Inside Light - Chapter Nine : Lost

A/N : Sorry if this chapter was a bit late. I am very busy right now, with school and some other things.

The name of this chapter, while fitting, is also a tribute to LOST on ABC. For those of you who haven't gotten interested in it, I highly recommend renting the DVDs at your nearest Video Store. Wow…It is really amazing. I am actually planning a short fic for it right now!

Thanks so much to:

Handmaiden of Foamy

One Broken Wing

Nameless Transparency - Wow…That is so kind of you. Thank you so much!

Upper Torso

And, many others for reviews on previous chapters. They are so amazing and helpful to me. So, please, make sure to always review.

I am very proud of this chapter…And I hope you will enjoy it.

I never knew that October day was going to be the last day I got to really experience the outside world.

Now, I was kept up in my room. I was let out twice a day to go to the bathroom. I could only look out of my window longingly, as I had done long ago, when I was younger, seeing children laughing and playing.

My father only told me that I was locked up for being a bad boy. A sinful boy. That if I wanted to see my mother, to talk to her, to feel her hold me like a mother should…

Then I might as well be dead.

He said I should be grateful for all that he had done for me.

Funny. I could have sworn he was my parent. I thought that drafted him as someone who would take care of me, love me. I suppose I was wrong.

I was always laying on my bed. Every time I would take the time to notice where I was, every time I would be aware of my surroundings, I was on my back, staring at the ceiling. I realized that I could have been staring out the window—It would be more entertaining.

But, it was far too sad to constantly look upon what I couldn't have. What I couldn't join in. Children making snowmen, snow angels, talking about their schools and friends.

And I was alone.

I started to feel bitterness. Hatred. Thats right, I began to hate all of the children I saw. They had such full lives, such complete lives. Whenever their parents would pick them up from the part, they would run into their arms, happy to see them, feeling safe with them and their smiling faces.

And I felt like screaming.

Days passed. Sometimes, I would guess the date, although I knew I must be far off.

The beatings would happen everyday, I knew that much. I would make tally marks on the wall, for every beating I would receive. I used my fingernails…I called them proof marks, because each one was more proof that Dad didn't love me…That no one loved me. He never loved me. He thought of me like everyone else did.

Blood flowing down your skin almost feels like water, if you focus hard enough. Every time I felt it flowing off my back and onto the floor, I would shut my eyes, and imagine that I was in a beautiful rainforest, where no one could find me. And the water dripping off of my back…Those were dew drops, coming off the leaves above my head, in the canopy. Tropical birds flew around above me, and everything seemed so peaceful.

Then I would open my eyes, and see the dingy room, and realize it was all just in my head.

My shirt had been taken from me the first night I was confined to my room. Maybe the whip is more effective on just skin.

All I knew was that it was October in Germany, and I knew from expirience that nights got cold. When the sun went down, the shivering would start. It wouldn't stop until the sun was high in the sky the next day.

I noticed some marks beginning to scar, the ones on my arms from the whip. I realized that if I ever moved on, if I ever moved away and had another life, a new life, the scars would still be there. Even, if in ten years, I had a wife, and even young children, and my life was as perfect as it could be…I could look at one scar, and I knew that the memories would come back.

It scared me so bad that I couldn't escape. I couldn't escape the pain, everyday I would remember my worthlessness, my pitifulness, my pulsing sadness.

The thought drove me insane.

I didn't want it to happen that way.

I didn't mention before, that the belt I was always assaulted with was studded. Not with shiny things, no, no, my father wouldn't wear that. But around the outside edges were small…spikes, that is only word I can think of to describe them. Too small, and too blended into the blackness that not many noticed they were even there. I didn't know if he had it for a long time before all this, or if he had bought it 'just for me.'

Maybe I didn't want to know. Maybe I could hole onto the hope that he was too inebriated to know what he was doing.

I really did lie to myself. I know better now.

The belt must have been cheap, not very well made. Every now and then. A spike would fall off. Either they would get embedded in my back, or they would fall onto the floor around me. While they weren't too expensive, I guessed, they weren't dull either. They were like bee stings times ten, all over me.

Of the ones on the floor, and ones I was able to get out of my back someday or another, I had eight of them. All lined up in a row on the floor, they were. I had gotten quite good at sitting up and biting back the pain that wanted a scream to erupt from my throat. I could deal with the pain. My father wouldn't get any screams out of me.

I had always read a lot of books. Usually, not to my immediate intention, they were all dramatic. Maybe something drew them to me. Takes of blood and death always attracted me.

I couldn't understand why, then.

Either way, early on in my life, I had read about a young girl. She had lost both her mother and father in some kind of accident, and she was all alone, in a terrible sounding orphanage. When the people there forced her work, and clean, and cook all of the time, she ended up killing herself.

