Falling Ash

by Douglas, A. T.

  Silas helps prompt me when I hesitate, but overall, I’m able to get through each step without much instruction. My speed hasn’t improved at all over my initial attempt, but I know that will only get better with practice. Before I know it, Silas is down on the ground again, and the knife is gone from his grasp.

  The atmosphere is intense between us as we repeat the exercise over and over until my movements and reactions become muscle memory. By the time I’m able to move, seamlessly, through each step to disarm Silas, we’re both breathing hard and sweating profusely.

  “You’ve got this down. It’s time for a break,” Silas suggests as he motions in the direction of the path toward the house.

  “I can’t stop now,” I counter, clearly still riding the high I feel inside at finding the ability to overcome my fears and defend myself. “We can drink from the pond and keep going.”

  The look of surprise on Silas’ face is immensely satisfying as he easily concedes and walks toward the shore of the pond. I follow and kneel down with him at the edge of the still surface, cupping my hand in the water to bring the refreshing liquid up to my mouth repeatedly. Without getting the gauze bandage on my forehead wet, I also splash some water on my face to cool me off.

  When I’ve had my fill of it, I look to the side to see Silas staring down blankly at the surface, lost in thought. “What’s wrong?” I ask with concern.

  He doesn’t answer me at first, continuing his apparent contemplation of his reflection in the water for a few moments longer before he finally speaks, completely ignoring my question. “You ready for more?”

  I nod and stand up, taking a deep breath in preparation for whatever Silas is going to throw at me. “What’s next?”

  Silas rises and seems to be waging an internal battle. “I think…” He pulls the switchblade from his back pocket and opens it before offering it to me. “I think we should try some offensive techniques next.”

  I accept the knife, but don’t otherwise move, awaiting Silas’ instructions. He takes few long strides backward to put some space between us, but when he stops and meets my gaze, I’m confused by the look of fear subtly embedded within his features.

  “Come after me with the knife,” he instructs, though he seems reluctant in his request. “I need you to do this for me.”

  Despite Silas’ strange behavior, I do as he asks, running and lunging toward him with the knife brandished in my right hand. When I’m within arm’s reach of him, I catch a glimpse of terror on his face that changes into absolute fury. He pushes my right hand down and away before grabbing it from the opposite side with his other hand, then steps back and twists my arm to an unnatural position, causing a searing pain in my wrist and forearm as I fly to the ground.

  Before I can even catch my breath from the fall, Silas grabs the knife from my hand and stands over me with a frenzied look. He’s breathing heavily, barely in control, and I can’t deny the fear that swells within me seeing him like this.

  “I’m sorry,” I plead as I struggle to push myself backward across the dirt. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry.”

  The rage in Silas’ expression almost instantly fades. The knife drops down to the dirt as his arms go limp at his sides. For the briefest of moments, I think it’s over, that whatever internal turmoil he’s just been through has run its course and he’ll be back to normal now, but that optimistic thought quickly fades as he takes purposeful strides over to me and pulls me up roughly by my wrist. His fingers dig into my skin as he begins to pull me along the path toward the house without a word.

  “Talk to me. Please.” I stumble on a rock and barely catch myself from falling face-first to the dirt. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  No response. No acknowledgement. A pained, but furious expression and a violent grip are all he shows me as we enter the hidden gate in the fence and make it all the way up to the back door into the kitchen.

  “Silas.”

  My mention of his name causes him to stop and look at me with a curious expression as he awaits whatever else I have to say.

  “I don’t know what this is, but let me help you.”

  “No.” His tone is firm and unfeeling, and suddenly the fury has returned to his face. It’s even more pronounced now, the inferno raging within him reaching its maximum point of conflagration. “I need to be alone right now.”

  He reestablishes his grip on my wrist and pulls me across the kitchen and through the doorway into the dining room where the two main hallways in the house meet. When he turns left toward the hallway to the living room, it suddenly becomes clear to me how he plans to ensure he’ll be alone.

  “No. Please!” I cry out as I pull with all my strength to escape his grasp. “Don’t put me in that room. I can’t…” A sob escapes me, interrupting my pleas. “I can’t go back in there.”

  Silas lets go of my wrist and throws his arms around me before I can scramble away, the pressure from his hold aggravating my injured midsection. When he lifts me from the ground against his chest, I lose any leverage I have to fight against him, and I instantly know this battle is lost. With just a few more steps, we’re at the door to the room, and he kicks it open to reveal the darkness within.

  “No!”

  Despite my struggles and cries, Silas releases his grasp and launches me into the room. My bare knees take the brunt of the contact as I hit the cement and fall forward, barely catching myself with my hands. I turn around and make a desperate attempt to crawl toward the door just as Silas pulls it closed and locks it, encasing me in the darkness.

  I slam my hands against the thick wooden door over and over again as I scream Silas’ name, but he makes no move to free me. All I can hear is the familiar sound of his footsteps walking away down the hall, and he abandons me again in this room of nightmares.

  Only the sounds of my sobs remain as I give up and turn around so that I’m leaning back against the door. My knees burn from where they scraped against the cement. My entire body aches from the trauma it’s recently endured. I feel just as broken mentally as I do physically, my mind barely holding it together through this string of games and lies while my life hangs in the balance.

