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Fiona had been here for as long as she could remember.
It hurt. That was the simplest way she could put it, though really she couldn’t remember anything beyond this. Or no… that wasn’t true at all. She remembered a brother, his name redacted in her mind, his face a blur -
When she tried to push further the pain worsened. Like spokes driven into her wrists, though bloodless, her entire body writhed and ached. What wasn’t bloodless was the gaping wound in her chest, a cavity where her heart should have been now exposed. A few of her ribs were broken outwards, the bone clean, her hands marred red. Each time she fell to the ground, sobbing in agony.
She had been here for as long as she could remember.
Once, a boy came in. A blonde boy with hollow eyes and sandy hair, frail and unsure in a way she couldn’t remember being. She played guide to him. She wasn’t sure why, maybe to spite that bastard Cat or the brother she couldn’t remember. Really, maybe it was just her mind playing tricks on her. When was the last time she slept? She pushed herself to remember but it was all fog everywhere. She was alone. The room was white. It could have been days or years since she last saw someone.
“I only took one thing from you.” The Cat told them both that day.
She didn’t bother asking what. She already knew.
Some small part of Fiona wanted to die, the rest of her wanted to push through, to laugh in the face of everyone who’d ever thought she wouldn’t make it.
In the real world, she was still sleeping, or so that boy had said. Her brother was his teacher and he spoke of him with such… such…
“XXXX” she choked out, the words bloodsoaked and empty. They felt bitter on her tongue, stinging her like barbed wire. She couldn’t remember a day without pain, without suffering, with XXXX.
But her brother… he was smart. She could remember that much. And he was always XXXXd. She hoped one day he’d see that.
In the meantime all she could do was cling on.