They were trapped for seven days. Faced with a myriad of uncertainties, this much Antonius knew to be true. The pangs of hunger had eventually morphed into a constant feeling of nausea. However there was no escaping the continual thirst that couldn't be quenched. How he desired his lips to touch the current of a fresh spring. Anything to replace the mix of his urine and rain water he had survived on this past week. Still the worst of his locked away environment was the person with whom he shared his cell, Marcus.
"How can he sit there with that...
Can the dust be blown off of some that isn't tangible, something that constantly whirls through us?
She didn't have a single hand to hold, but she wasn't lost. The events leading up to her disappearing were normal enough: the first camping trip of the season with a man she utterly, and hopelessly loved, a trip up to Wisconsin to feel some more of those Midwest roots, and then, some relaxing days of looking for some work.
And that was it. That's all it took for her to disappear, and leave the internet all together. Before this, she had high...
He likes his own room, but he likes mine more. He's five. Half the time, if he had his way he would climb back inside me. He can never get close enough. Half the time. The other half he's complaining. Scowling. "You're interfering with my personal space!" Like he's breaking up with me.
So when he stands there, waiting, in the corner, and he asks if he can share our room, our bed, our space, I do what any rational human would do. And that's to pick him up and hold him, smell his head, that getting-bigger head, and say,...
"And, did he ever touch you inappropriately?"
Sarah paused her story for a moment, growing red in the face. "What?"
"Did he ever touch you, it's okay, you're not alone. This office is a safe place."
"Why would you even ask?" Sarah nearly yelled in her surprise.
"Look, I get a lot of patients coming through here and I just want them to know that they can talk to me freely. It would be statistically plausible that he touched you at one point."
"It would?"
"Yes, look, I have your breast interests in mind."
"Well... maybe, I dunno."
"He probably...
There is a point where you have prayed enough. When you have suffered enough. It was at this point that Imelda figured out how to pick the lock on her bedroom door.
The sound of the door creaking rattled in her ears. Carefully, she felt along the walls. She headed for what she remembered was the front door.
She couldn't see anymore. Years locked up in the darkness, her eyes were mere pinpricks in her face. She could hear the sound of breakfast being prepared. Hear the sound of their voices as they laughed. The sizzle of bacon.
She remembered...
"Welcome back! Our next contestants are the seven year old Billy and his abusive father Jim, from Fall River, Texas. Billy's first and only birthday party contained two hookers, heroin, coke and a lot of gun shooting, Jim's hobbies are NASCAR, lifting and drinking heavily, and apparently throwing awesome birthday parties! However only one of them get's to escape the family alive, tonight, when we play:
ESCAPE THE FAMILY - ALIVE!
Let's just jump right away into our first game, called:
TAKE A HIT, YOU LITTLE WUSS!
Here are the rules. Billy. You stand behind this line, while we shoot...
I like collecting lots of hats
And placing them on heads of cats
They aren't too fond of wearing hats
They take them off, those little brats
The cord wrapped around the foundation of the building and led into the hedges separating the two parcels of land. Thick as a forearm and coal-black, it seemed oddly out of place way out here in the Yukon. He follows it through the hedging, sacrificing the soft underskin of his forearm to the barbs and branches which leave a series of shallow scratches, which soon seep small droplets of bright-red oxygenated blood.
It is overgrown past the shrubbery, with wild grasses and weed growing archlike over the alien wiring. He concludes it must have been here for some time, though...
In this world there is no pain, no disappointment. No one can hurt her here.
In this world she's in control. People look up to HER. They LOVE her. They admire her beauty and style and uniqueness. In this world she can be as silly as she wants.
She can break all the rules and STILL be looked up to as Role Model.
In this world there is no pain, no disappointment. No one can hurt her here. She is a child as well as an adult. She is a hero. An angel. A warrior.
Anything she dreams off, she...
Misaki was never a big drinker. Her mother knew this, her father suspected it, and her friends weren't either, so they knew as well. But when Misaki took a sip of Erika's white wine, so cold and crisp and clean on that sticky summer day, something inside of her seemed to clamor for more. Before she knew it she was on her third glass, and everything seemed to be shimmering through a smudged lens. Her mother, giggling, and just as drunk herself, took the glass away from her and proceeded to tell her a long story about Misaki's grandfather and...