Shattered (The Academy)

Chapter 5: Sleepless.

I'm up before the sun, running through the woods in my daily routine. I like to run, and I like these woods. In fact, I used to get in trouble for going outside on my own, but it wasn't because Mother cared for me. She just didn't want me to see the outside.

I'm sweating and my breathing comes hard, the trees a blurry stain as I go... until I can't see them no more. My head fills with images. With memories.

In them, I'm there, being dragged my the hair by Mother because I was returning a lost ball to some boys who dropped it in our house.

I can almost feel the pain in my skull. I lift a hand to touch it, but there is nothing. Not a scar, not a deformity, not anything.

You would think there should be a scar, by the way that she dragged me inside and made me go downstairs to the basement, me crawling to escape. Every single one of my nails broke in half, leaving a trace of blood behind. Then she put me inside the fridge, the one that didn't work and was there only because fixing it would be too expensive and we already had a new one. She slapped me a couple of times before getting my body in there and locked it down.

I'm not sure how long I stayed there. It could have been hours, or days, or years. I don't think so. I mean, someone can't live without water for more than a couple days, right? Well, anyway, it felt like forever. It felt like long enough.

So there should be a scar. But as everything else that I've known, it faded in time, almost like it never existed.

I stumble down and fall to the ground. It hurts my shoulder, and I feel like I can't breathe, so I decide to lie there for a minute, trying to catch my breath, trying to erase the pain.

When I left the fridge in the basement for the first time, was when she appeared.

I've been thinking that something inside of me broke that day.

I was so scared.

I stand on my feet and shake my head, trying to shake these memories and feelings off me. I try hard. Coming back home, I can't make it anymore. I've run too fast and too far, and now I'm done. I haven't run that fast in... never.

Now, I'm about to climb on the little piece of high soil in front of me to finally get out of the woods and in my property. I grab the rocks with my hands to climb off, when I touch something else for accident. What's that?

I clean the dirt with my heands until I find something else than rocks and soil. It's... wood.

Wait, wood? Processed wood in the forrest? Right outside the property?

Shaking the dirt off, I see they are two wooden little doors, big enough to keep something, inside. But is there? I can't open it: There is a lock on it, and I don't have the key.

A key...

It comes flashing through my mind. It would be weird not to, because everytime I take off Elizabeth clothes, I always take off the same, even when she has lots of clothes and accesories on her own: A necklace with a small key on it painted on golden nail polish.

Elizabeth.

What does she keep here? Why?

I'm driven by curiosity, going to my house and my room only to find her necklace. I get down under my bed and I find the little box where she keeps her stuff. She always let her things everywhere, but I'm careful of hiding everything. She's mad with me about it.

I open the purple box and go through her stuff, finally finding it. Fast, I go downstairs and out. I let myself fall to be in that irregular part of land. I take the lock, insert the key and... it fits.