Scribbling and scrabbling, the words formed with pristine purple ink. So careful was she with the syllables: a tender goodbye for the love she will hold dear in her memories. She hears in the background muffled sounds of closing and opening, of twisting and tightening, of nothing but struggle to get through the barriers. She clenches her weapon.
His voice is distant, still held by the ravenous haze and the strong window that shields her. His words are cruel, his words are meaningless, his words look for things that are not there, for objects and ideals more than her. She’s a second thought, the bridge to a goal, a thing he needs for accomplishing his desires. No reassurement , no “This is all a mistake” or “Please don’t be scared”. She thinks that’s the worst part.
She watches the mirror. Watches the girl, tight with the quill and tighter with the weapon. Blurry cloudiness drops, falling with the weight of the world to reveal the grim face scrunched in ugly crying. Red in the cheeks, red in the eyes, wet in the hair. She tries to smile, wonders if with a smile she’ll look better, feel better. Stretched cheeks drop even more salt, the cry in her eyes still staring, wider now with the teeth. She silently recoils.
And silence is all she can do, for he knows she is there. But she doesn’t have to answer and will not answer. Maybe if she’s silent, he’ll go away. Maybe if she’s silent, he’ll disappear. Maybe if she’s silent, she’ll disappear. Maybe if she’s silent, everything will go back to how it was an hour ago, before she had to fear, before she had to cry. She wonders if she’ll get to tell this story. Maybe she’ll write a book, shift a few details here and there, add someone else in the room to keep her company, maybe give her more defenses before he arrives-
He’s there.
Just beyond the door.
She scutters to the doorknob, pulls it tight against his vice grip. He shuffles and ruffles, demanding an entrance. He calls her name, a seething concoction that won’t allow her to hear her name again. Anger is all she can hear, oozing from the creaks of the door in rows of ten, permeating the area and shrinking and shrinking her until she’s as small as a mouse. She looks back at the door, imponent figure that holds her close and shouts her away. So gigantic seems the white door that once was only a head taller. So powerful now seems the wooden carving that separates them. Powerful like him, hollering to the seven winds about betrayal and audacity, about rushing and escaping. Powerful like her, resilient in the face of fear, silent in the bubbled-up bottle that wants to erupt, wants to shout and make it worse and worse.
Her leg trembles, trembles like it has never done before. It doesn’t stop, it will stop. It jumps in fear, it jumps in fright, it jumps in anxiousness. She intakes air, shudders as the sound of her inhale rumbles within the four walls, louder than his shouts and louder than her heartbeat. She can’t pretend she’s not there.
He releases the doorknob, but still rambles on. Calls her names, calls her loved ones names, asks her to go, asks her to leave. She crumbles with her letter, all wrinkled and soaked. She grips her pen. The snot on her nose dribbles down her cupid’s bow. She’s terrified of breathing. Her letters start again, and halts to an end. The scribbling is too loud, the scrabbling too echoing. The loudest sound that has pierced her ears.
She hears him move. Things and objects, shifting around in the room. She wonders what he's looking for, she hopes it's not her doom.
He shouts some more, all garbled noise that rises the ire in her soul. "Not his fault, not his fault, not his fault". He's spouting nonsense at this point, so self-centered and narcissistic; a man who seemed so altruistic now the demon from her nightmares. He blames it on her.
How is it her fault?
How is it her fault that he's brimming with rage? How is it her fault that he's pounding on the door? How is it her fault that the only thing that comes out of his mouth is black sinful venom dripping like ravenous rabies? How is it her fault that she's scared out of her mind, legs trembling even though she tells them not to, breathing loud even though she wills it not to, heart erratic even though she wishes it not to?
Who's the one hunting and who's the one hiding?
As he raves on, she wonders. His voice sharper than this morning, his stomping louder than the day before, his essence opposite of what she met. Her memory and her present like day a night, dreams and nightmares, complete antonyms. She wonders how it can be the same person, if it even is the same person. Tender warmth and comforting smile twisting and deforming with grotesque viles into the thing out there. Transmuted into the kind of man she only heard from in the news and movies. A merciless man from whom she cowers, trembles, fears. How someone so kind could be someone so cruel.
The dam fills up again, submerged in vile nostalgia the flood comes crashing through, and though enormous in its volume it still holds no sound. Hitching breathing and maddening chaos are the only sounds within their world, so quiet yet so loud, that even if the sirens of warring planes went off, neither would even hear the tiniest whisper.
Time does not exist. It could've been hours; it could've been days. She feels like she's been trapped here forever, an eternal afternoon playing as her divine punishment. She wants to shout at him, answer all his wicked words and give him a piece of her mind. She mouths her words, shapes forming in her lips yet no strain on her vocal cords. She's sure there's a barrier, a knot in her throat. Do not speak, do not shout, do not fight. Just wait.
And wait she does. Wait so long, she notices with held breath the only sound she can hear within this world: Drop drop drop. The taste of salt reached the sounds of the floor, splashing in the wooden creaks. She whips around with hazy eyesight, staring up at the bleached door casting its darkness, looming in sharpness. There’s nothing.
Absolutely nothing beyond it.
She stills. Deafening whiteness.
Quietness
Nothingness
Blankness.