Page 166 of Under the Waves

I was a kid, just not hers.

Everything went silent.

The voices, the screams…stopped.

Even the ghosts didn’t dare breathe.

“Mom?” I said, glancing over towards the door as if I could magically see through it. “Mom, are you okay?”

Say no.

Say that we were broken and that this wasn’t something inside my head.

Nothing.

I flexed and scrunched my fingers repeatedly, trying to distract them from clawing at the one place they were itching to erode away.

Me.

Before I could stop myself, I stood up and walked towards my door. A sense of dread pooled in my stomach, but I pushed the feeling away before I became nauseous with worry. My fingertips grazed the lock on the door handle, and as soon as the little click echoed around my room, my mom burst into my room holding a knife.

I was going to die,I thought as she brought the blade up against my neck, the cool metal digging into my skin in a frantic pattern.

“Mom,” I choked out, “w-what are y-you doing?”

“It was never supposed to be this way,” she spat viciously. “It wasn’t supposed to be him. It should’ve been you. Why wasn’t itYOU?”

A coppery tang arose in my throat mixed with the bitter taste of bile as her fist connected with my cheek. I fell from her grip, crumbling like a pile of broken bones to the floor. My head crashed against the floorboards with athud.

Her fingers wove through my hair, gripping it by the first as she hauled me to my feet only to fling me back across the room. Every muscle in my body roared as it collided with the cold wall before falling limp like a rag doll.

“M-mom…” I gasped, heaving. Wetness coated the back of my neck, trickling down fresh open wounds.

“You never should have beenborn,” she roared, gripping onto the knife like it was sacred as she kicked me in the stomach. “I never wanted a flaming baby. Never wanted this flaming life.”

I barreled over onto my side, tucking my knees to my chest as I took every single hit. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just shut up and took it.

Just like a good girl.

“Fightback,” she snarled, gripping the back of my neck as she hauled me to my feet only to throw me back down again. “Fight back you useless child.”

My entire body shook with the weight of her anger. She had cornered me, blocking every chance of an escape I had.

This was the day I died. This was it.

Her foot collided with my barred arms instead of my stomach that time, but the sheer force of it sent me flying into the corner of my closet. I hit my face on the wood before collapsing back onto the floor in a heap, bloodied face pressed up against the cold, wooden floorboards.

Through swollen eyes, I could just make out my room. And the blood. The blood that waseverywhere. My blood. I was bleeding. I was going to die.

“Mom…M-mom, just…” I flinched violently. “P-please…”

Another kick to the stomach.

My head rolled backwards.

I had no energy left to hold it up.

Eyes fluttered closed.