DancingKitsune Gabriel is fifteen in this. Some notes are that 1- Gabriel is an Agoraphobic, which is a type of anxiety disorder (more information on Agoraphobia can be found in our profile). 2 - This chapter contains very disturbing themses and imagery.

Waking up, it was frightening just how familiar it seemed. It was frightening that I couldn’t count on only one hand how many times I’ve woken to find myself like this.

I open my eyes only to wince at the brightness as I look up at a blindingly white ceiling. I hear only a steady beeping noise in the background that’s way too loud because of the lack of any other sound. Smelling the nauseating scent of bleach and antibacterial mixed together that makes the room so much more sickening. Waking up to feeling a bed too uncomfortable to be my own, or clothes too crisp to be my own, or sheets too light to be my hefty pile of comforters. My body feels way too sore and heavy to be normal, not to mention itchy and confined in places.

Everything about the situation was too familiar. Far too many times have I woken this way. No one I’ve ever known has had to wake up in a hospital forty-seven times because of an injury in space of only five years.

I sit up, gaining much resistance to my sluggish and weighted body, and rest my hands in my lap. That’s when I notice that my wrists are bandaged with purple peaking out from under. Wide-eyed, I merely stare at this in shock, breath quickening as my mind starts to come to many conclusions of what this could mean. And that’s when I notice the first unfamiliar thing of this hospital stay.

I can’t remember why I’m here, or what day it is, or how or when I got here.

“I always remember those things. Why can’t I remember them? There’s something wrong…” I mumble to myself as my breathing continues to quicken. I shake my head and close my eyes, taking in long deep breaths to calm myself. Having an attack now would only make this unfamiliar situation worse.

I turn myself so that I’m sitting on the edge of the bed with my legs hanging off the side. I let my feet dangle there, swaying slightly as my hands tightly grip the uncomfortable bedding tightly. I take another deep, long breath when my breath tries to fasten again.

I gently place on foot onto the ground, then another. I notice that my sides, shoulder, wrists, backside, and face throb in a most uncomfortable way.

I look across the room to see a mirror on a vanity in the corner. I close my eyes then pull my arms out of the sleeves of my forty-eighth hospital gown, then pull it over my head. Without opening my eyes, I pull the pair of I.V. out of my hands, and then remove the stickers for the heart monitor, making it go flat.

It would only be a matter of time before nurses and doctors rushed into my room, I had to be quick.

I nearly run over to the vanity, I soon feel the wood of it under my hands in a vice grip. I gingerly open my eyes and look at the mirror.

I start to hyperventilate. I can’t stop it. “Oh god… Oh god, oh god, oh god…” I mumble to myself in between the racing breaths as I pull my hands to my mouth in horror.

The whole right side of my face is covered in a bruise so dark it’s nearly black. My bottom lip is stitched and swollen, having the slight yellow tint of bruising to it. My left shoulder has a gash stitched up that goes straight down to my armpit, surrounded by bruising as deep as my face. The hospital shorts hang dangerously low on my hips, half-showing a dark purple hand mark on each side.

I frantically rip off the bandages from my wrists, only to see that my wrists had been rubbed raw.

It only barely registers in the back of my mind that the door of the room was thrown open with loud crack as the door hit the wall.

My hyperventilation gets move violent as flashes of previously forgotten memories hit me like a ton of bricks hit an egg.

Bumping into that boy from math, Kaelec, on the way home…

Sliding to the ground after my face was smashed into the wall from behind…

Being pulled back up then my back shoved into the wall, pain ripping through my shoulder as I slide down the wall only till my feet hit the ground…

The room starts to spin… Spinning faster… Spinning even faster…

His crushing lips. Struggling for freedom, hating the feel of his foreign hands touching places they shouldn’t…

Strong hands tying mine to the thing that sliced straight into then through the bones in my shoulder…

My hyperventilation takes a new level of ferocity and I’m pulling at my hair. The images won’t stop…

Then, the pain of being torn into two…

I’m scratching at the white things that are trying to grab me--

Those wretched, foreign, forsaking hands pressing into me as he tore harder and harder--

The white things won’t get off, they’re holding too tightly—

Begging for it to stop--

Sharp prick in my neck--

The stilling of the force, burning heat, pulling away, falling to the ground as the bonds give to the sharp metal--

In a matter of seconds, my breathing starts to slow. The room spins even faster…

Sleep, little one… Sleep, and I will help…

‘Who…?’

Darker... I am Darker, little one…

‘Darker…?’

The room starts to go black, I see another me standing far behind the things in white… Only that me is unharmed, with a hand in front of his face in the “quiet” hand expression…

See? I am here…Now, sleep little one…

Everything falls into the black…