Deep Inside

Her finger tips tenitively waver across the cold dark hardness to her side. Her breaths shallow. The air sits thick and heavy in her lungs. Tears begin running from her eyes. The wetness staining her cheeks and dripping into her mouth. The salty taste of her tears do not bring relief. She goes to stand, hitting her head on more hardness. Panic begins to rise in her chest. Her rib cage clenching down with every strained breath effort. Rapidly, she begins searching in the darkness, feeling for the form of the room she is in, and seeking a way out of this enclosure, this trap, this cage. The tears come faster, layers of emotion building within her. She turns to crawl out of the space and her face meets hard coldness. The throbbing of her nose and cheek bone radiate into her being. Panic is in control now. Gasping for air, she reaches out for support. Grabing for something, anything, but it’s not there. Through her sobs and gasps, she begins to yell out softly at first. The yelling grows louder. She swips at the darkness seeking her escape. It is not there. It is not there. IT’S NOT THERE! Clutching her chest, the sensation of fire burns painfully in her sternum. A voice...soft at first, but slowly becoming louder and clearer.

"Surrender to the darkness."

"Give up."

"You are nothing, and you don't matter. Just let go."

"Why fight for something that is not there? No one cares. You are all alone."

Each sentence, stinging more than the one before. Ripper her insides to shreads. She feels herself giving up.

"Why live?" the voice questions. And then she pauses.

"Why live?" she has asked herself this question before. Hunted for the answer her entire life through all the crap and bullshit she has gone through.

Her panic begins to morph. The growth of her panic pauses. The voice now echoing as though in a large music hall, each decible getting louder, penetrating its voice against her skull as thought to break it open.

She screams, "FUCK YOU!"

The urge to fight building in her perineium radiating into her stomach and replacing the nausea with a bonfire, burning away the feelings of abandoment, eminent death and self-lothing. Memories of all the struggles, obstacles and the triumphs that got her here to this moment in life flood her thoughts. Reminding, she holds the power. She chooses to live or die. She chooses!

"I WILL NOT GIVE UP!", she roars into the darkness.

Screaming, scratching, kicking...she no longer is the quite little girl, keeping her thoughts to herself. Her panic becomes rage. The fire in her chest becomes the wind behind her voice drowning out the voice in the darkness. She shatters it's messages of pain and torment, of hopelessness and defeat. Her screams become guteral, primal sounds proclaiming her warrior presence and rooting her power. In the darkness, she swipes again hoping to clock the side of the source of the voice. She hits something hard and cold. Her hand aches with pain. She brings her hand to her chest and craddles it close to her heart. All of a sudden she realizes she can see the outline of her hands. A thin ray of light shines through a crack in the wall where she hit. Hope.