thankful I keep you here…".
Laughter… This person laughed at her, at her existence… Laughed and laughed and she couldn't cover her ears, she couldn't… Instead, she hid her face on her knees, still trying to understand why this all felt… Weird. Very weird… As if it wasn't supposed to be happening, but…
She had made a mistake, hiding her face.
"LOOK AT ME WHEN I TALK TO YOU!" She was pulled by her wrists before hitting the floor when her face was slapped. She didn't move… Maybe if she stayed still… Maybe if she just…
It didn't stop.
More blows… Each one becoming a sun of pain…
"There is nothing this wrong with answering… There isn't… It is not here… It's here, but not here…".
It wasn't a belt that hit her… Nor hands…
No…
"It's not, c'mon… You know. It's another place…".
The person…
Something punched her, heavy and hard… No, wait… Those were not punches, more like… Rushing over her, light enough to not be fatal, sharp enough to make her wish they were… Cuts… Something passed over her skin, taking blood and flesh…
She felt the object dividing itself in four in the middle of a wound…
Helyse turned her face…
She was again in the boiler room. In her current state, she needed minutes to organize things in her mind. Hurt and humiliated, Helyse only stayed in silence, waiting for more blows… Krueger crouched down near her, their faces centimeters from each other…
"Next time, it will be worse. If you do that again, cretin, I'll make you know the very deeps of Hell" He let her go. Helyse sat in the floor as he walked away. All her body ached, renews by the punishment and worse was that it hurt inside, it hurt what he had done, what he had made her revive…
Slowly, the girl touched her back and the sides of her body, feeling blood flowing between her fingers… The wounds weren't deep enough to put her life at risk, of course, Krueger still didn't want her dead… Still, they hurt…
Helyse tried to expel the memories Krueger had agitated inside her, tried to force them back under the sea of her mind, keep them in the corner we leave things we do not wish to remember… Useless. It was useless when, for some seconds, she had been back there… The black river was free and ran wild, a happy clown, having fun…
"Damn him…" She looked at her own bloodied hands. A ray of pain divided her inside, spreading through her nerves and her teeth thrust in her inferior lip.
A long time ago, Helyse had forgotten how it was to have emotions. For years, she had been nothing more than an empty shell with limited feelings which were also limited in their complexity and strength, being only shadows of emotions. Few were the ones that still had strength enough to really be emotions…
Now, that bastard was forcing her body to have reactions that it didn't experience in years… Made her remember things she had fought to bury…
She dug her hands on her hair, sinking her fingernails on her flesh… A mix of a growl and pain escaped her throat as she felt blood running down her body.
Ana: I hope so much that this scene is better than the original... On a "no-one-cares" note, when I was posting this I ended up listening "Dollhouse" by Melanie Martinez...
Krueger: If you ask me...
Ana: Well, I didn't. I know your opinion is always "you're awful", anyway...
Krueger: Yes, it is. Glad that you know it, seems like you can learn something after all. And shouldn't you be studying? You have a Latin exam soon.
Ana: ... A) Since when do you care and B) Who are you, my mom?
Helyse: Let's all remember, Ana doesn't own anything here, except me (sadly) and she is not making any money out of this, so don't ask me why she is writing this at all.
Ana: Ever heard of "fun"?
Helyse: ...
Ana: Sorry, forgot who I was talking to. Hey guys, as always, thank for reading and if there is ANY grammar mistake or anything of the sort, please, tell me!