Victim: KSFFWriter
Prompt: Misha learns something about herself
Note: I'm sorry. I did the best I could.
Hothouse
Glass shatters and slices my feet. I feel blood trickle out from shards in my toes, and I instinctively step back. A cut bites into into my heel and I fall over backwards. I flail upwards and spin my head around. I am in my kitchen. I am alone. I look down at myself. A jagged sliver of glass larger than my palm has cut into my foot, cutting it right open. I hold my breath, reach down, and pull it out. I see and feel the blood run.
I fling the glass away and squeeze down. A pulseless run of blood wets my fingers. It is not so bad, it is not so bad, it is not so bad. I sit stock still, not daring to stop to bandage it, just holding it in place. Am I doing the right thing? I can’t have lost that much blood, have I?
What was I doing? How did this happens? Did I drop my cup and step on it? That doesn’t seem possible. Shouldn’t have driven the glass into my feet like that. I look up at my ceiling. No way that anything could have fallen from there. It’s blank wood paneling, with nothing that could possibly be hQidden on its flat surface. So I must have dropped it. I must have dropped it.
Did I? I don’t remember picking up a cup. The cupboard is open, but I don’t remember taking anything out. Who threw it at me? I shiver and look around, but I know that all the exits are locked. I’ve checked them myself, secured the deadbolt, duct-taped everything extra shut just in case. Dragged the furniture in front of the doors, risking that the sound might alert him.
If he’s waiting. I don’t think he can be. A vision of Saki’s father suddenly looms from around the corner and his black eyes bear down at me. He’s not real, this one isn’t real, I’m not scared. He disappears. He will reappear. It’s alright, I’m used to this, I just haven’t slept in a while, I know it isn’t real, I know he isn’t real. I’m used to this. I know I can get through this. The blood is trickling through my fingers more slowly, more slowly, more slowly. I try to close my eyes. My own breathing scares me into opening them again.
If you’re listening, and I think you can hear me, I’ll think to you what happened. I’ve always been a loud thinker, though I never knew it. You don’t know these things until someone tells you. I saw Saki’s father for the first time before last summer when he was prowling around school, searching for the teachers. Saki hobbled behind When I ran into him and asked him to please check himself into the office, he grabbed onto the front of my shirt and told me to shut up with how loud my thinking was.
I saw him again at night last week, him prowling with hunter’s energy, searching and searching for a what I didn’t know. Black-grey reaper. Stupid me, pink-haired idiot me, I ran up to him and got his attention. I asked him to check in with the school office. Pretty please. He stared down at me. His lips didn’t move. I just kept trying to smile, you know, just trying to avoid letting my friends down. It’s my job to tell people things, and I guess it was his job too. I laughed my little wahaha and he leaned in and said that he’d be back later. His eyes burned into mine and I couldn’t blink.
So it was alright, alright, when he backed off. He waited for me to leave first. I didn’t want to turn my back on him because it felt like he’d run after me and grab me if I did. I blabbled, just regular nonsense small-chat blabbling, talking ada and dada as I backed off and off. Then I threw myself into the school building, slammed the school shut, and ran for it to get deeper inside.
I’ve always been a loud thinker. He could hear me the entire time, hear where I ran, hear that I’d gone back to my dorm. I don’t know if he can hear me right now. I know that he can hear you. He dragged me off when I was sleeping. I woke up in his car. I was in the back. Rumbling around me. Light from the narrowest crack in front of me. Hands tied, mouth gagged. I could hear him think.
He came out after I’d had the longest ride. He opened the trunk and I shook my head. He didn’t hit me. He pulled down my pants and I braced for the worst but he only cut me. Two shallow cross-cuts, one on each thigh. Hot slice, hurt, bled, blood running down. But fine. Maybe fine. He dropped his bloody razor blade, threw me up onto his back and carried me away. Almost all of me away. I didn’t realized until later that he’d already cut off the middle finger on my left hand. It didn’t hurt. It still doesn’t. I barely feel the gap, don’t notice much of anything. Only when I look down at it do I see.
Hung up on his back I was. He thought to me what he was doing. I understood. I understood. I just needed to learn, listen, and follow. That was all. Simple lessons so I could do simple jobs. Don’t ask questions I don’t want to have answered, don’t learn things I don’t need to know, don’t question any of it. Alright. Alright alright. He dumped me inside a small square room and sung one high, clear note. He
Then he spoke again. We will begin the New World Symphony, by Dvorak, he intoned. Repeat what I said, Misha. He nodded sharply at me. So I tried to copy him. We will begin the New World Symphony, by Dorvak, I said. He grabbed me. He didn’t hit me. He gripped my left hand firmly and used his other hand to bring out a knife from a pocket. He blew on it, and it turned hot, glowing hot. I noticed that I was missing my middle finger right when he sliced through the rest and turned them into stubs.
He explained that I’d said my words wrong, and he made me say it right. I got it, I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t. It’s almost funny, haha, get Misha to pronounce the funny words she could never pronounce. Misha is dumb. Misha can’t say anything. Misha is alive. Misha was alive.
He asked me to cut my wrist and draw a few things on the floor in blood. He handed me another razor blade. I looked at him, and then I looked at his knife. I said okay, and then I drew a few things for him. It didn’t take too much blood. It was fine. I could do that part. He left the room. I didn’t dare stop drawing. He came back in with Saki in his arms and put her down gently. He asked me to get up and fetch her cane from a corner, and I saw her cane, and then I went and got it.
Said he didn’t ask for a disabled daughter. He took the cane, took his knife, and spat fire on them both. Ash rose. But he loved his daughter. He loved Saki and would see her walk fearlessly again. A transference. Fear for fear, ability for ability. He clicked his tongue. I understood. I picked up the bloody razor blade.
Open up your wrist.
He held the glass cup underneath. I stared at him. I pricked myself a bit. A few drops of blood fell o He tapped the side of the cup immediately. I cut myself again, going deeper and wider than I meant to, and I watched in horror as the bottom of the cup filled and filled and filled. He grabbed my hand, stopping me from holding onto the wound. The blade cut into his arm. He didn’t care. It just kept dripping until he finally nodded in satisfaction.
Good. Now open up your throat.
He looked at me again and I knew what would happen if I did nothing. But even knowing what would happen to me if I didn’t, I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. I want to live, everybody wants to live. Even if you want to die, you find that you still want to live when the razor blade is at your own throat. I kept shivering and he walked slowly back towards me. I couldn’t do it. I heard his thoughts very clearly but I couldn’t do it to myself anyway.
Cup and room. How long have I been here? I think it wasn’t so bad. He let me go. I thought it wasn’t so bad. There are many rooms and this one is mine. It’s been a few days. I don’t remember exactly where I am. I don’t hear him so loud here. Cup and room. I was going to fill my cup. There is blood on the shards, but only because I dropped it, not because I filled it properly.
Where am I? I didn’t cut myself properly. Where did he send me? I hear him thinking clearly now. He stands tall in the corner, brown suit neat, suspended above the floor by a rope. He blinks at me. Simple lessons. I need do a few things. I’m alright alright alright. It’s not so bad. You can hear me think. I’ll be wearing a suit myself any day now. He was always in the room, wasn’t he?
