Peeking Through The Dark

The little girl sat, huddled, beneath the ledge of the window, through which no light emanated. Her hands were pressed to her mouth to try to hold back the scream. She was such a beautiful child, one any parent would have been proud to call their own. Delicate and petite, she had flowing chestnut ringlets nearly to her waist.  Dressed in an outfit that looked almost like the one shown in the “Alice” books, she looked like nothing more than a little doll.

Yes, she seemed such a perfect child-until you saw her eyes. One was the blue of a cloudless summer sky, while the other was the flat, fathomless black of a starless, moonless night.

Drying those mismatched eyes, she stood wearily. Trying her best to be as silent as possible, she crept to the huge door and opened it carefully, then slipped through it. She had to get away before “the dark one” returned, for that ones was very cruel and enjoyed hurting things. Especially her, whenever she caught her. It had only happened once, but that one time had been enough to drill the fact that she did not want it to happen again indelibly into the little girl’s mind.

The little girl gave a shudder of remembered fear as she tried to close the door quietly. Turning, her heart in her throat, she tried to hurry as quickly as possible down the long hallway. She was headed for the the brighter, better lit part of this place that had been both her home, and her prison, for as long as she could remember.

The little girl hurried as fast as she could and still be silent down the long hallway. It was lined with millions upon millions of doors, some very old, and some new. Sometimes the little girl thought she could hear music coming from behind some of them. There were other doors as well, ones that hid dark, terrifying sounds. She always tried to run as quickly as possible past those.

The little girl ran on, trying to reach the safety of “the light place”, for she knew “the dark one” for some reason could not enter that place. She thought of “the bright one” who seemed to make “the light place” her home as she ran. That one sang soft lullabyes to her, gave her possets and sweets, and held her close when she had bad dreams. The little girl truly loved “the bright one”, for she always felt safe with her.

As the little girl ran, she tried to close her ears and mind to the sounds that emanated from behind the dark doors. Sounds of flesh thudding against flesh, cries and groans of pain and torment, screams, weeping, and loud, angry shouting. None of the doors frightened the little girls as badly, though, as the largest door, which sat right on the border between “the dark place” and “the light place”.

The one from which the loud bang always came. Mere seconds after that sound, a strange thick red liquid would begin seeping from beneath the door. It always oozed towards her as if it had a life of its own, sometimes even following her right to the border.
Eerily, it always stopped right at the placed where the ground turned from dark to light.

The sounds that came from behind the doors that lined the hallway leading to “the light place”, though, were ones that made her feel strangely happy, and safe.

She had nearly reached the border when all at once two death white, nearly skeletal appearing hands reached out of the door of the room from which the loud bang and strange liquid came, and grabbed her. The little girl looked up into the two flat, jet black emotionless orbs that looked down, it seemed, into her very soul. Cringing, her blood turned to ice. She knew, in that moment, that she would never reach “the light place”. That she would, in fact, never see it again.

As “the dark one”, with a high pitched shriek of triumphant laughter, began dragging her back to the room with the dark window, the little girl made a decision. She could no longer go on like this. She did not know yet what she could do, but she knew this nightmare had to end, somehow.

When “the dark one” literally threw her back into the room with the dark window, and the little girl heard the fatalistic click of the lock, she knew she would never, ever be free. She wandered over to the dark window. Swallowing hard, she gazed down at the body of the man who had abused her for her entire twenty one years of life. A man who would never do so again, for it was rather hard to function with half of one’s head missing.

It was as the little girl gazed down at the man that she knew what she had to do to end this torment. She had discovered some time back that, if she thought really, really hard, she could make the one who owned this place do things she wanted them to.

Her decision made, her face holding a grim determination, she sat down on the floor. Leaning her back against the wall, and closing her eyes tightly, she began to focus on what she wanted the owner of this place to do.

Moments later the dark window was lit by a brief flash and then everything went dark.

Natalie Jenson’s mis-matched eyes, one sky blue and one night black, closed for the last time. Her body dropped down to lie beside that of the man who had beaten her mother to death in front of her. The same man who had beaten and half starved her ever since that night. The man who had raped her repeatedly for the past week, threatening to kill her if she told anyone.

As Natalie’s spirit slipped free of the broken and battered body, it looked down on a face that, for the first time in a very long time, wore a smile.

The little girl was free at last. No longer would she be condemned to a lifetime of peeking through the dark.

marantha d. jenelle