Remanded Death

         There is a time in everyone’s life when they have to stand up and deal with the life they’ve been dealt. I came to that time today. It’s amazing how much a person can live through, especially when you don’t remember living through it. This, of course, does not mean that you can actually call the existence living, but you’re not dead…at least a heart still beats somewhere in your physical body if not in your emotional one anymore. Do not dismiss this as mere fancy. I promise I know. I realized that this was the way my life had been for so many years. I didn’t want to remember, couldn’t face the past. But the past always has a way of kicking you when you’re six feet down.
         Today started out like every other day of my life. I woke up and started the day with a naïve sense of hope, all but flowing out of each step I took. I used to thing that the world glowed with possibilities, even if it was overcast outside and raining. This morning, and every other morning before, I refused to think ill of what could happen. Each new day held the opportunity for goodness …and happiness.
         I’m not entirely sure exactly when I realized that today was different. I don’t think it sunk in until I ran into ‘the wall’. No, I take that back. It was before that, it was when I woke up the second time. Only this time, I wasn’t in my house. I wasn’t even in my state.
         My head had been lying on something cold and hard. I didn’t really know where I was but I felt a familiarity. I knew I’d been there before. Then my step-father came out of where ever and stood over me. I thought he was there to help. My skull was screaming with pain and I could feel something like tears sliding down the side of my head, so when his hand came out towards me I was relieved. I wasn’t sure that I would have been able to get up by myself, because when I stood the world tilted to such a degree that I thought I was standing on the wall instead of the floor. Thinking back now, I know I shouldn’t have closed my eyes or swayed towards the arms that, in my childhood, had made me run in fear. I just felt a prick followed by an incredible burning sensation all the way down my arm and into my hand. When I opened my eyes, my step-father had wrapped his muscular arms around me with his right hand pressed hard against my right forearm. I don’t know what he put into me, but when his hand let me go something fell and shattered on the ground.
         I wish his hand had stayed on my arm ‘cause when he moved it, he slapped me. I whimpered but couldn’t make any real sounds. My throat felt as if someone had forced sandpaper down it. I couldn’t even cry, my eyes were so dry. I closed them tight, hoping to easy the blinding pain that was warring with the painful burning for dominance in my body. As he started to lead me away from this room, I opened my eyes and turned my head ever so slightly. I could see where I had been laying. There was a pool of silky red blood on the floor and droplets trailing off behind us, but that wasn’t what scared me. It was the numerous rusty brown stains dotting the floor around it and the gouges in the concrete walls. Then the memories started flooding my throbbing mind.
         I’d been there before. My step-father would take us there when we had been ‘bad’. I can’t remember much of anything about the first time I was down there. Except that someone had placed pickles in the bathroom drain and had refused to confess to it. I remember it hadn’t been me and that my younger brother was too young to have done it. I also remember some crying and holding my little brother in my arms as he shivered in the freezing night air. My older brother was the one who let us out the next day. He hadn’t come into the hole. He never had to go into the hole.
         The next time was because my older brother had gotten a hold of my step-father’s gun and had shot a hole in the window of the kitchen door. He claimed he didn’t do it and my step-father wouldn’t let my little brother and I out for a long time. I don’t remember seeing my little brother after that ever again. I vaguely remember a story about a car and him being caught under it. But, I also remember holding him and wishing I could make his body warm so that he wouldn’t be so cold. I remember holding him for so long that when I finally got to leave I could let him go. My arms were almost frozen to his body. But I knew that something was wrong a while before that. Back when the tiny body stopped shaking in my arms. I had not kept him safe. I iced over my heart, and until I met the one who thawed me, I had thought I was done with pain. This is when I realized everything. I hadn’t runaway from anything. Instead I had stuck my head in the sand and forced my past away. I knew I wasn’t going to make it out. I knew I wasn’t going to get to tell him he’d freed me. I was going to see my brother…again.
         I really believed that I had gotten away. Not just from the memories, but from them. From the constant terror and death. I had run, fast and hard, the first chance I had gotten. I had graduated. I even went far away for college. I got a job, a new life…and I had thought I was safe. I guess not. Later I realized how I had come to be in that particular room. My older brother had begun beating his own family. From what I know, he enjoyed doing it. His poor wife’s medical file read more like a car crash victim than not. My brother, the only one I had left, was the one who brought me to the basement, the hole, Hell itself. His wife was trying to leave him. I was the attorney allowing making her able to do so. That’s why I was there, that’s why he was going to kill me. The men in my family don’t take well to losing things. Things just don’t, cant, leave. And to them, all women are things. I never really thought they would come after me though. I was practically famous! Everyone wanted me to fight for them, and obviously they wanted me to stop fighting for those people.
         So, yea. That’s why I’m here. I’m no longer in the basement. Oh no. They found a new Hell for me. A worse Hell. They dragged me out of the basement. My legs are bleeding from the ripping of the concrete steps. Now I’m lying in my little brother’s room. I’m not alone though. My little brother’s here, or at least his bones are. They actually arranged them in the bed so that I can almost imagine him sleeping. His gorgeous blonde curls on his pillow and his crystal blue eyes hiding behind tiny eyelids. I can’t hold him this time though, my arms won’t stop bleeding. I’d get him all messy. I don’t like seeing his hair with red in it. But my mom can. She’s sitting in the rocking chair by the window. She’s even in her favorite yellow dress. I always had wondered where she went off to. I can guess now. There’s a big hole in her skull. It looks like it hurt when it happened. It’s getting cold now and I can hear my brother and step-father in the hallway. I can also hear laughter, cruel and dark. Like the darkness climbing towards me now. So, cold. I think I’m going to sleep now. Maybe when I wake up I’ll be in Heaven instead of Hell.