She broke a window, took a piece of the broken glass, and stabbed her wrist. I heard from many people around town that you were supposed to slit them. Then it is just like falling asleep, into your own dreams.

You dont have to wake up.

All I needed was something sharp. And I had it.

Eight of them, to be exact.

I was hesitant to do it. I was a coward, not fit to kill myself. I thought, 'maybe soon, all of this will be over. Maybe I will have a good life soon.'

Then I heard my father stomping around downstairs, and all doubt was gone from my brain.

The first slit wasn't deep. Just small. I trailed it down as far as my elbow, thin trail of blood not spilling over. It hurt, of course it did…but only a little. Not as much as when he would beat me.

My mind felt numb then.

I stopped and looked at what I had done. Red, the color tulips in the summer sun, beautiful, but ready to dissapear any day.

" Please, God, let me die…"

This time, I took the girls advice, and stabbed the spike deep into my wrist, the center of it, and pulled it down. I swore that I could feel veins popping and spurting as I did. Disgusting. Just like me.

I stopped. There was not a small stream anymore, but a rapid of blood, falling out of my body, staining the floor, leaving me behind, as I wished it to.

All of a sudden, the world swam before my eyes. I fell backwards, feeling as though my bones had been replaced with gelatin.

I scarcely heard my fathers footsteps coming up the many stairs. And I smiled to myself.

'This is what he would have wanted. He will be so happy…I hope I have made you proud father…'

That was all I remember thinking. I heard the door open, and that was all.

I was pronounced dead for two minutes.

My father had found me, and had immediately called the ambulance, and as the hospital was close, it came in a quick manner. I hear that they picked me up, put me on a gurney, and hooked me up to all these gadgets , all inside the medical car. I breathed, and the blood continued to leak through the bandages they had placed there.

The Emergency Room. They pushed me in there, filled with harsh light, my closed eyes flinching beneath them.

I did see a light, but a different kind of light. A great circular, calming light, that seemed, even without voice, to be a great women, inviting me into her boson, as a mother would. At least I imagined.

My heart stopped. Of course, I did not notice this myself. I was within what Buddhists would call Nirvana, a calm, peaceful ultimate state. It is only what I was told after the situation was over.

I heard that long beep of the monitor.

Surreal.

Two minutes. It was two minutes before I was revived. Still hard to imagine that to this day. I died. I was right in what I did. It was not to waste. The spilt blood was not to waste. I had almost succeeded.

But I did not succeed.

I was pulled back from my calm death, that had filled me with a happiness I had never known before.

I was kept in the hospital for a few weeks after the fiasco. No sharp objects around at all. None. The nurses, kind women with chubby faces and round bodies, would check on me every once in a while, smiling. But I knew that they knew who I was. I knew the smiles were for show, to show the 'cared', so that I wouldn't do it again. So I wouldn't be bad again.

It was a kind gesture, is all. They weren't related to me. They weren't my mother. They couldn't tell me what I could and couldn't do. If I wanted to go home and do it again, feel the sting and the light, floating feelings. I could.

The problem in the hospital was the deafening silence. It was quite empty, and I was in a private room. All day, silence. Not the wings of a bug, the chirping of a Lark—I could hear none of it.

My father had not visited me once, even after three long weeks. I had been informed that he had come in numerous times to pay medical bills directly

I felt sick. I was costing him money. I knew that his business was failing, I knew that he didn't have the funds that he once did. So, why was here? I was fine, I didn't need to be here.

At that moment, the nurse (the one I liked the most) walked into my room, in her immaculate white nurses outfit, that was regulation to wear. She was silent as she walked over to my bed, smiling as gently as a summer breeze. She came to my bedside, and looked at me with angel eyes, blue and wide and shimmering. And she spoke to me, as I looked at her name tag. 'Gretel…'

"Now, Faust," When she said my name, she said it more quietly then the other words, as if she were scared of being overheard. " Do you truly think you are ready to go home?"

I considered the question, but not for too long. "Yes, Yes I do. I know that what I did was horribly wrong. I just…lost myself for a minute. I won't do it again. I have too much to live for. I realize that now."

Gretel smiled. " Tell me…Like what?"

I thought up some lies quick. " For…my friends, and for my studies! I want to succeed in life."

I winced inwardly at how fake that sounded.

Gretel nodded, and I noticed the suspicious look on her face. " While examining you…we found…"

I felt like throwing up.

" Tell me…Where did you get those wounds?"

Well, that was a roller coaster. PLEASE REVIEW. I want to know how I did.

Those of you who know me personally know that I have to have music while I write. So, the music plays a big part on how the chapters come out.

READ AND REVIEW! Next time will be another interlude.