Something stirred in the pit of my stomach. Something was wrong with that day, something was different. I waited, watching the door as I did every morning but he didn’t come. Usually, he would have arrived soon after daybreak but as time gradually drew on, with the sunlight brightening in that window, there was no sign of him. The sense of unease that I felt was beginning to grow.
My wounds were still fresh, their sting raw. The crack of that lash still echoed vividly in my mind. I was terrified of Lars, terrified of what he might do to me. But despite all of that, I knew all too well that I was reliant on him.
“Abandoned! Left here!” the voices in the shadows whispered out to me.
I tried to swallow, it was a strained effort but a lump stuck in my dry throat, muscles struggling with the lack of moisture. My tongue ran across my dry, cracked lips trying to bring some sort of relief.
He wasn’t coming! Would he ever come back? Had he decided to just leave me here? My mind raced with those thoughts. Was I just going to be discarded here, left to wither away and rot in this dark and dingy place?
Drip, drip, drip.
The persistent dripping of the tap drew my attention. With muscles that strained, bones and joints that creaked, I pulled myself to my feet. My hand groped for the cold stone of the wall, coming to rest on its chilly, damp surface for support. The room tilted and span before my eyes, a sudden wave of dizziness that caused me to stumble. Closing my eyes, a deep breath filled my lungs as the light headedness that had gripped me so suddenly, slowly began to pass.
Slowly, with a hand on the wall I began to make my way towards the tap, each step sending a searing jolt of pain through my broken and battered body.
Sinking to my knees I reached out a shaking hand. Taking hold of the old, rusted tap handle, hands closing around the cold hard metal, I tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge, remaining stubbornly fixed in place, unmoving. The pressure was painful against the bones of my skeletal hand. I had just about resigned myself to giving up hope when the seized metal finally gave a grating groan, the rusted bond broke and a torrent of water sprang forth, splashing onto the concrete.
Cupping my trembling hands, I thrust them into the gushing stream. The cold water filled them, overflowing with an orange tinted liquid. Eagerly, I raised my hands to my lips, a sudden and unexpected taste, bitter and metallic assaulted my taste buds. The water didn’t offer the cool, calm relief that I was craving. Its texture was gritty, coating my tongue. The taste brought back memories of blood. I recoiled but the rasping thirst in my throat forced me to drink again.
“Blood! Blood!” the tormenting voices whispered out to me, they taunted me relentlessly as the hours crept by.
The day passed into night which passed back into day and yet still Lars hadn’t returned.
The foul tasting water did little to refresh me but at least it kept my thirst at bay, but thirst wasn’t my biggest worry. My stomach clenched and contorted with sharp pangs of hunger. Every turn of my head, every slight movement sent the world reeling.
I needed to eat. I needed food, but without Lars there was nothing.
My eyes were drawn to a plastic bowl in the middle of the room, a bowl that was filled with dog food.
The ground lurched under my unsteady feet as I attempted to stand. Rolling and swaying as if I was on the deck of a storm tossed ship. With eyes screwed closed I desperately tried to settle myself. Gradually the world around me began to stabilise, the spinning slowing to an eventual halt.
Staggering, my legs wobbling, I made my way over to the bowl, sinking down to the ground beside it.
Tentatively, with a hesitant hand, I reached towards that bowl, my fingers sinking into the soft, damp, gelatinous goo of the dog meat. A part of me recoiled in revulsion at the thought of what I was about to do but I had no choice. I needed to eat.
As I scooped out a handful of the dog meat, I was hit with the metallic, vaguely beefy odour that wafted up, my stomach turned and retched. Still, I raised it to my mouth for the first bite, my teeth sinking into the soft, mushy jelly. The flavour assaulted my senses. Salt! The vile taste of an overly processed stock lingered on my tongue. My stomach heaved but I forced myself to swallow. Handful after handful I forced down myself, a deep and primal desperation to survive pushed aside the revulsion that I felt.
My hand swiped at the now empty bowl, brushing it aside and causing it to clatter across the ground.
What had I become?
Slumping to the ground, I felt empty. The hours bled into one and other. The passage of time, marked only by the drips from the tap and the waning light of the small, grimy window, crawled onwards.
