Nails on glass.
Low. Piercing.
I shut my eyes to keep them from straying. I tell myself it’s a figment of my grief. A manifestation of my trauma. I have grown up in this room. I know every corner. There is nothing there.
Certain in my fortitude, I push upright. I pull my knees to my chest and lay my cheek on top — face carefully turned to the door.
Tomorrow will be a week.
One full week without my reasons for living. Seven days without a purpose. It’s only been three days of lucidity. Of clarity, where the doctor hasn’t tried to force drugs down my throat to calm me.
I wish he would.
I wish to remain numb for the rest of my life. To feel nothing. To float in an endless ocean of sleep. But Uncle Marcus insisted I be lucid for the funeral. He had wanted me to say goodbye. Instead, I embarrassed him and lost my chance.
Now, my boys are six feet in the dirt. Their killers are roaming free. And I’m being haunted.
The low squeak and splinter of glass spreads a chill across my exposed skin. The lacy nightgown isn’t designed for March weather over the Pacific, but it had never been a problem before now. Before now, I was at the center of two men who radiated heat.
But they’re gone.
Their place in our bed is empty. Miles of endless ocean where I am drowning without them.
Tears burn down cheeks already tender to soak into silk. My arms tighten like that might stop the endless supply I seem to have, but they continue to spill. Growing increasingly heavier. Mirroring the crushing weight in my chest. The bottle in my throat. I wheeze with my first sob. My fingers fist. Nails cut. But it does nothing as I collapse all over again under my grief.
My sorrow.
It blooms between my ears, a storm of blood roaring louder than my wails. It captures me around my throat and I can’t breathe.
I can’tbreathe.
I wheeze as I sink stiff fingers through my hair, claw at my scalp. Fist my curls. Around me, walls hum and pulse with my every jagged pant.
They’re too close.
I can’t breathe!
I’m on the floor, but I have no memory of crawling from the bed. The wood is ice scraping my knees.
I need to get out.
I need to find the door.
I need Uncle Marcus. I need his arms and his strength. I need him to hold me and tell me I’ll be all right. I need him to fix all the broken pieces inside me that keep bleeding.
They don’t stop and I want to die.
But the room is spinning. Shadows are scuttling across the floor. Surrounding me. Tugging at my slip. Scratching my skin. Each wisp is serrated with thin blades that draw blood as I’m turned onto my back.
The ceiling writhes with living tendrils. A pit of snakes.
“No…”
I try to flip over. To get on my belly and crawl. If I get in the corridor…
“Don’t fight, little one.”
Dots explode in black patches across my wavering vision. I’m too weak to resist when my arms are pulled over my head by barbed shadows. The edges sink into flesh, burrowing deeper the more I resist.
