Fifty chapters done and only a few more to follow.
As celebration a long chapter today and a big 'Thank you' to all those who are following/reviewing/favouriting it.

And I ran. I ran as fast as I could, as fast as it was possible, as fast as my state of health permitted it.

The leg cramps had become worse, my legs felt swollen and strained. The fast movement was a hell on my back and I was constantly panting, constantly gasping for air, wheezing and breathing heavily.

The velvet gloominess spread across the landscape, conquering the hills I had spent my childhood on, enclosing the large and otherwise beautiful wine-red trees which had provided us with shade throughout the years.

I felt the fear that I was possibly staring at them for the last time right here, right now, creeping over my mind.

Anguish had awoken in its tomb, where it had been buried, where I had buried it long ago underneath sheer innumerable good-natured wishes and hopes.

But now it was time to rise once more.

Small beads of sweat formed on my forehead and trailed down my pale temples.

I opened my mouth wide while rushing through the darkness, still gasping for air, still struggling not to lose control over my body.

My eyes filled with tears, but I had nothing to cry over, nothing I would spill my tears for.

I just wanted to escaped. I wanted to escape myself, my own nightmares, my own fears, my own anxieties, I needed to get away from them.

Two words encircled my mind, closing in around it, narrowing it down, leaving me no other opportunity but to let them gain control over my thoughts.

Tumour. Fatale.

I panted heavily while I kept on running and felt a tremor emerging from my knees.

Ms Reprics hadn't denied that it was fatale, that it was serious, that it was probably even lethal. She hadn't denied it, she had said that I should have gotten rid of it; I knew that I should have hit it, I knew it, now I knew it and now it was already too late!

And I could have screamed at the stars, I could have howl and cried all the way I was travelling, I cursed myself for not listening to her, for not cutting the tumour out of my body while it had still been a size where I might as well could have handled it myself.

I cursed myself for waiting, I execrated myself for experiencing fear, for having feared and dreaded this night for so long even when I had known that it had to come one day.

I never should have disobeyed; neither Ms Reprics nor my father.

I should have kept my legs shut and my mouth shut, I should have bowed and obeyed, I should have done what had to be done, I shouldn't have struggled, I shouldn't have denied and I shouldn't have resisted.

And I never should have escaped the academy.
And I never should have stepped out of the store-room.

And I never should have awoken ever again.

If the tumour wouldn't kill me in the next few hours, I assumed that the pains shooting through my body would do it on its behalf. My hearts were pumping like mad, the flesh around my bones seemed to pulsate, I couldn't feel, I couldn't hear, I was blind white madness driven by unimaginable pain, pain that was only fed by my sorrow and my suffering.

And I cursed myself for not knowing where to turn.

And I cursed myself even more as soon as the rattling madness in my skull which would have been my mind came to the conclusion that I was heading towards my home, my former home, the former perfect home, where I would find my parents, no, where they would find me, where they would discover my misshaped and blemished body.

And I wouldn't be able to spare them the sight of me.

But I couldn't do it.

I couldn't let them see me like this.

I stopped immediately, causing my knees to jerk uncontrollably before I tumbled down onto the ground; a lacerating pain rushed through my spine, diffusing through the strained muscles of my back, making my skin become numb and muzzy; and yet the pain was still pulsing through it, pulling at my flesh, tearing at my muscles in opposite directions as if it would try to rip my vertebra column in half.

"No" I mumbled barely audible as I picked myself up again and tried to get into a nearly upright position "No, no, no, no, no...!"

Tears were by now trailing down my icy cheeks, I looked around starry-eyed, my mouth was slightly ajar as I kept on mumbling things I can't even remember now.

I was overwhelmed by horror.

I was taken by fear.

I felt ashamed of myself, so ashamed of myself.

I crept around the corners of our neighbour's houses, hiding in the dark; I had pressed my hands against my lower abdomen but it wouldn't stop the burning pain, I just couldn't stop the arising heat inside my intestines; it felt as if my body would burst into flames any minute now before becoming undone and being blown apart by the constant wind.

My body was pure agony.

My mind had shut down and disintegrated itself without me even noticing it.

I felt... nothing.

Pain had taken over. Fear propped it up. I was tumbling and crawling through the alleys and back yards of our neighbours, driven by helplessness and anguish only.

I didn't know where to go.

I didn't know what to do.

I didn't know.
I couldn't think. I couldn't feel. I couldn't know.

The pain had filled my lungs, it rushed through my body and was pumped through my veins, it pulsated in every limb, in every inch of my skin, pure pain, white pain, stinging pain that would take my mind sooner or later, if it hadn't already fallen victim to it.

And as if my hearts and my lungs had given in too, I couldn't feel.

I didn't know where I was.
I couldn't see. I couldn't feel. I barely felt the grip on my hands, as someone who had squatted down beside me grasped my hands and pulled them towards them.