Two days had passed now since I’d last seen Lars. The shock that I had initially felt at his absence had begun to twist and congeal into a thick, cold fear, a dread that gnawed into my bones. What if he really had abandoned me? What if he had decided to leave me here to wither away in the darkness? Was this really how things were going to finish for me, as a skeletal wreck, locked away in a forgotten basement somewhere?
The voices called out at me again, they echoed my fears. “Abandoned! Left forever!”.
Night once again fell, the darkness encroached and the creatures roamed.
Sensing my descent into despair, they grew bolder, they fed off my melancholy. Huddled in a tight ball against the rough stone wall as I was, I could feel them as they began to, at first touch me and then to crawl over me. Clawed hands, cold and unholy scraping and groping across my skin, violating every centimetre of my body. Sharp teeth that nipped at my ear, bit at my neck and shoulders. Consumed by my own resignation, I didn’t have the will or strength to brush them away.
They hissed at me, “Your fault! Your doing!”
The hours dragged on, the night was an endless torment. Sleep offered me no sanctuary, no rest or no escape. Instead, I always found myself dragged back, every time to that formless blackhole of my mind. The depraved corner of myself where the Shadow Beast would come to seek me out, leer at me, harass me further.
Another day eventually dawned, another day that crawled by without any sign of Lars.
Hunger had become a constant nagging pain inside of me. While the rusty water from that tap managed to keep my thirst at bay, the vile taste and gritty texture offered very little in the way of true relief.
Hunger and despair had begun to overwhelm me, their grip tight around my shrivelled stomach. The weakness of my body and the hollowness of my stomach were matched only by the hopelessness and hollowness that I felt inside of my soul, a deep black abyss that threatened to consume me. It had been three days now, three days since I had last seen my brother. Any hope that I had harboured had faded, leaving only the grim certainty that I had been abandoned, that this was how I was going to end.
Day or night, it didn’t really matter to me anymore. The two bled into each other as I sat hunched on the floor beside that tap. Conserving what little strength that was left in me had become my main focus. Even the simple act of lifting an arm felt like a monumentous effort.
My mind absently drifted back to my life before. Memories of our house, of the wonderful views over the Oslofjord, of my childhood, those happy times when myself and Lars had been close. I remembered the games that we’d play. How we’d run through the woods, pretending that we were riding on the backs of galloping unicorns. How we’d wave to the fairies and hunt for trolls.
What had gone so terribly wrong?
I tried to immerse myself in those nostalgic memories, tried to shut out the horrors of my current situation. There was no real peace, it was just a bitter illusion, shattered by the voices. They called out to me, tauntingly. “No unicorns anymore! No fairies or trolls! Only Him!”
It was then, just as the last fading glimmers of hope were about to evaporate that I heard it. My ears pricked up instantly, the familiar sound of a key turning in an old lock followed by a grinding of old rusted hinges.
I felt a flutter in my heart, a flutter of excitement and relief. It was a feeling that battled with the cold stab of fear that I could feel rising in my gut.
On one hand, Lars’ arrival came with the promise of food and fresh water, it meant survival. But on the other, the still throbbing bruises and stinging cuts were a chilling reminder to me of what he had done the last time that I had seen him. Would his volatile nature erupt into violence again? If he did, I wasn’t sure that I was strong enough to endure it a second time.
I was all too well aware that my life was precariously balanced, the scales could very easily tip in either direction and that it was Lars who held those scales. It was Lars who controlled my fate.
The creatures chattered at me frantically, but their words were a rustling jumble in the background. My entire being was fixed on only one thing, the one sound that cut through the chaos in my mind. The dull thud, thud, thud that echoed in the stairwell.
The thud of Lars’ footsteps.
He ducked into the room, his figure seemingly larger than I’d ever remembered him being. His shadow reaching out, dark towards me. Thickening stubble covered his chin and despite the dim light and the distance between us, his eyes looked red and bloodshot, heavy bags, dark against his pale skin.
There was a moment of hesitation from him, a flicker of surprise in his eyes as his gaze fell on my usual resting spot, the spot by the far wall. A spot that was now empty.
Head flicking around sharply, his eyes instantly seeking me out. His gaze narrowed, lips turning up in a slight smile as his eyes locked on to mine.
