Solace

07 | white rooms

| Alessia |

"You never gave me anything."

"Why give if you're going to take it either way?"

"Alessia," he warned.

"No," I said, and even though I knew this wouldn't do anything, at least I could say I tried.

This time he didn't laugh or smile. He just took a deep breath and came closer to me.

He reached me his hand, and even though I didn't want to, I had no choice but to take it. I couldn't reject the only hand that would ever come my way.

When we went out of the door into the hallway of the basement, I thought that was it. I was finally out of that place- I survived it.

But my hope didn't last long when he stopped in front of the door next to my room and opened it. He held the door open for me, and after some seconds of hesitation, I went in.

The room was the complete opposite of the room I spent the last two years in. It was completely white, and there was no window, not even a hole in the wall.

Also, the bed in the middle did not look comfortable at all, as there was only a white cloth on the metal. Additionally, there was a white thin blanket, and a white pillow with handcuffs on it.

And next to the bed was a white bedside table with what I learned later a newton's cradle on it.

I didn't know what this room was, but I knew that I didn't want to be here. I wanted back to my simple black room with a small hole in the wall and the hard floor I became used to.

Henry put his hand on my back and guided me to the bed. I was right, it was as uncomfortable as it looked because the second I sat down, I felt the hard metal beneath me.

He took my right hand, and I pulled it back, but he just pulled it harder and handcuffed me to the bed.

"Cos'è questa stanza Henry?"

"A reminder to never say no to me," he answered.

He leaned close to me till he was just a centimetre away from my face. "Let's see how long it takes before you go crazy."

He moved to the other side and pulled the ball on the one end of the cradle away from the others.

He stared at me for a second and gave me one of his smiles, the smiles I used to think of as nice and comforting were now nothing more than sinister to me.

After he released the ball, the sound started, and he left the room without looking back. I wanted to start screaming, but I thought it would be better to save the energy for later.

In the beginning, it wasn't that bad. The bed was uncomfortable, I pulled my hand too often, so it started to hurt, but I didn't focus much on the sound.

But the more time passed, the more it became the only thing I could focus on. It over-tuned my thoughts, I couldn't sleep and even forgot the hunger as the only thing I registered was the sound of these metallic balls.

Days seemed to pass, and it only got worse. I tried to cover my ears with the pillow and my free hand, but the sound was still there- my brain registered it.

Since there was nothing to tell me when the sun rose or went down, I didn't know how much time had passed. I completely lost my sense of time.

I felt like the white colour came off the walls, turned into water, and I was slowly drowning in it.

But then I woke up.

It was a dream, a nightmare, a memory.

I was drenched in sweat and couldn't move. Minutes passed, but I stayed in the same position- I felt completely paralyzed.

I wanted to move, I wanted to scream, but I couldn't.

Then, slowly I could move my arms and got up as fast as I could, as I didn't want to feel that way again.

It was as if my body and brain weren't connected. Some seconds ago, my brain was awake, but I couldn't move, and now it felt like my body was moving on its own. And I let it because I wanted to get out of the white room.

I didn't know where I was going, I just opened the door and walked downstairs, till I suddenly stopped.

When I looked around, I realized that I had ended up in the basement.

Perhaps to some extent, that was sad. I shouldn't be here; I didn't want to be. Between four black walls, things got stolen from me I would never get back.

But no matter how much it hurt, I knew what to expect as soon as I looked into his eyes.

For ten years, there was nothing I could decide for myself, but when I realized I could choose a home, I chose the black room.

Henry made me believe that it was a punishment to starve me in the white room, while it was normal to have sex with me in the black one.

And he repeatedly lied to me. When I asked him what it was that he was doing, he said it was sex. And I thought this was the way it was supposed to happen, forced, non-consensual and sometimes not even conscious.

Henry raped me, I think.

But when I sat on the floor and leaned against the wall behind me, I realized that this was where I ended up, home.

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Thank you so much for 1k reads?! like is anyone really reading this mess??