Vices

by Amy Solus

  Chapter 12

  The silence that follows the locking of my cell door is tremendous. It booms in my ears and echoes through me like I’ve been hit by an atomic bomb. I don’t shake, I don’t cry, I feel nothing. I am completely blank inside, an empty canvas.

  I sit in this vacant state for nearly two hours before I am even remotely able to function as a human being. When I regain partial normalcy, I feel my body begin to shake, the tremors running through my whole body. I probably look as though I’m having a small seizure.

  I don’t have any idea what I’m going to do. I am completely taken aback. I’m glad no one has walked by because all they would see is a pathetic crumpled up, terrified girl. My pride is still intact, although in the broad spectrum of things, it’s really not important at all at this point in time.

  No footsteps travel down the cell block-- no whispers, no yawning, nothing. I begin to wonder if maybe I’ve gone deaf. I begin to panic again and I can hardly breathe. My throat constricts and the little air that had been running through to my lungs is completely cut off.

  My vision becomes distorted and hazy and I feel my body stop shaking as I pass out. Like the cell block, unconsciousness is completely silent. I feel as though I’m floating in the void. There was something-- now there is nothing. I fall out of the void into nowhere.