esmeralda ayres, d10 [fin.]

I remember a time in which my long blonde hair seemed to heap up around my waist, forming large clumps that held flowers and an assortment of clips, jewels and trinkets (Pins with flowers and birds, jewels like rubies and diamonds -always fake- and bracelets and necklaces.). My mother would gently tug them out, and place them inside a box where she would put them out of my reach and away from my child hands. Hands that wanted to reach and grab them, like a magpie wants little shiny items to adorn its nest with. I wanted them, I loved to place them in my hair, let it all knot together, have my mother scolded me and than she would begin to pull them out. She would pause every no and than to gently tap my cheek with her worn hands. She would mumble and mutter about the terror I caused, the messes I made and the continuous noises that seemed to leap from my lips before I even knew what I was saying. But she never ever once said it with anger or hate in her voice. There was always a gentleness that would draw a smile from my lips in the darkest of times, always a sweet sparkle in her eyes that would make me laugh, always soothing words.

My blue eyes would sparkle mischievously as I dragged a wooden chair through the house. My mother would often bend down and tell me that they look liked the ocean, I would contradict her and tell her that the ocean was made of the bluest of the blues, shiny and perfect; I was neither of them. She would smile, her face lined with wrinkles that showed only just how saw and tired she was. She would pull me up in a tight embrace, calling for my father to come and help her. There they would begin a story that I have heard so many times, that when my nightmares strike me it is always there. It is always there to remind me that they are dead. The words echo in my mind, no longer part of a story that once made me sleep, that once made me feel as though I was the most precious thing in the world. They now carry so much dread, pain and sorry that I can do nothing, but curl into a little ball, as they strike at me. Like a sword each word hits me and it haunts me, like an chant, over and over again until I bleed, until I have nothing left to bled. At that moment I know that the song will end and from there the other nightmares strike and I see their bleeding bodies, I see everything that I lost that night. And I am so drained of blood and life that I cannot protect myself from the agonizing misery so I let it swallow me, until I can't breathe and I die, I die until the next morning where I must get up and keep going.

Small hands spread their way out from my arms, although they are small, the fingers are long and somewhat thin. My arms are thin and barely hold any muscle. They contain nothing, but skin and bone, they are like twigs, easily breakable with a bit of pressure. My legs are no different, they have suffered years of self-abuse, they struggle to hold me up at times, but they always have the strength to keep my going. that were once vibrant and bright, the same as that of the ocean seem drained and tired. Black bags beneath my eyes give me a haunted look, but then again, there is a certain haunted presence to my eyes, like a ghost that I can see and no one else can. Memories are a continuous torment and they flicker in and out of my vision in the most unexpected times. Thoughts attack me here and there and my body has suffered from them. Small scars seem to cover every inch of me from where my nails have dug in, in deeper and deeper until I bleed and the blood leaks out in a steady stream. There is nothing beautiful about my small structure, I'm frail and vulnerable, I can't hold my own. In many ways I'm rather useless, I have no capabilities, I lost everything when I was destroyed by grief, it took my soul with it. It squeezed it from me until I was its victim and bowed to its will. I'm lost, I have nothing left to fight for.

There always seems to be a silence that follows everywhere I go. There is never a warm chatter, friendly welcome or gentle nod, there is, but only silence. I'm sure that even the wind pauses so that I may bear the misery with more pain than I already do. Its gentle drum comes to a halt on a single beat so that the silence can press down onto my frail body and I struggle to take another step forward. It seems to be the way I go one step forward to steps back. I'm moving further away from everything, I'm never getting any closer to freedom. I'm always being dragged backwards ("Dear, sometimes you must enjoy the ride rather than feel the pain"). There is pain with every silent step I take, in fact, my feet seem to be the only sound that I hear. I no longer hear the whispering of voices, the gentle hum of the insects and plants. The only sound I receive is the cold, sorrow of the ghosts chant that terrorises me ("Once upon a time"). Stories no loner have the forsaken words of a happy ending, although I'm still destined to hear the words they are cold and are only filled with dread, the evil cackle of a watch as she sends a family to their death. And I dream that one day I will have my happily ever after, and it won't be the death of me. Something must turn out good, for there has been too much bad.

