The Room.

TW: confinement, abuse, sexual assault/rape, physical violence, death.

 The Girl was 18, maybe 19, but looked like she was a preteen. Skin and bones, from lack of nutrition. Pale with dark crescents under her eyes. Eyes so gray they looked like the sky before a thunderstorm, with clouds and haunted memories behind pupils. Full lips, cracked and dry, the same color as her skin, corners pulled downwards. Cheeks sunken in, body hunched over in defeat. Below her waist lay stringy, unkempt chestnut brown hair, lifeless from years of growth without proper treatment. 

Sadness shrouded her. She felt haunted. Her soul cried out in anguish, pleading for another soul to be connected to her, hearing her cries for help. She’d all, but given up. But each day, the hope she felt faded little by little as the hopefulness started to turn into hopelessness with the passing of the time. 

Nobody knew she was here. 

Nobody knew she existed. 

The Girl rubbed her ankle where the shackle dug like teeth into her skin. She liked to pretend it was a wild animal, gnawing at her ankle, teasing her into questioning whether it would take a chunk out of her or not. 

She had learned about wild animals when Dad read to her a story about predators and prey. Lions and lionesses and gazelle. 

She was the gazelle. 

He was the lion. 

She wished she could rip her ankle off of her body, gladly giving up a foot for freedom from this place. 

A windowless room with a dirty mattress on the cement floor, years of torture staining the old sunken in mattress. The room was colorless besides the few pictures she had drawn to decorate her prison cell. 

Dad allowed her to have paper and crayons for being a good girl, the only freedom she was given. 

If she were really good, he’d read to her. 

If she were extra good, which meant doing things with her mouth that made her feel disgusting and dull of self-loathing, she could watch an hour of television with Dad. 

When Dad read to her, the books were the same. They were about animals. She thought he was trying to remind her who was the predator and who was the prey, subliminally reminding her that he can and will eat her alive. 

Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, though. 

There was a book she loved. It was full of vivid imagery. Pictures danced across the pages, bringing to life animals and nature she could only imagine in her mind. 

She liked the sun. 

On every page, a big, yellow ball was drawn in the sky.

The Girl was not allowed outside. Rarely she was allowed upstairs unless it was for the “special date nights” every Sunday where Dad made the same spaghetti and meatballs dinner for himself and allowed her the opportunity to eat something other than applesauce, a cup of rice, and water, a diet designed to not only keep her prepubescent frame, but also to prevent menses. 

During these “special date nights,” The Girl was blindfolded and led up the stairs and to the kitchen. When the blindfold was removed, there was meticulous detail and dedication placed into ensuring that no trace of her existence could be seen from the outside. Windows were closed and locked, black curtains covered windows, held still on walls by staples. Doors were locked multiple times and her ankle was shackled to a chair bolted down at the table, where she’d sit across from Dad and listen to his weekly rant about everything wrong with society, the world, his job, and how God has forsaken all, but the two of them. She listened as anger raged across his face, anger at women for not treating themselves like subservients of God, here to serve men. That’s why they bled, he said. That’s why they had hair grow on parts of their bodies where it was unnatural, he said. Women were not meant to develop bodies that made men lust and that’s where the chaos in the world came from. Women. 

His face softened as he’d look admirably across the table, voice softened, “But not you. Daddy’s little girl is not like these succubi out there. That’s why you and I will be saved.” Sometimes, he’d reach over and caress her cheek, The Girl choking down the bile rising in the back of her throat at his very touch. 

If God accepted him into his heaven, she thought, send me to Hell. The Girl always managed to swallow the bile and force a polite smile, careful not to bare teeth. Baring teeth meant she was flirting. Dad had punished her once for the sin of flirtation. 

She still bore the burns on her inner thigh. 

They’d end spaghetti and meatballs with Dad reading a verse from the Bible. She couldn’t read. She wasn’t allowed to and was never taught. Dad told her that reading was not for women. Obey commands, follow his directions. That was her duty. 

He’d blindfold her once again, lead her down the basement stairs, and chain her ankle to a spot near her mattress. 

It smelled of urine and iron from the blood she’d spilled long ago, long before her body was used to his body being inside of her. 

He was rough. 

As the Act started, with the same kissing and fingers in places that made her squirm and feel uncomfortable, The Girl used her trick to take her away. 

On the ceiling, there was a picture she had drawn long ago. 

The sun. 

Yellow, vibrant, it represented the hope she’d always felt burning inside of her. She yearned to feel its rays against her own, sickly skin. 

Would it burn her up from the inside out? Cleanse her of the wickedness she’d endured that lingered in her body? She stared at that little picture, it’s edges turning yellow from years of being on the ceiling. 

She couldn’t read, but she could imagine pictures. Pictures of walking around outside. The sun would feed her growling belly, the constant pang of hunger subsiding as the rays filled her up with its own nutrients. 

