Chapter 193 - TDVWIAI [02] UNPLEASANT MEMORIES
I couldn't feel pain and nor could move a body part just to confirm my soul was still attached to my physical body. The overpowering numbness tingling all over me was the only sensation I was aware of.
It was dark… very dark. There's nothing to see except the endless stretch of black that scared me so bad. I Wonder if some kind of morphed monster would emerge from nowhere would attack and erase the few remains of my pitiful existence.
It was cold…. Extremely cold that my soul felt as if it was frozen too.?Is this what death feels like?
My drifting thoughts were cut short when out of nowhere a door magically appeared. Fear and apprehension hit me hard as it slowly opened by itself.
As if an old film rolled, the scene from the past starts playing.
There inside the door, a little girl with red
copper curls gloriously tumbling down her shoulders stood. Her high cheekbones were flushed and stained with tears. Her full lush lips trembled in fear while looking at her cat, Miel enclosed in a box, the grievous wound on her neck leaking with blood.
That girl was me.
Standing beside me was my identical but slightly thinner twin sister, her eyes were stained with tears too but it wasn't because she's scared and sad but because of the uncontrollable laughter bursting from her lips.
"Mommy!!!! Arabella killed the cat! Mommy hurry!" My twin's piercing scream filled the room. Before I could even understand her hidden agenda, hurried footsteps sounded in the hallway. Seconds later the door flung open with force exposing father and mother's horrified expression as it landed on the box where the dead cat lies. Then their gazes landed on my bloody fingers then on the red stain on my dress which I acquired while trying to revive my pet.
"Arabella!!!" Mom screamed. Her face turned into an ugly mask of rage as she marched to where I stood. Frozen.
"I didn't do it mommy. I swear! Lexi did it! Please believe me." I spoke, panic?mounting inside me. But my explanation fell on deaf ears then my cheeks went numb with pain when mom's hand came in contact with my cheeks. The imprints of the blow left a red mark on my delicate?child skin.
I received a severe punishment afterwards. My parents locked me in the attic after letting me kneel in rock salt for an hour until my knees were all red and swelling.?While I was locked, I wasn't allowed to eat lunch and dinner. I huddled in the corner of the cold, crowded room. My stomach rumbling and my amber eyes wide and empty as they stare on the ceiling wondering why I always have to pay for the sins my twin sister committed.
The scene ended there. The memories move fast forward again, another memory starts to play, this time it was when I was twelve.
Quietly, my child's feet padded through the dimly lit hallway. I was starving. I didn't ate much earlier that day because of my fever.
On my way to the kitchen, I?noticed the door to my parents room was ajar. As an innocent child who's life was treated with injustice, I was scared to even peek in fear that it might cause my demise.
I walked past the door but the words coming from my parent's room were thrown in shouts that it's impossible not to hear them.
"I'm scared of Arabella! Her behavior is worsening each day and so is her mental illness. The Psychiatrists gave up on her already. No one could help her now." Mom bubbled hysterically while dad tried to calm her down.
"Hush…. Stop crying. We will find a way to get rid of Arabella." Father spoke between gritted teeth. The words pierced my heart like an arrow. Hearing my name spoken with so much distaste bludgeoned my heart to death.
"Oh please, do something and get rid of her fast before she could kill any of us....If word comes out that we have a mentally ill child, it would become a huge scandal. Society would turn its back on us."
"I know....I'll find a way to get rid of her. Money could do everything…" He said. Determined.
I marched away from the door. Hunger forgotten.?Instead of going to the kitchen as planned, my stepps padded to the direction of my room with a heavy heart.
The scene was painful…. I couldn't continue watching anymore. Those moments were the darkest part of my memory and I have buried them in the darkest, deepest part of oblivion in hopes to never retrieve them again. But today as if some kind of force wanted to torture me, the memories hidden in Pandora's box, flung open, unearthing the past so it would come to haunt me again.
I closed my eyes tightly, refusing to witness the next scene but even after I closed my eyes, the memories came, this time it was my head supplying the details of my first hand experience.
There I was standing in the corner of the room full of people. No one saw me there. Everyone was wearing black. But it wasn't the guests crowding the room which my attention was nailed into but it was the tiny closed casket in the middle of the room surrounded with pure white roses that got my attention. My picture frame was placed on top of the casket?and it stared back at me.
"Poor child, she died so young. Have a bright future ahead of her."
"She's so young and so beautiful. How sad she perished so quickly in this world."
"A tragic accident…. The girl fell from the stairs and broke her neck. Never even had the chance to reach the hospital and breathed her last."
"Pitiful girl…. May her soul rest in peace."
Those are the whispers inside the room, they painfully fill my ears..?I sat in the corner, wrapped my arms around my knees, and asked the heavens why my funeral was taking place when I'm still alive.