To Not Be A Bother

By: Shima And Tempis

"The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them." -Luis McMaster Bujold

I fell down quietly. I chose not to interrupt the stillness of the park. I did not let out a gasp or a cry for help, and when I fell I slipped onto a bench so it merely looked as if I was sitting. Which, for the most part, I was.

I had to take a couple of ragged, deep breaths to keep myself sane. I wanted to pull a hand up and feel my heartbeat, make sure it was still there, but my hands would not leave my knees. I was hunched over, almost as if I had just done a large amount of exercise. Nonetheless, even my breathing I kept quiet so no one would notice.

Next, my legs began to lose their feeling. Tiny pins and needles seem to stick into them, but that pain soon disappeared to be replaced by numbness. My knees could not feel my hands even though my fingertips could feel them. It was an awkward feeling, as if some of my senses had been cut off.

I shut my eyes, still breathing slowly, my shoulders moving up and down as I tried to force air into my lungs. I took in sweet oxygen like candy, savoring those few breaths that I managed.

Joggers passed by me chatting enigmatically; unaware of the slow struggle I was going through. It was the way I wanted it. I kept to myself as my chest tightened, my ribs clutching my sides, desperately hoping not to let go.

I remembered the feeling of fear from hours earlier, but I could not feel it. I remembered that my mind raced and I looked around frantically for a way out. Right at that moment, I did not want to run. I was content with sitting alone on the bench, making sure not to disrupt anyone’s business.

As I battled with chest pain, my legs moved of their own accord so that they were lying across the bench, one of my arms clutched to the back to my right while the other hand tightened around the seat to my left. I was sitting up, my feet dangling off the side. I could not feel them again. I loved the numbness.

My chest battled to take control of me, battering my already weakened heart. I wondered what the bruises looked like now. Were they a deep purple or had they already turned black? Or maybe it had not been as long as I assumed, and they were still a sick red on my pasty white skin.

I unbuttoned my jacket, some sort of fever arresting my senses. My head ached. I finally managed a gasp, but it was very weak and merely took away from my breathing. Luckily, it did not stop anyone around me from their joyous activities. I smiled.

I must have bothered him, which is why he hit me. If I had not bothered him while he was working, I would not have gotten hit. I should have stayed there and waited out my punishment. I was a bad girl for running away, and I doubted he would take the excuse that my body had run of its own accord.

It had not hurt that much anyway. What hurt now was my head and my chest. I was obviously being punished for running away from my father. He was just trying to work and bring money, and I had annoyed him. Now I was paying for it.

I did not know he had a wooden sword, though. He had a fascination with all things medieval, so I know he had real ones, but just a wooden one almost like a baseball bat surprised me. I thought he would take out one of his real swords and stick it through me—that would be a suitable punishment for bothering the man who took care of me.

But instead, he took a nicely polished wooden sword and hit me three times in the chest and once in the back as I ran. At the time my legs worked perfectly and my track star heritage kicked in. I easily outran my father and made my way to the park far, far away from our house.

I should go back, finish the rest of my punishment. I would have to eventually anyway. I might bother an old woman who wants to sit down on the bench I had commandeered.

I was fifteen years old, and I knew that counted for some sort of independence, but I would die on my own without father to help me. He kept me away from the strange woman who came begging for me to be “returned” to her. He would make me hang up if she called us on the telephone. He told me she was dangerous, that I was only safe in his care.

She would come and find me if I stayed here any longer. I needed to be safe with my father. I needed his haven.

My legs were no longer moving. I had not noticed my breathing had become more irregular, a lot slower than it usually was, until now. I tried to breathe faster, but my body denied that of me.

I had to get back to daddy! I cried frantically, realizing with a sick feeling that my body was not going to let me go back. My left hand finally moved to clutch my chest as my right arm gave out and I fell backwards on the bench. I heard a lady next to me cry out for an ambulance.

Oh no, I was not quiet enough. Now the woman is upset. Father will be mad at me…

I tried to open my eyes, felt myself opening my eyes, but I could not see anything. All I glimpsed was the sky as my vision faded into nothing. The woman was trying to speak to me but I could not understand. My mind taunted that I could not go back now, that he would be mad at me for not coming back when I should.

My mind cleared as my vision blurred. No! No! Daddy would hurt me. I was too tired to be hurt. I needed to rest, and then I could go back to him. I just needed to rest…

Thoughts stopped me from falling away. Daddy was bad, the lady on the end of the telephone had told me, using my father’s given name. Daddy took me away from her, and I was not safe in his care. Did my father beat me? She would ask, and I would always say no, just like my father told me to.

Did he beat me? Usually if I was a bad girl. If I tried to attend school, which I stopped when I turned ten, he would beat me. If I interrupted him because I was hungry while he was talking to someone important on the phone, he would hit me with the back of his hand and tell me, with the phone covered, that I needed to shut up. I was being bad, that was why my father hurt me.

I felt myself being lifted, although I only felt my back anymore. The tightening of my chest had slowly slid away. I heard a deep voice-not father’s-telling me to look at it, but now I did not know what sight was. All I could do was feel. Feel my back against something soft, feel a vehicle start up all around me, feel the frantic hands took my jacket off and began removing my shirt. I felt cool metal against my chest only for instant, until that feeling faded away again.

All I could think now was that I had done something very, very bad. I had bothered a poor woman who I could not hear anymore, and now these people had gone out of their way to take me somewhere. I hoped they would not take me to the lady, and instead return me to my father so that I would be safe again.

My poor breathing hitched. My hearing reached out to hear a long, repeating alarm. It was not a series of pulses, but instead one long, never ending sound. That was all I heard, and then nothing at all.

But now I was not bothering anybody.

A/N: A little dark for me, I know, but I just read to stories about people dying and suddenly one of my nightmares returned to me.