6 December 2013
They can't be serious.
My strides quickened, fueled by the fire within me.
How could she do this? It was my freaking birthday for God's sake!
In my family, it was tradition to celebrate birthday's in a small circle of people each year. Just the four of us. Mom, dad, Tori and I. Either we'd go out and eat or mom would cook the birthday kid's favorite dinner. Cake, singing and presents would follow.
I'd had a crappy week already so when mom had informed me of my sister's lack of appearance on my birthday not twenty minutes ago I was done.
I doubt I'd ever been this enraged before.
Traditions were important, Goddamnit! How could she just break them so easily? Did this not mean anything to her at all? Meant she more to me than I to her?
I felt the angry tears at the back of my eyes, but I forced them away.
Although it was cold, my inner fire warmed me as I stomped home angrily. I'd left my parents at my aunt's house, they were taking too long to say goodbye. It was a good excuse to extinguish the burning flames within my soul. I could feel them licking at my skin, wanting to break out over the surface.
It was sometime after ten pm and I prayed for snow. Maybe this would cool me down, but the heavens didn't seem to hear my plea for there was no sign of the graceful, white rain.
I turned the next corner onto my street, thoughts racing angrily around my head.
I can't believe her. Just because my birthday is a Friday and she wants to go to a stupid party she-
Then, something broke through my jumble of thoughts. A noise. No, not a noise, noise was loud, this was faint, a sound. Some kind of rustling.
I stopped in my tracks and let my gaze sweep over my surroundings. I wasn't far from my house. Maybe thirty feet, a few houses.
It was late so most things were cast in shadows. I'd just reached a two-story house that looked dark blue in the shadow of the night. The left side of it that I was currently admiring was covered in ivy and near the wall were high bushes and a tree. In it, I spotted a fluttering black shopping bag.
Writing it off as the cause of the sound, I continued my walk alone, the dark of the silent night my only companion. Little did I know it wouldn't stay that way.
I took step after step after step.
Then I heard it.
Footsteps.
I frowned. A minute ago I'd been alone, nobody as far as the eye could see.
I got this weird feeling in my tummy as the steps quickened.
I pushed the feeling of wrongness away and naively stepped to the side to let the other person pass when the steps changed to a jog.
All of this happened in a matter of seconds, but those fleeting moments were forever engrained in my brain.
Then there was a hand firmly pressed against my mouth. The soft fabric of black gloves clasped forcefully over my lips.
My heart stopped beating.
Then there was a hand unflinchingly touching my behind.
Panic rose up inside me.
For a second everything slowed to a stop. It was this second that allowed me to ask myself one question: What do I do?
I didn't think, there was no time for thoughts.
It was pure instinct that moved me into action.
A scream.
A scream resounded in the air around me. A sound so wounded and desperate that it couldn't possibly had been emitted by a human being. A hurt animal. But no it was I myself.
It took me a moment to register that my left palm was wrapped around the wrist connecting to the hand that was keeping me in place.
I screamed. Even before I'd managed to get his hand off my mouth I screamed. I screamed like I never had before. I screamed the air out of my lungs. These screams gave the term screaming bloody murder a new definition.
I screamed until my soul was raw and bleeding.
I screamed until the grip the stranger had on me loosened. And even then I didn't stop.
I screamed until I suddenly tumbled to the floor, either by force or accident. I didn't feel the impact. And even then I didn't stop.
I screamed until I saw the stranger running, no, not running, jogging like he was just out having a nice little jog around the neighborhood. And even then I didn't stop.
I screamed until his blurry back was out of my sight. And even then I didn't stop.
I screamed until I stood up. And even then I didn't stop.
I screamed until I ran into my parents.
But even then the screaming inside my body, my head, my soul, it didn't stop. It never stopped.