Through Clouded Glass

Estranged

"Look, Charlotte," I began.

"Why must you argue?" she said, sounding hurt.

"I don't want to talk about this right now, okay?" I protested.

"No, Iris. This is important. All I ask is that you hear me out before you argue," she pleaded.

"Fine."

My insides were ablaze with my desire to protest her every word. If she wanted to talk about my "visit", she would have to wait a long while.

"Someone came to visit me today. Now, I was still cleaning the children's mess and covered head to toe in flour, but I answered the door regardless. This woman I was met with was tall and beautiful, yet very mysterious in her grace. I welcomed her with a smile and charmed her with a cup of coffee."

"I don't care who you put under a spell with French press."

"This woman was your aunt, Iris."

An icy chill ran up my spine, which was quickly replaced by even more fury than before.

This was the aunt that had denied the offer to adopt me so many years ago. The aunt that had no guilty conscience knowing I grew up acknowledging her as my only living family member, yet I would be forever scorned by her persistent absence. The aunt that had practically abandoned me even before she was my guardian.

How dare she try to enter my life now? She is nothing to me.

The silence was deafening, and I couldn't read the look on Charlotte's face. I took one side glance at Ginger. Tears welled up in her eyes, making them glitter with that of a peridot green, but with the rich undertones of raw cut emerald.

My ears began to ring once again, and my sight clouded over. I could see nothing but white smoke, heavy and malicious. Then came the visions. They were nothing I had ever seen before, yet they felt familiar, almost like flashbacks. They came and went quickly, leaving me in a torrent of emotion and physical trauma with every passing scene.

A woman. Dark figures. Echoing screams. Demons.

My breaths became shallow and rapid before the ache of desperation for air gripped my lungs. A burning sensation tore through them when their needs for oxygen were not met.

My muscles tensed, and terror iced my heart. I could no longer hear its constant beating in my hollow chest. I began to wonder if it had stopped altogether.

I felt so, so cold. I felt...dead.

A room, dark and musty, entered my vision. Hooded shadows encircled a body. . . my body. The scenes seemed shaky and unclarified, like an old home tape whose film was laced with static and blotches.

Blackness overtook what I saw once more. Sharp pain ruptured through my skull, and I felt the chilled steel of a blade pierce my flesh, snapping bone, and tearing my insides to shreds as it lodged in my body. I could hear my screams slice through the stale air, combining with screams from an unseen source and creating a melancholic harmony like something from a haunting film, the kind that keep you awake at night and truly make you question your sanity. Warmth flooded my skin as a thick liquid poured over me. I would have liked to have been numb at this point, but I could still feel the inky traces this liquid left as it trailed down my skin, painting a disturbed picture of agony on the pale canvas. 

What. . .was it? 

Blood. 

My skin gave way to more lacerations, burning as it was forced open. 

I felt. . . empty. 

A cavity left for mutilation. 

Horrible cracking began to resonate in my ears before it all came to an unexpected halt.