It came to me like a dream. At least I thought it was a dream, till I realised it was a nightmare. I had awoken in stages, first with a banging headache, followed by distant voices. There was blood on my skin. Dried blood on my thighs, smeared like a painting on a canvas, turning my fair skin into a dull red. Then there was the fresh ones slowly running down my legs. I couldn’t answer any of the questions. I had stared wide-eyed at my sister, watching tears run down her cheeks, her lips moving with words I couldn’t comprehend.
But that was only the beginning. No, there were no hospital smells and smiling nurses like the first time, rather, there was only the voice in the dark, a voice I knew too well. I waited for the blood to return but it didn’t. I searched for my sister’s tears and moving lips but saw none. I recoiled into myself and made peace with it. I called it my normal. There used to be pain as well but it also stopped, all that was left was an intense tingle running up and down my stomach.
“Drink this,” the voice, which was now a face would say to me in the morning after each episode, while pushing tiny white tablets into my mouth.
I had learned to swallow without a fuss. I wouldn’t dare throw up. The first and only time I did, four fingers stared back at me in the mirror. The voice had left them on my cheeks because he was angry. He hated it when I complained. My sister applied a balm on my cheeks without a word and my brother looked away when I caught his eyes.
“He loves you,” she had whispered once to me.
I never understood it but I believed my sister. So I took the medicines as instructed and never spoke of what happened to anyone, not even to my friends, though their eyes and quiet murmurs showed they knew everything. I lived and trusted everyone around me till I turned fifteen.
My name was Dafe. I was eight the first time my Papa pulled down my boxer shorts. I have a different name now.
This piece is a flash fiction I wrote for the laureate flashblast hosted by Nikflossus on Whaleshares. This is more of the edition version after Nik’s constructive criticism. Stevenwood’s as well. There’s a fresh episode going on at the moment. Just head over to the blog if you wish to be part of it.
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