She pulls her legs up to her chin, pressing them hard against her chest, willing the sound to go away. Darkness had already enveloped the room, pressing her into the softly molded shape she left behind on the hardened mattress; and with it all illuminated sight of her identity and who she was.
Outside the rain falls softly in lashes, gently scorching the earth with something like the mixed love she found herself thinking about every night. Seeping in through her window, like the sound that she does not want to hear, she watches the gentle lashes form soft ripples down the cracked glass pane, illuminated from the rest of the room by a single street light. A single source of light that battled her nightmares and the sounds she tries to block out: light constant yet flitting.
At eight o'clock every night, that streetlight would come on, beckoned by some unknown force. It was always there for her, constant, reassuring, even if all the other streetlights would fail. It casts a shadow of light across her window, touching but never daring to embrace the entrance to her room.
The light drew angry flappings of otherwise silent moths, seemingly attracted to the fatal source of light. Bittersweet poison, as by day she collected, just as silently, their seared bodies and ceremoniously lay them in a shallow trench. Like unnamed soldiers…
Back inside her room, and the rain continues to float past, through and into her window. Breaching the untamed barrier that she lets flag wildly around herself, never allowing anyone to come in. The darkness provides a hand for her to lean on, always hiding herself inside; allowing only one person to know the taste of fear and hate she embodies. But never radiates.
The sound is slowly dying away now, testament to an ever changing landscape that she calls home. Sound; like images, music, emotions; plays a gentle dance inside your mind, touching, flitting past all the corners that you never even knew existed until they have been taken over and washed of any other memory except that sound. Gentle crashing waves that embrace her and discard her as they will, depending on how much he has had: how much of a drunken stupor he has wasted himself into, trying to forget the constant images that fill his mind. Of his wife dying in his arms; murdered by insanity and complacency; and of his helplessness to deal with it. The darkness envelops the whole house, him too. Inhabitants of a lesser known land; unchartered territory through which they trek every night in their dreams.
But as the sound grows dimmer, she begins to awake. Almost trance-like, she knows what will happen in less than minutes from the time that the sound stops. That the stairs will begin creaking as her savior, her protector, lifts himself up the crumbling steps. That he will leave a trail of red-tinged liquid; testament to what has happened, of which only the three of them will know. That he will rest on the sixth or seventh stair, lacking the strength or energy to pull himself past the broken step that juts out into his already bleeding stomach, implanting broken parts of itself into his already scarred skin. That he will collapse near the door, his weight just enough to push it open and let him fall inside, where he has kept her protected. Blind, she runs a hand across the walls, pale darkness incessantly interrupted by the breaking storm outside. She runs her hand along the familiar grooves, the scars on the wall, until she reaches the edge of the door. Then she slowly kneels down, blindly searching the floor for his arms so she can pull him inside and feel how much he has been hurt. She grasps his arms and pulls her brother back, back towards the only source of light in the room, as he moans at the pain this necessary action has caused. Quiet, now. And, as soft as the flapping wings of the moths that she collects every day, guided by the eyes of her brother, she whispers into the darkness in an eight year old whisper; "Dave…are you awake?"
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A/N: Child abuse is a terrible thing, that constantly still happens in our society and community. All too often adults can see the warning signs and not do anything about it. Or not recognize it. Please…bystanders are the only people who can stop this kind of stuff happening to kids. www.stopit.com.au/pledge.html (aus site)
On another note…Thankyou for the reviews that have encouraged me to keep on writing. Always appreciated =). Unfortunately, I have to say once again that this is another one-shot. I cant write chaptered/long stories…I officially suck at it (as my English teacher so nicely put it today: "you need to work on having a plot. You know…stories need a plot, not just description"). So I'll be working on something of that sort…but for now =( you'll all just have to put up with my 'descriptions!'. Lol. Thankyou everyone again for the reviews…till next time. Xoxo
Oh crap. Forgot the disclaimer. Blah-blah…I don't own any characters. Etc.