Stealth. (FtM Karl)

Past

💃💃💃(y'all know it's the gud shit when these emojis pop up)

Trigger warning: (recap in next chapter)
-knife
-mentions of physical and emotional abuse
-manipulation
-stab stab
-blood
-traumatic experience
-is quite tense/anxiety inducing ig

Please do not read if any of the above apply, I'll write a recap in the next chapter which will be posted at the same time as this one.

Dreams pov:

Same slightly stained cream walls, same previously white now grey floor tiles, same old cabinets and tables, same fake-marble counter tops.
It's the exact same room, I recognise it instantly.

I feel overwhelming amounts of nostalgia as history repeats itself. I feel like I've been in this exact moment before, I just can't seem to remember how it plays out, a sense of deja vu I just can't seem to pinpoint.
My mind is cloudy, I can't remember much, all I know is where and who I am, but I have no time to dig deeper as my adrenaline kicks up and I'm in fight, flight or freeze.

Everything is in slow motion.

I can hear voices, more like distinct and prominent memories, the voices and a rough silhouette in the back of my mind.
Slurs, threats, manipulation.
All the voice of a man I once knew as my hero, my role model, my idol.
The voice of my mother, laughing, unfazed by his words, agreeing with a vivid, evil smile.

All these memories repeat as I stare at the object plunging towards my face, sometimes I feel like I've completely switched over into a different room, same voices, but with a face to link the words to. It doesn't last long before I'm back where I was. Back in that room, a kitchen as previously described.

I stand there, submissive, I know there's no point in fighting back. After all, I'm just a child. So I just close my eyes just like every other time, awaiting the hard knock of a fist before the sharp stings cause my eye to swell and water, leaving it's trademark of a large red swelling on my cheekbone.

Though I knew this time, there was no fist headed my way.

I remember the swift movements, filled with an uncontrollable rage, reaching over to the knife holder. It was at that moment that I closed my eyes, shut them tight, wishing I could be anywhere else, praying I would finally unlock those hidden powers that would teleport me to my room; but it never came. I didn't see which knife he pulled out, but I heard it, the usually satisfying sound of steel swiping against the metal knife holder; forever a sound I shall dread.

I don't remember what was being said, but as I stood there shaking, my obnoxiously loud heartbeat managed to mute most sound.
Except for that scream.
That heart shattering, ear splitting shriek of a petrified mother.
It over took every muffled yell of the angry man
in front of me.

I made sure to do what I had always been told to do, "be a man and take it." As he had always said. Every punch started with that line, and eventually I adapted, making sure I didn't raise my hands in defence, knowing I would only receive twice as many wounds.
Usually it was the shoulder, the stomach, rarely my thigh. He tried to avoid the face, I had school to go to, he didn't want to get caught.
But sometimes he just couldn't help himself, and another purple-blue splodge eventually appeared on my face.

My father.
He had very strong views on 'what makes a man', very toxic when it came to masculinity.
I was constantly called slurs by both my mother and father whenever I did anything that they didn't see as manly, I was threatened to 'stay in line' or else I would get hit again, and I was constantly manipulated by their words of apparent 'love' and how apparently 'they were the ones really suffering'.

Why is everything always somehow my fault?

'I didn't know.
Why did I tell them?
Why is it a bad thing?
I didn't think it was against the rules?'

Those were the thoughts I remember having as I lay in the hospital bed the next day, bandage around the side of my face.

I can't quite seem to remember the knife actually making contact, what happened after, or how I ended up in the hospital.
I had been told by a friend that it was my brain blocking it out, something to do with trauma, it makes sense.
All I remember is blood.
A lot of it.
I just know that I screamed.

The last sound I remember hearing is the cries of my mother before
I woke up.

Sitting up, I immediately place a hand on my face, expecting to feel the unsettling warm liquid gushing out of the streak down my face.
I stare into the nothingness, a dark room. I try to process where I am, the only memories that seem to occupy my brain are the ones of my dream.

And as my real memories start to return, I remember where I am, I understand it was all just that. A dream.
But unfortunately one built on memories.
My heart starts to calm down, and the tears in my eyes fall silently as my eyes adjust.

'I should never have come out to them.' I repeated. A sentence I thought about daily.
These stupid dreams need to stop.