Page 1 of My Dark Obsession

‘Limbo-Limbus’

Amaya.

Crack

That was definitely my ribs; the pain penetrating my lungs had me gasping out in utter agony. Sucking in a deep breath from the pain, I spat out thick liquid as a coppery taste filled my already bruised mouth.

I was choking on my own blood.

This wasn’t good.

The heavy pound of his fists wracked my body as I tried to concentrate on getting air into my struggling airways.

I slipped on the blood-soaked concrete and fell to my side cringing as a grunt slipped out after landing on my damaged ribs.

The white-hot burn was now a sure sign of my lungs being impaled further.

This really wasn’t good.

The blows still continued with his punishing hits.

How long had he been at this now? Minutes? Hours? I’m pretty sure I kept blacking out, so I couldn’t be sure.

I spat another mouthful of foamy blood to the floor; my head was thrown back and slammed to the dirty ground with an audible thump. Stars burst to life behind my closed eyes.

That fucking hurt.

“Disgusting, vile—” my head was pulled back with force by my hair, the sting making my eyes water as he spat in my face.

And he called me vile.

“-You’re. Unable. To do. Anything. Right!” Each word was said with either a slap to the face or a kick to the stomach.

Breathing was now practically impossible. But hey, who needed to breathe when you were about to die anyway? Because that’s where this was going; he had never been this angry before. He would have usually worn himself out by now.

The day hadn’t even been that bad, not the worst anyway!

I mean yeah sure I forgot to pre-heat the coffee pot, which okay, led to me being late to drop the twins off because I was limping from the small beating I then received.

Which led to me being late to my first class of the day, History with Ms Roberts.

She took great delight in informing the class that the reason I was late and didn’t have the essay to hand in was because I had a ‘slow brain’.

Yup, that’s right the entire town of Bluewater Valley thought I was slow. Like mentally. I mean I very well could have been after all the hits to the head I received daily, but I think it was just a way for them to ignore the fact I lived with an abusive foster father and a set of random twins.

I wasn’t stupid; I just wasn’t like them.

I could give you detailed instructions of how to slice open a human’s skin and retract each bone before they bled out and died.

I could read an eight-hundred-page book on true crime in half a day and still go on to read a fantasy book on fairy tales and its lore.

But apparently that made me sick, psychotic and potentially a serial killer in the making according to the internet.

Not that I care what they thought of me, as I had detached myself from that town and life a very long time ago.

People were like slugs, slowly sliding their way through life full of lies, sludge and sickness and waiting for the escape of death.

I thought the day was going to be like any other with my usual beatings and his drunken slurs thrown at me before bed but nope, after picking the twins up we walked through the door to find Lyal, our foster father, and Ms Roberts sans clothes on the couch.

Turns out her threatening to call my, gag, ‘Father’ about my tardiness was something else entirely.

Thinking about it made me heave more.

And that’s how I ended up on the basement floor concerned for my life for once but still, he was definitely angrier than normal.

More blood filled my airways and had me choking.

It had started to become difficult to get a decent breath in .

I looked over to my usual spot, the dripping pipe that had started to turn green from the years of leaking. It had become my focusing point during those regular beatings.

I just had to get through this. It was going to be the last time I let him put his hands on me. Once midnight hit, I was eighteen and we were free.

Yep, happy fucking birthday to me.

Freedom was so close; waiting for me upstairs were my boys hidden in their little closet. They were waiting for me to open that door, gather them close and tell them everything was fine, that we were free.

I couldn’t let him beat me to death; yes, it had always been a literal dream of mine to give in and let the sweet release of death take me away from this sick world, but I had them now.

I gritted my teeth in anger and pain, the rage that boiled the blood in my veins always calling me to answer.

I held in the need to climb to my raw knees, lift a piece of that leaking pipe and swing it at his greasy head, to keep swinging until all that was left was a pile of brain matter and his blood staining the concrete of this delightful basement.

My head was always noisy, always full of dark and dangerous thoughts that I’m sure would have worried others.

I tried to stave off these desires with the true crime books, immersing myself in their horror and gore, but all it did was feed whatever was inside me. Those books were more like instructions on what you could and couldn’t get away with than working out what happened.

My face stretched into what I knew would be a deranged swollen smile at the thought of Lyal and his brains spread across the floor .

“This is funny to you? This is ALL YOUR FAULT!” He roared as he slammed his foot down onto my face. One of my eyes was now unable to fully open. The pain was pulsing through every inch of me.

He was always ranting and raving about things being my fault, how I didn’t do anything right. I literally had no idea what he was on about. He was just a disgusting, mean, abusive drunk. When I asked, I always landed up here, staring at that damn leaking pipe.

Another one of my fantasies was a blade to his throat, slicing his chubby neck open and watching as the life drained from his meat sack sounded heavenly.

He wasn’t the only person I had those fantasies about; most of the town had their deaths planned out, by me of course.

Each one perfectly thought out, each intricate detail planned.

I had suffocations, mutilations, acid coffee and so on and so forth.

