Or That Was How He Told It

The air was thick. It’s always thick, isn’t it? Have you noticed that?

The air was thick, as dust danced—unsettled by the slightest of breezes—making its presence known in the room where colour and laughter were forgotten.

A pounding just beneath the surface, above the canopy of belly fat that meant he was not visually acquainted with himself. Not for at least three years.

Three years he had been held captive. By fear of the past. By the clawing of guilt around his unsteady heart.

As he sat on his bed, his shadow cast an uneasy figure as dawn breached the empty room—an empty room that held too many secrets.

Sonia’s cold, dead body.

His hands torn, the flesh open.

Now those wounds were messy. He had cauterised the bites and rips over a dozen times or more.

It was not her fault.

She was tired.

She was ill.

She was stressed and didn’t mean to take it out on him.

Yet she did bite.

But he did not raise his fists or his feet. He didn’t try to choke her out or poison her with an overdose—even if he considered those options.

In the end, it was a slow and painful death she endured, or was rewarded with. The kind you’d never wish on anyone.

She had fallen down the steps that led from the downstairs to the upstairs of their isolated little cottage in the middle of nowhere. Or that was how he told the story.

She survived the fall. Much to his surprise.

With Sonia, it intensified her negativity. While she was unable to raise her fists, her tongue was just as violent—awful, vile.

When the paramedics were called out, eventually, they thought they were helping a sweet old lady who had fallen down her stairs. Knocking on the already open door, they first noted the smell, then the blood.

There was so much. Everywhere.

Sonia’s body was lying face down on the kitchen table as they slowly crept through the house.

Before they could call out to the man of the house, a strange woman—who resembled some of the pictures in the hall—appeared. They tried to reason with her and ask her to stand still. She muttered and walked past them. They hesitated—then followed. She led them through to a white room at the back of the property.

They tried speaking to her, but she insisted they follow her, in a dark, low voice that didn’t sound quite panicked enough.

Her flesh was exposed, blood dripping, but she was alert—and they quickly became aware that she was holding a pair of pliers.

The door snapped shut.