  I thought Silas wanted to make some sort of amends with me after everything he’s done to tear the remnants of my life apart. He wanted me to train with him to learn how to defend myself and attack when necessary. It seemed like we made progress today, that he was happy with my performance so far and my desire to keep learning.

  So why am I locked in this room again?

  As my body trembles and silent tears fall down my cheeks, I glance around me, even though there’s nothing to see in the darkness. My fear is palpable in here, though. It feels as though the ghost of the person I was just days before still lingers, the shell of a girl who had given up and willingly starved herself of food and drink to choose death over darkness, and I’m terrified at the thought of becoming her again.

  “Fear,” I breathe out. That’s exactly what this is about. Earlier, Silas told me that today was about overcoming fears. He had to scare the shit out of me by recreating my attacks in order to help me overcome my panic and actually fight back. What if that’s what this is? He’s thrown me back into the place where I hit absolute bottom before, in order to see if I can stay afloat this time.

  Relax. Breathe. Silas’ words from earlier come back to me, and I embrace them with every bit of strength I have left. I close my eyes and relax my muscles, breathing in and out with deep and calming breaths. Within minutes the flow of tears has stopped completely, and my body’s tremors have subsided. My heart rate is steady, and my resolve is firm. I open my eyes, no longer afraid of the claustrophobic feeling of being sealed alone in this cement-box of a room.

  Using the door to brace me, I unsteadily get up from the floor and find solid footing again. Running my right hand along the wall as a guide, I slowly and carefully walk the perimeter of the room to see if Silas has put anything in here since the last time I was locked inside. When I find no
thing in my search, the urge to let the small bit of panic rise and grow within me becomes even greater, but I manage to overcome it.

  I don’t know that I’m ready to face the fears of my nightmares in here again, so I opt to continue strengthening my resolve in the conscious world instead. After stepping into the middle of the room, I carefully lower myself to the cold cement and take a seat. Again I relax my muscles and take deep and even breaths, but I don’t close my eyes this time. I face the shadows of this room directly instead of hiding in the depths of the darkness within me.

  And then I wait. For what, I don’t know, but either way, I’ll be stronger for it after this.

  15

  The sound of steady footsteps approaching from down the hall isn’t as frightening this time as it was for me when I was locked in this room before. After spending hours awake in here, comfortable with this place that caused me such anxiety and fear, I’m more than ready to escape these walls, but I refuse to get my hopes up. Silas could just be bringing me food or drink. He may just be checking on me, having no intention of releasing me for hours or days to come.

  When the lock clicks open and the door presses inward, the light from the flashlight in Silas’ hand beams into the darkness of the room and highlights the worry lines on his face. The concerned expression fades into a look of relief as he finds me sitting calmly on the middle of the cement floor.

  “You’re okay,” he observes with some small amount of surprise in his tone.

  “Of course I am,” I respond defiantly. “That was the whole point of this, wasn’t it?”

  Silas looks at me with confusion, then diverts his gaze without any acknowledgement of my question. He shakes his head slightly and seems to be having trouble finding the right words to say.

  “I needed to overcome my fear of this place,” I clarify, but with Silas’ continued lack of response, I become even more puzzled. “Isn’t that why you threw me in here?”

  He opens his mouth to speak, but hesitates before finally saying, “I wish I could say that was true.”

  A mix of anger and frustration swells within me. “Why, then?”

  “I told you; I needed to be alone.”

  I look around me at the empty cement walls and floor before meeting Silas’ gaze again. “You couldn’t have just handcuffed me in the bedroom and closed the door instead?”

  Silas takes in the grim room around us in the limited lighting. “I should have, but this was the first thing that came to mind.”

  “Maybe it was for the better,” I respond. “I’ve made my peace with this room. I’m not afraid of the darkness anymore.”

  The slightest sign of a smile finally reemerges on Silas’ face. “You overcame another fear.”

  I nod proudly. “I’ve had enough of this room, though. Can we continue this conversation elsewhere?”

  “Of course.” Silas immediately steps all the way into the room and offers a hand to help me to stand, but a concerned look overtakes his features. “Your knees, was that from—”

  “They’re fine. Just scraped up,” I explain as I grab his hand and am pulled to my feet.

  Before I withdraw my hand from Silas’ grasp, he turns it over and inspects my palm, running his thumb over the lower pad of my hand which is covered in fresh scabs caused when I caught myself to avoid smacking my head into the cement.

  “This shouldn’t have happened,” Silas says guiltily as he takes my entire hand within his again. “I lost control, and you paid the price for it.”

  I’m still not used to hearing admissions of remorse from this man who has done so much harm to me. It makes it difficult to come up with an appropriate response, so I opt to say nothing.

  Silas seems just as content to move on as he turns and leads the way out of the room and down the hall. We come to a stop in the dining room as Silas motions the flashlight to the kitchen doorway. “You have to be hungry. Let me make you something.”

  I shake my head in response. “I just need some water.”

  With an affirmative nod, Silas disappears through the doorway and returns moments later with a tall glass of water. He hands it to me then leads me down the hall toward the bedroom with our only source of light in his hands.