Now I wasn’t some kind of head case, as these plans were only for the people who genuinely deserved it: child abusers, bullies, ignorant sheriff’s and bitch social workers.

Yes, I know I had a problem.

But I knew I couldn’t act on these wonderful thoughts, because the boys upstairs needed me, and we were oh so close to being free.

We had plans, plans to get the fuck out of this damned town.

The time we tried to run before had landed up with beatings similar to these, and it had been really damn hard to hide the twins from his anger then.

So we figured, once I was eighteen, they couldn’t search for us, because I would be legally an adult and didn’t need to stay with Lyal.

The brothers had no legal paperwork, no birth certificates nor foster forms, nothing.

I knew that social worker bitch had stolen them from somewhere and given them to Lyal.

I just had never been able to figure out why.

There was nothing in his office; I had ransacked the house looking and nothing could be found.

However, it worked to our advantage I suppose, because without them having paperwork, we could run. We just needed to wait until midnight, to get this beating over with and sneak out when Lyal was exhausted and passed out in his armchair with his whisky.

However, it really wasn’t going to plan; the beating was taking a turn for the worse and I really feared I was going to pass out or die.

I would never let him put his hands on those boys, so I took his beatings, took his anger and days’ worth of labour.

And I let it boil inside me; let it fester and grow into a hatred even he would be shocked at.

Because one day, I was going to go back to Bluewater Valley, and I was going to act upon every single one of my fantasies.

My ears rang from a swift kick to the head; if he carried on, there was no way I was crawling up those steps to the boys.

The drip from the leaking pipe had now gone silent, as had his raging voice. There was nothing but a muffled screech.

I was pretty sure he’d damaged my ears.

He had to stop.

He was going too far.

I pushed to my hands on the wet floor as I heaved myself to my knees and looked at him standing there with his chest heaving, his hands clenched and his face red and sweaty .

“S-stop.” I tried to croak out. My throat was full of blood and I couldn’t hear anything but the muffled screech.

His mouth moved but no words reached me. Lip reading was impossible due to my swelling eyes and the blood and sweat dripping into them. I was an utter mess.

I squinted behind Lyal. I swore I could see a black bird watching me from the stair railing.

Was I delirious? Potentially.

Was I panicking that I was dying? Nope.

Was there a cold churning in my stomach at the thought of leaving my boys alone without me?

Abso-fucking-lutely.

I had never been afraid of being alone, of pain or the cold release of death. Of being different. But the thought of leaving them had my heart racing and mouth clenching in utter fear.

Those boys were mine, mine and no one was ever going to take them away from me. Elfyn and Elyas.

I was weak before they came along, weak and pathetic. They made me strong. They needed me to protect them.

More fatal blows came my way, bile and blood pooled around my face as he smashed my head into the concrete.

I’ll admit, I was beginning to panic. If I passed out or died, he was going to eventually move onto the brothers.

I told myself to stay awake.

Focus.

Breathe.

Was the bird watching me ?

Everything blurred to black as I watched the bird watch me. The heavy blows continued but no pain followed.

Black, everything was black.

Silent.

Time was endless.

So blissfully numb.

No pain.

No panic for the twins.

No thoughts of freedom.

The numb was amazing; we were best friends.

I was floating in an endless black void of nothingness, a vast void of utter peace.

Was I-dead?

My arms floated beside me as I drifted in this nothingness. Something niggled at my subconsciousness, something important. But the numb pulled me back.

So peaceful.

So quiet.

I floated. And floated. I floated until a distance rumble made my almost non-existent heart pump a little harder, a little faster.

I became more aware. But so confused.

I was floating but where was I? Where was I?

Where the hell was I?

My heart hammered as I tried to move my body, but the floating nothingness pulled at my limbs and dragged at my consciousness. It begged me to swim back into the numb.

A tingle in my toes eased up my feet, along my calves, around my thighs and up my back before turning into a scream inducing zap of pain.

My back arched as I sucked in a mouthful of lukewarm air.

It was agony; everything hurt, every fiber of my being cried for the loss of the numbness as the loud rumble shook my void of nothingness around me.

A voice screamed in the distance; it screamed on and on, piercing my sore ears.

I couldn’t work out why my ears were sore.

“Amaaaayaaa!” It screeched.

I didn’t know who Amaya was. I didn’t know why I was hurt; I didn’t know where I was.

And so I floated and floated in utter agony as I wished for death to sing his song and summon my soul.

Unless I was already dead.

“Amaaaayaaa!”

I was Amaya. I was Amaya and the cold churning now pulling at my stomach had my heart hammering in terror. Was I dead? Had I left my boys?

Shit, they were all alone with him.

Lyal, that bastard had killed me.

Well death could fuck off!

Elyas and Elfyn needed me, and Lyal, I was going to kill that fucker.

I fought against the numbness, constantly picturing my boys’ faces in my mind to stay alert.

I screamed with my teeth smashed together against the pain in my body and swore to rip death’s face apart if I didn’t get back to them.

But it was pointless, because no matter how much I fought, the numb took over.

And I floated.