The Brooke

The Gleaning

I almost cried for Rosanne in the last chapter :'(

I WAS WRONG.

I was so bloody wrong when I thought I could break them.

I was wrong to think I was strong.

I was wrong to think I could fight them.

One couldn't imagine in their worst nightmares what was being done here with us. With me.

I never knew what I was really up to. Who I was preparing to stand against.

Had I known a week ago when I was as good as raped, I would have never thought of fighting.

Instead, I would have thought of fleeing.

Escaping was always the coward's way out or so I had believed.

But what could be a greater bravery than running away from the hell?

If someone would have given me the option of choosing between coming here or burning alive, I would have chosen the latter.

And that's not something easy for me to say considering I suffer from arson-phobia.

The only advantage I seemed to be having here was my hidden true identity.

They believed I was not me but someone else and so the fears they seemed to be playing against me weren't really my demons.

They were Arianna's.

Arianna.

I wondered at times if she knew the reality of this place and sent me in her place willingly.

But seeing other new faces, that were almost as - if not more - destroyed as mine, I knew she was innocent.

She loved me so much. She wouldn't dare of doing something like this to me.

Now being here instead of her, I allowed this one happy secret to be my anchor.

I was glad she wasn't here. I was happily sacrificing my life, my freedom and my sanity for her.

That was what kept me from breaking down. My love for her.

Whenever I wasn't the victim of misery and pain, I would think of her. Of my home in Iowa. My old stupid high school. Even my aunt sometimes. And my parents.

What should have happened if they would have been still alive?

Would they've let me go like this?
Would they've sensed my agony?

Would they've come to rescue me?

It was useless to think of all this.

But I couldn't stop.

I should be trying to plan my escape but instead I was busy drowning myself in self pity.

Never had I ever been so disappointed in myself.

They played with our fear. Taunting us, tormenting us in a way that even the devil himself would run away.

The stronger you were, the more anguish you would suffer through.

And the worst part of it was that they were never the direct participants.

Instead they used our own kind, we the helpless young students, against each other.

The senior batch was the worst. Most broken.

Years of living in this hell had made each poor teenager a perfect lifeless slave. Molded into whatever monsters they wanted them to be.