“Ah, there you are my Sister Dearest.” he spoke slowly, his words long and drawn out. “I wondered where you were for a moment, I thought that perhaps you’d gone out for a little stroll.” his last line causing a soft chuckle to rise up in his throat. “How are you feeling? You’re looking a little worse for wear?” continuing, without pausing to let me answer, “I am sorry, I’ve not been by to visit you for a few days, I have had a few complications that I needed to sort out. It’s all good now though.” There was something odd about the way he said the word ‘complications’, a slight infliction in his tone.
“Anyway, I was thinking that you would probably be a little peckish. Would you like something to eat?” he strode towards me, strides that were long and purposeful as he asked the question.
“Yes, Lars, I’m very hungry.” I heard a small, feeble voice speak those words. It was a voice that I barely recognised as my own.
He stopped beside me. His cold, emotionless gaze roamed over my body. His eyes traced the lines of the bruises and cuts, of the torn and tattered dress that I wore. The marks of his cruel handiwork.
The duffle bag hit the ground with a solid thud as he knelt down, his face coming just centimetres from mine.
“I thought that you might be, that’s why I’ve brought you something extra today.” the acrid smell of stale alcohol was strong on his breath instantly churning my stomach.
My heart pounded loudly, a frantic beat against my ribs. My throat tightened as I watched Lars reach into his bag. I could barely bring myself to watch, although at the same time there was nowhere else that my eyes would rest. What would he pull out? Would it be food? The leather lash? Another horrific device beyond my comprehension?
My stomach leapt as I caught a glimpse of the first object that he pulled out. A red plastic bowl, which he placed carefully in front of me. Following the bowl came a bottle of clear water.
The muscles that I had been holding tense, released. A deep breath shuddered from my lungs. The sign of the bowl confirmed food. My mind didn’t even register that it was a dog bowl, the only thing that was consuming my thoughts was that I was going to be getting something to eat.
“Let’s see what we’ve got in here for you shall we?” Lars’ voice was light and casual but his eyes remained wide and intense. He studied every movement that I made, every reaction that crossed my face. “I thought you’d be hungry so I’ve got you some chicken and salmon and some lamb and rice.”
Those red labels, that easily recognisable logo stood out starkly on the two tin cans that he proceeded to pull out of his bag, one in each hand.
Should I have felt revulsion? Should I have resisted as I had before? Was that what Lars wanted from me, was this all just another of his games? However, there was no feeling of disgust in me, only the tingling sensation of anticipation. After all, it was food, it was survival and nothing else mattered.
I sat, looking at him with wide pleading eyes and an expectant smile crossing my face. Within me, the fire of terror raged, I dared not show any dissatisfaction, the memory of his last ‘lesson’ still very raw in my mind.
“Thank you so much, Lars. That’s very generous of you.”
With a flick of his penknife, he began to open the tins. A smile crossed his face, his head nodding slowly as he noted my compliance. Every time that I thought I was beaten, broken and at rock bottom, Lars always managed to find a way to push me down to new depths.
One tin at a time, the dog meat slid out of the can and landed in a congealed, shapeless heap in the bowl. Once he had placed a spoon on the ground in front of me, he sat back. Resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, he watched me. Those cold, blue eyes drilling into my mind. His face was smooth and expressionless, only the slightest twitching at the corner of his mouth giving away that there was something more going on in his head.
There was no hesitation from me that time, instinct took over. My hand hurriedly reached out and snatched up the spoon. Then, driving it into the jellied meat I began to frantically scoop it into my mouth. I didn’t even notice the taste or smell, I was desperate.
I grabbed at the bottle, lifted it to my mouth and tipped the sweet, clear water down my throat. After days of drinking the rust tainted liquid from the tap, this was something special, it was pure and exquisite. I don’t think I’ve ever drunk anything, either before or after that has matched its sweetness.
For a while, that’s how things were. Day after day it was the same ritual, the slop of dog food from a red plastic bowl. He would always make a point of how kind and generous he was being in bringing me two tins. He would point out all the effort that he went to to find different and interesting ‘flavours’ for me.
He was testing me, daring me to resist and defy him. Looking for any excuse to teach me another ‘lesson’. I never gave him the opportunity, I always ate dutifully, I always thanked him for the kindness that he showed me.
After a time he did seem to change, to soften slightly. He began to shave more regularly, the alcohol on his breath faded. The food changed too, he stopped bringing me the dog food, going back to the leftovers and scraps that I had known before. It’s really impossible for me to describe how good a dried up piece of left over fish tastes after being kept for weeks on over processed, dog meat.