  I can’t help drinking the water as I walk, my body parched from hours of being dehydrated in that room. When we enter the bedroom, Silas abandons the flashlight as he turns on the lamp on his nightstand. I stand near the doorway, finishing off the last drops of water from my glass.

  “You should shower quickly,” Silas advises as he turns on the light in the bathroom and motions me inside. “I need to check you over once you’ve washed up.”

  “I’m fine,” I protest, “but I do need a shower.”

  Silas takes the empty glass from me and tries to look annoyed at my resistance to his help. “I’m going to check you over,” he insists.

  I ignore him and busy myself with collecting fresh clothes from the dresser instead. When I’ve picked out what I need, I walk into the bathroom and close the door, hoping that’s enough to signal that I don’t want an audience in here right now even though Silas could easily come in if he wanted to.

  Turning to see myself lit up in the mirror, I find that I look just as disheveled and exhausted on the outside as I feel on the inside. The bandage at the gash on my temple is barely still attached. My dark hair that has come loose from the ponytail is matted and tangled. The blue shirt and jean shorts I’m wearing are covered in various shades of brown from the dirt clinging to the material. I look down to my open palms and then my knees, noticing just how red and mangled they look in the bright light.

  With a deep sigh, I move on to doing what I need to do in here and washing up as quickly as possible in the shower to finish before the warm water is gone. Soon, I’m dried off and dressed in the comfort of the grey shorts and white t-shirt I’ve picked out. As I’m finishing brushing out the tangles from my hair in front of the mirror, the bathroom door opens behind me, and Silas steps inside with the first-aid kit in hand. I put the brush away in its drawer, knowing my time alone in here is up.

  Silas sets the first-aid kid on the counter of the vanity and turns toward me, taking my left hand in his without a word. He carefully inspects the cuts and scrapes where my wrist connects with my palm, then checks my fingers and knuckles for any additional damage. He performs the same review of my other hand, taking longer this time as the scrapes are deeper on this side.

  “Are we going to talk about what happened?” I ask cautiously.

  “We should.” Silas pulls both my hands over the sink. “I mean, I should.” He unscrews the lid from the bottle of rubbing alcohol and pours a small amount of the liquid directly on the open wounds, causing me to wince.

  “I thought everything was going well,” I explain, resisting the urge to grit my teeth at the sharp, stinging sensation, “and then it all fell apart. I don’t know what I did wrong.”

  “You did absolutely nothing wrong,” Silas insists, his unexpected defense of me only inciting further confusion. He dries my wrists with a couple of soft cotton balls before applying a profuse amount of ointment across the inflamed skin. “We weren’t only working through your fears today. I thought I could overcome mine as well.”

  I’m left speechless by Silas’ admission. From what I’ve seen and experienced of Silas in my time here, it’s hard for me to imagine his being afraid of anything. I guess even the devil has his own demons.

  Silas won’t face me now, focusing his full attention on wrapping gauze around each of my wrists and taping the bandages in place. When he’s done, he grabs my sides and lifts me into the air briefly before setting me down on the edge of the counter.

  Silence fills the space between us as he kneels down to clean my scraped knees and to apply gauze bandages to them. While he’s distracted with his work, I take the opportunity to study his face, observing the little details in his expression and features that let me see beyond the indifference he’s trying to portray. I can te
ll he’s struggling to maintain his control. There’s something deep inside he’s trying to hold back, and I need to encourage him to let it out.

  “What do you fear?” I ask hesitantly, fully aware that asking such a simple question might have unfavorable consequences.

  He finally looks at me as he braces himself against the counter and pushes himself into a standing position. His lips part to speak, but no words come out. The internal debate playing out within him becomes even more readily apparent in his expression. I can see it almost tearing him apart from the inside.

  Without a word, Silas grasps my sides again to lift me off the counter. My feet have barely touched the floor when he’s already making his way out of the bathroom. I follow behind him and reach for his shoulder with my right hand.

  He reacts instantly to the contact, swinging his entire body around and grabbing my forearm in the same motion. In that brief moment that our eyes connect, the fiery rage I’m expecting to see in his expression is nowhere to be found. There’s an intense look of fear in his eyes as I see the vulnerable version of Silas emerge completely.

  I’m convinced he’s going to twist my arm around and drop me to the floor, but he stops all movement instead. His tight grip on my arm relaxes as he seems to realize what he’s doing to me, and the fear in his expression alters into a look of shock and confusion.

  When he tries to withdraw his hand, I grab for it and intertwine my fingers with his, pulling with all the strength I have so that he won’t walk away from me.

  “You have to talk to me,” I insist. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Why?” he whispers, his voice almost trembling. “Why don’t you run away? Why aren’t you rejecting me for who I am and what I’ve done?”

  Feelings of shame and guilt wash over me at Silas’ perfectly valid questions, and I’m left feeling completely hollow inside as I quietly speak the answers. “I have nowhere else to go. I have no one left in my life.”

  “No.” He tries to rip his hand away from me, but I manage to hold on to it. “You’re a fighter. You wouldn’t give up on your freedom without better reasons than that.”