Harly

Chapter Sixteen (Edited 08/2021)

When I came to, all I could think was how sore I felt.

My head throbbed from where it hit the wall in my room, my chest ached, like a bruise was forming on my ribs. My arm was sore, and when I finally peeked down, wincing from the pain I could see a very distinct bruise in the shape of a hand, as if I was roughly grabbed and dragged. Even my thighs were stinging. It would probably be easier to describe where I didn't hurt. There were parts of me that... Shouldn't hurt.

And I must have been dragged, because I was no longer propped up on the wall in my bedroom. Instead I was laying on my bed. I noticed that the house was dead silent, like Norman had been taken somewhere. I knew I had to get up and look for him, but my body hurt so much I just wanted to cry about it. However, the next thing I noticed was that the pants I had worn earlier were no longer on my body.

I sat up, dazed, trying to clear the fog in my brain enough to process what had happened. My shirt was still on my body, covering my chest. But the pain I felt there was so severe, I had to lift it up and survey the damage. What I saw there made me gasp, hard to see in the darkness of the room. I could only flinch from the sudden inhalation that made my ribs expand.

A bruise, larger than I had ever had before, covered the entire right side of my chest. It seemed centered directly over the largest part of my ribs, like a hand had pressed down until the bones had snapped. I could tell something was severely damaged, and I didn't even have to have an X-ray.

I could feel my brain fighting to ignore my lower half. Even the pain I felt was muted, as if ignoring the problem would make it go away.

But I couldn't ignore it.

I couldn't ignore the small blood stain on my bed.

I couldn't ignore the shallow cuts on my thighs from where the knife he used must have gone through the denim and onto my flesh as he tore, removing them from my body.

I couldn't ignore the situation at hand.

I couldn't ignore what happened to me.

When the pieces finally put themselves together and I realized the extent of the vile thing that had happened, I cried.

The matter with Lilly was momentarily pushed to the side. I felt selfish as I cried in my bed, balled into the fetal position as I hugged my knees. Getting into this position hurt so bad I wish I had died then, instead of being forced to live with the proof of what happened, though I had no memories of it. Was I thankful I wasn't conscious for it? Was I thankful I'd never know, to the extent, what he had done to me? I wondered if I could keep myself together when I was so sure I would fall apart.

I'm not sure how long I stayed that way before I finally tried to leave my bed, shakily taking steps across the room. My whole body hurt, and more than anything I wanted to take a shower. To wash away what happened to me, to clean myself of the situation. I was so dirty, so unclean. I just wanted the hot water to purify my body, to remove any trace that someone had touched it without my consent.

But when I stepped out into the hallway, my efforts were for naught. I had wished I just stayed in bed, let someone else discover what I saw there.

Laying still and cold in the hallway floor was Norman's lifeless body.

A pool of blood surrounded him, and much like the apparition Harly chose to show me, his eyes were cloudy with death.

As if that weren't enough, written in his blood on the wall beside him were the words " I W A R N E D Y O U"

It was all too much. The scene before me, what happened in my room while I was unconscious. It was too much for me to take. It was almost a physical sensation, reaching and breaking my limit. I fell to my knees, the pain barely registering from the hit.