She imagined herself being the predator and Dad as the prey, the sun her fuel, her friend. Dad would try to hide behind trees and bushes, sweat beading his forehead, panic filling his very core, hunger for freedom and food filling him up the way it did her all these years. 

And he’d think he was safe hiding. But the sun would betray him, cast a shadow across the ground, a silent signal to The Girl to alert her of his whereabouts. 

The desire and need to see and feel the sun was her solace. It kept her alive. She was brought back to a dinner many Sundays before. Dad must have been out of it. Something was different. And that’s when she noticed. 

He’s forgotten a curtain by a window in the kitchen. The sun shone brightly, highlighting a blue jay in a bird bath. She could practically feel it’s warmth and taste the heat eminating from the rays against her tongue. 

That’s when she carved out a goal to keep her going: she would see the sun. She would feel the sun. After years in this windowless room, this prison, this sunless abyss that was at the very core of her nightmares, she needed out. 

Far too many years she spent days and nights down here, pacing back and forth, the hard cement cold and lifeless against her bare feet. 

Had this room not existed, she may have been able to escape long ago. 

Had this room not existed, Dad may not have been able to set up his own version of paradise. 

Had this room not existed, Dad may not have had the nerve to steal her away at just 3-years-old from a mother who would have given her the love and safety she missed her entire life. 

She hated this room. 

There was no sun here. 

No hope. 

The Girl forced herself back to reality where Dad’s sweaty figure was on top of her, grunting like a savage animal, smelling like turkey meatballs, cheap aftershave, and whiskey, despite his feigned disgust at alcohol and those who drink it. 

She knew he was almost finished and that he’d lay on top of her and cry before flipping her over, taking his belt, and punishing her for “allowing” him to degrade her and tempting him. 

He was predictable. 

For once, The Girl thanked God for his predictability. As he lowered his body, she carefully and slowly without drawing attention to herself reached under her pillow. 

Swiftly, she pulled out a knife from last Sunday’s dinner, one she had stolen specifically to follow through with her plan tonight. 

Last Sunday, Dad had forgotten a large knife on the counter top not too far from the table. While he cleaned up, she reached across, willing her body to extend itself. 

It worked. 

She hid the precious knife for a week, practicing what to do when tonight happened. 

She plunged the knife into his back, pulled it back out again, and as he screamed in horror and pain, she pushed him off of her, stabbing him in a fit of rage in the chest, throat, and genitals until all that she heard escape from his body were the gurgling sounds of him choking on his own blood. She stood up, knife tightly in hand, as she looked him in his eyes, willing his last sight on this earth to be of her standing over him with the weapon she used to destroy him. 

When the life finally faded from his eyes, The Girl reached into his bloodied pockets, sopping in wet red puddles. 

The smell of iron arose in the air. 

She pulled out his keys. She fumbled with the keys as the putrid smell of death grew stronger and found the key to unlock the shackle from her ankle. It fell off and revealed purple and black indents against her ankle. She rubbed her ankle and ran up the stairs, the knife still gripped tightly in her hand just in case he somehow resurrected and wanted to take her to Hell with him. 

She fumbled again with the keys, jamming each one shakily in the lock, pleading that the key to the door be on this chair. Finally, she found the right one. A little copper key fit into the lock. She heard the click, the sound of freedom to her ears, and opened the door. 

She smiled, tears starting to run down her cheek. Blood stained her clothes, bruises the shape of hands remained on her arms and legs from being restrained, the purple and black indent still angrily remained on her ankle, but The Girl ran to the door. 

She opened the front door and gasped at what she had felt. Tears poured from her eyes as she felt, for the first time, the heat from the sun on a June afternoon soak into her skin. 

She looked at her arms as little red patches appeared. But she didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Let it burn her. She stood in front of the house, allowing the sun to embrace her in its blanket of safety and she was certain she could hear it whisper words if reassurance that she was safe to her. 

“Omg! Are you okay? What happened?!” It was at that moment that she discovered curious, wide-eyed neighbors looking at her. One brave woman was slowly moving towards her, glancing nervously between the knife in her hand and her eyes. 

She dropped the knife. 

The other neighbors stared, horrifyingly, but remained in the distance. As if to say she wasn’t going to hurt them, she dropped the knife, still reveling in the sun. She tried to look at it, to soak in the vision of her hope, but her eyes watered. 

“Are you hurt? I’ve called 911 already and they’re on their way. You need a hospital.” She wasn’t used to questions being asked to her. 

In a groggy voice that hasn’t been used in years, in what was almost a whisper, she answered, “I’m okay now.”

“Okay. Can you tell me your name?”

Name? She never had a name. Not until that moment when she smiled at the sun again, feeling red, hot, and free. In the distance, the faint sounds of sirens sang, closing in on them. 

“I’m Sunny.”