I'm not sure when I lost the person that I was before my parents death. I know that it was not the time in which they died. It was sometime after. Perhaps it was when I realized that I was on my own and I truly did not have another living soul that I knew of. My family never told me of cousins, Aunts and Uncles. All I knew was them. I felt lost when they died, I felt alone, oh so very alone, everything I knew had left, everything I knew was dead. I had no home, no family and I barely had myself. I was slippingslippingslipping and slipping away from the world. The nightmares began a few days after my parents death, they had sat in the back of my mind for too long. They jumped forth claiming me and taking me. They griped my skull with such a passion that I had headaches for days on end, I was in pain everyday, it began it my heart, like stabs. Stab, stab, stab (Like a knife, burying itself deeper into my chest, with each breath of my parents names it twisted) with every beat of my bleeding heart until I screamed and screamed, until I found myself at Julia.

Darkness is welcomed. I no longer fear it as others do. And although it is when the torture seems to attack me with its greatest strength it is also the time in which noise seems to be pronounced and when I may listen in the silence, whilst my hands desperately search for a light, the search the walls in a mad rush, but the light to me is a symbolism of the fast fading hope that I had once held. It slips through my fingers like water runs through a stream, just as it runs there is nothing stopping it, apart from small rocks and stones that lay hidden beneath the surface. They do no good, they are out of the way. Just as the rocks or ineffective, my attempts to stop my hope from slipping from me forever. Just as water falls from a waterfall it disappears before my eyes, into the depths of the unknown, where I will never see it again. It is gone, and the remaining amount of hope, that slips from me continues its decent. I can do nothing to stop it, I am useless. But no matter what I will not give up, I will keep searching until my hands are bleeding, raw and red, until there is no skin left and I am dying. I will keep searching for a way to get my hope back, as long as I am still breathing.

Even though I live at Julia and try to escape my past it still haunts me, it nags at the back of my mind, a constant presence that never leaves me. It is like a parasite gently invading my privacy until it takes over and I spasm in uncontrollable fits, as pain and misery of my memories takes over. My parents are both dead, I cannot turn back time and change that fact. I can do nothing to undo the deeds that lead to their deaths. I was there when they died. I was in the very room that turned into the setting for each nightmare. The curtains were stained red with blood, the floor had it pooled out across it, small streams had raced to the kitchen, trails lead to their dead bodies. The flash of a dark shadow, the cry of the injured, the silver of a knife. None of these are in chronologically order, they all hit me like a cave painting, pictures here and there, to form a story, but unless you are the one who painted it you will never know how it went. I did not paint this story, I am merely the last surviving person of it, holding it close to me, so no one can have it. It would be a lie for me to say I have never killed a person. I have. I killed the man that murdered my parents. It was a robbery like most robberies, except I happened to be home and my parents, loving me the way they did would never let anyone hurt me. So they tried to fight him off and away. He fought back, and with a slash and a stab my mother fell, no cry could escape her lips thanks to the slit that reached her throat, it had torn it almost off of her head.

My father did nothing to stop the man from killing him. The death of my mother killed him more than the man did. You could say he was dead before the knife even stabbed him in the heart. I'm unsure of what made me do it, but I through a vase at the mans head, I though it straight at him. You could say it was a lucky shot, but he fell with a sickening crack. He did not get up. Neither did my parents. Beside my mother lay a book. It was my favorite book in the whole wide world. The pages were stained red with her blood, but I picked it up with shaking hands. The last thing I remember of that whole night was when I bent down and gently nudged my mother, asking her to read it to me, asking her to tell me that the good person would win. That she would be saved, because there was always supposed to be a happy ever after, mother had said so. My hands were slick with her blood when the tears came down, I sat down beside her, my small hands clutching the book until my fingers grew white and the cold settled into my pains and I shook. And I waited for her to whisper:

"They lived happily ever after."