Colourless Skies

20. Change

The small room was the size of a large cube with no windows, was barely spacious enough for a single person to stand. The darkness made it harder to locate her limbs so she could curl into herself and form a ball. In her head she thought it might protect from the horror of the room.

 If the claustrophobia-causing size wasn't enough to kickstart Leah's fear, then the sight of its walls and floor smothered in thick coats of blood, and the ceiling oozing the dark substance that dripped down her hair and splattered on her arms, surely shook her to her very core and activated layers of fear inside her.

The meagre light making its way from under the door, only slightly illuminated the room. Her gaze flickered from left to right like a candle's flame, trying very hard to adjust to the loss of light. She could have sworn she felt something across her shaking feet but there was nothing, no one in the room besides her. 

Leah was losing sanity.

Scare was a scant word to define what Leah felt as all the horror reflected back in her eyes against her will. Her incompetent feelings had become an alloy of fear and continued helplessness; for she screamed and begged all the while for the mysterious boy to give way to her pleas, but all she was met with, was cold, cold silence.

She stood up with a jer pulled onto her weak hair, as if they were strands of hopes, limp and listless, but their presence the only thing comforting to her. Her grip tightened as she interrogated herself.

'Why... why did I have to be so naive? So... so stupid? Why me again?'

Then she could hear faint sobs, and the blood in her ears momentarily stopped roaring. She grasped on soon enough that she was the one the cries belonged to.

Her soul wept for her.

Leah sled down the bloodied wall and sank to the equally bloodied floor, bringing her knees close to herself, a feeble attempt at trying to closet her emotions and look brave. She allowed herself to feel tired.

It was long before her eyes finally closed.

"I can't help it!."
"Yes you can, you choose to be like this. She has done nothing to you. None of this is her fault."
"It is, and she deserves it all. She deserves to be beaten to almost death every night. She deserves to suffer and writhe in her misery all alone.

She deserves the worst of me."

"Please, Al-"

"And there is nothing more pleasurable for me, than to plunge my knife  right in to her heart, and twist it mercilessly, until her worthless pleas die down forever."

Leah awoke in pure panic as she had been for a couple of days, panting heavily, her hands compressed over her chest, as if to stop ichor from gushing out of the gash. She immediately imagined she would struggle to breath, but as she sucked in a long one, did she glance down to notice her hands were merely clutched tightly around her shirt, which didn't have the slightest speck of red.

Finding herself in her own bedroom's comfort was more of a dream than the one she had just seen. It felt all too real to be a dream. Two voices, one calm like the sea, but one the exact opposite, raging like a storm, wanting her dead. No faces, no clues, just a what was supposed to be a secret conversation of who she assumed was her.

What could be a better start to the day?

With shaking hands, Leah reached for the note she was fully aware wasn't on her bedside table the last night she was carelessly sleeping. If only she hadn't, she began to think but then shook herself so as to empty her mind of such thoughts again.

In the same black and italic font were written words that got her breath stuck in her throat.

'Hope you learned your lesson.'

"Leah, come down for... breakfast." Her mother was standing outside her door, calling her downstairs as if it was a mundane part of Leah's routine.

She sounded nervous, almost as if she was afraid. But Leah knew that was ridiculous. She certainly wasn't petrified of her God when she reigned hell on Leah all her life. What else could she be afraid of?

'It isn't possible, she just... she just feels bad for me.'
Leah's heart didn't accept the lies she tried to feed herself.

Absorbed in thinking about the change in her mother's behaviour, she changed in whatever her hands grabbed first from the closet. She absentmindedly made a note to burn the clothes she was wearing, looking down at herself to spot the blood on them, but there was no substance slathering her outfit. Nothing but the faint smell of metal.

Pushing every thought that tried to impede in her already flooded mind, she walked downstairs, slowly, keeping her head down. And the next moment she knew, her feet were a step away from the kitchen.

"Y-you can go out today... if you want."
The crumb of bread mouth got stuck in her oesophagus, unable to go down owing to her throat that her ran dry. What was happening?

"W-What?", she blurted out, almost choking on the morsel.

Her father gave her an indecipherable look and walked past her, out of the house.

A storm was brewing, she could sense it, the light rain providing more proof. Even with her jacket on, she could feel the cold make its way from the sleeves to the warm skin of her arms, and into her bones, making her slightly tremble. But it might have just been a coincidental cool breeze and her never-ending dread seeping into her real time thoughts.

She didn't want to take any chances though, so Leah decided to head back home, but then she came halted mid air.

She had to meet Zach today.

Keeping her promise, Leah changed her route to the park, as the moon and stars began to assemble up on the night sky, as if a picture time-lapsing. With slow and quietened steps, she hurried her way, the wind trailing behind her.

I am sorry again for not being able to update.
Hope this is fun to read.🖤