I would turn my head and stared into the thick darkness that filled my eyes by now.

Someone wrapped his arm around my back, someone wouldn't let go off my hands but only pull them closer to themselves.

I offered no resistance, I wouldn't budge, I wouldn't move; I wouldn't have been sure if I had still been alive if the pain in my body wouldn't constantly remind me that it hadn't already been over.

I was brought into an upright position again, the dark figure beside me would comment my whimpers and sobs, as it placed their hands on my deformed body, with nothing but quiet words in a soothing voice.

I grabbed the figure's shoulders, I clutched at it helplessly as I got dragged further away.

I didn't see where we were going, my eyes were wide open but I couldn't see in the darkness. I had hung my head in shame and despair, I had lost my orientation and didn't know where we were heading, I had stopped caring about my body and myself in general the last time I had fallen onto the ground.

I was too weak. I was too tired.

I was in too much pain.

My head dangled in the same rhythm as the figure's footsteps, the figure was carrying me slowly but cautiously towards an open door. I lifted my head a bit to find light pouring out of a brightly light room, I was dragged over the door step and was seated on something hidden under a sheet. The door was closed quietly and light gushed into my eyes, I turned my head aside as the figure in front of my stepped away from the source of light on the ceiling, which, as I saw after squinting against it, had been a lamp.

I rested on the sheet, which I assumed covered a sofa, and tried to breathe in deeply. Contractions seared through my body, I felt the muscles in my lower abdomen twitching uncontrollably.

Towels and sheets were piled up beside me; I moved my head in another direction to find the figure, with my eyes I searched the room for the one who had saved me from the freezing cold that crept into my bones now, and found my father staring at me.

I looked up to him helplessly and pressed my lips on each other in order not to scream due to the lingering burning pain.

My father squatted down in front of my and pushed the wet hair out of my face. My eyes followed his movement unintentionally and I snuggled against his hand as he stroked my cheek tenderly.

He would soon stop caressing me as he started fumbling in his pockets. I stared at him starry-eyed and felt my jaw dropping as the next thing he'd show me was a small scalpel, sterile packed.

I searched his gaze and grasped his hands irritated.

"It's time."

Just those three words. My father said nothing but those three words.

He wouldn't explain it to me, he wouldn't clarify what was going to happen to me, he wouldn't dispel my fears by telling me that everything was going to be alright...

I don't know if he even knew that everything was going to be alright...maybe he didn't want me to get my hopes up...

My father wouldn't talk to me. The time had come, I couldn't escape my fate anymore, it had to be done and still he wouldn't explain it. He would still keep me in the dark.

I remember backing away from him as he tried handing me the scalpel. But my father was neither harsh nor nervous; he was calm and composed, acting with a serenity that would have, under normal circumstances, scared me to death; yet back then it soothed me.

After I had accepted the scalpel and held it with weak fingers my father would pick me up carefully and hold me with strong arms while he sat down on the sofa. My father placed a towel in his lap while I was resting on his knees and he would pull me towards him, wrap his arms around me from behind and let me sit on his lap.

I felt my father removing my garment, I saw his hands moving across my grotesquely swollen abdomen before his knuckles closed around the hand in which I held the scalpel.

"Theta, it has to come out."

My father had spoken quietly and waited for me to take the scalpel out of its wrapping. I reached for it with trembling fingers to protrude a razor-sharp instrument.

I panted heavily and saw my abdomen moving with every breath.

"I'm scared" I whispered and winced in pain as my father pressed my hand down onto the stretched skin "I'm so scared... I don't want this... I don't want to...I'm so scared...please...please" it was more a whimper than actually words as I begged my father hopelessly to stop.
But he knew that we couldn't stop.
I had to end the suffering myself.

It wasn't more than three or four cuts. My father's medical instruments had always been the best.

I gritted my teeth and pushed the blade in, moving it around panic-stricken as soon as I had seen how deep I had managed to get. My father guided my hands, he'd stop me from moving in the wrong direction, he would help me if I started twitching and screaming and would not only sooth me but adjust my grip in the scalpel once more.

But as my strength seemed to dwindle and I had let go off the blade for the third time my father took fate in his own hands and let me cry and whimper in pain as he completed my work accurately and fast.

I had dug my nails into my father's thighs and turned my head aside, my face went for his shoulder and I bit down on it once or twice, causing him to wince. But my father tried to remain steady and wouldn't get distracted by my painful struggle over consciousness.

I felt my father reaching into the gaping wound and groping around before I felt the blade cutting through my warm inside. I felt the blood filling the interior space; I felt my own blood warming the stinging pain which had been my abdominal wall till now.

I let out a cry of anguish as my father started ripping and tearing on the inside of my body.

But I fell silent as shocked horror struck by a newborn's first cry.