The Beast I Am

Chapter 1

I awoke.

My body felt sore as if someone had piled encyclopedias on every joint I had, plus a few cinderblocks. My tongue felt hairy, my teeth brittle, my muscles stiff. A whimper would have escaped my lips if not for the stinging cuts that sliced the flesh of my vocal cords. I took another shallow, shaky breath, willing my organs to work, feeling the prickles slither up my legs with merciless vigor as they caught up to my mental state.

Where am I?

My body felt heavy as I blinked open, crusted lids to a dim light that still burned my retinas. A headache ricocheted around my skull, and I felt the curse hang in my throat, caught up by the discomfort of speaking. I coughed, leaning up slightly to better visualize my surroundings. The realization catching up to me like a B-52.

This wasn't my bathroom. The wood fireplace spat and popped, making me cringe at the crack. This wasn't my apartment.

My eyes darted around the poorly lit room in a panic. Absorbing every minuscule detail. I was in a large bed, the pillow mattress top sucking me down into it.

I clenched my teeth, pain shooting through my jaw instantaneously. A deep, shaky breath pulled through me as I tried to desperately clear the fog that plagued my mind. So groggy, like I had been asleep for far too long.

I peeled them apart again, letting my gaze drift to my left side, toward the door. I tried to sit up again, a tugging pulling me to a jagged stop. I twitched my wrist, testing the full restraining power of the straps holding me down. My spine screamed as I tucked my chin into my neck, looking down at the husk of a body below me. I was bare, excluding a silky cream chemise that drooped over my form. The skin underneath was translucently pale against the dragging brown of the straps wrapped around every movable joint in my body. I jostled again, pointless, but a gut reaction to the blind panic that quickly seeped into every fiber of my being.

Trapped. I was trapped.

I took another shaky breath, my chest pressing tight against the restraint across my torso, and closed my eyes again, trying to calm myself. Working on my exercises, the skills I had practiced to keep me calm– keep me alert when I had night terrors.

A small voice twitched in my head, foreign to me and the other voices that generally occupied the space.

This isn't no night terror, girl.

I froze, listening for anything. Any sign that someone else was in this home with me. Horrible thoughts spilled into my mind, the daze clearing as I remembered where I had last been. The state I had last been in. My arm wrenched, not entirely under my control, the panic building and stampeding over itself. The urge to scream was intense, but I held my tongue. The distinct creaking of a loose floorboard. I held my breath, bees blurring in my brain as I tried to pinpoint the distance, doing my best to keep my face calm and impassive.

A gasp choked out of me as there was a thunderous smash. Cosmic cymbals that rattled my eyes and made my nose bleed.

So loud.

Focus. He's coming.

I waited for that creak, trying to calm the tremor in my blood, the urge to sob and plead for help. I didn't want this. I didn't want anything like this. Whoever's home this was had wealth. Much wealth. And I couldn't for a second not think of my sleazy landlord. The one that had warned me about living alone when I moved in so many years ago. My breaths were coming in gasps, wheezing out of my cracked and bleeding lips. My mouth filled with bitter blood that left me gagging. Something off about the way it tasted... Confusion temporarily receded my fears.