You pick your face up off the steering wheel. The horn stops blaring. Your cognition slowly coming back to you, you start to process stimuli again. You’re in the forest behind the wheel of a van, the hood is wrapped around a tree. Why are you here? It hurts. You’re happy? Something was successful. But something happened. Right, the plan. There was a plan and it worked. Loosened the railing, kicked her… Too disorganized. Slow down.
Your escape plan. She was doing a supply run and you set it up while she was gone. You used a butter knife to loosen the screws on the railing on the stairs to the basement. You slicked up the stairs with soap and water. You waited on the ground floor to tell her something was up with the toilet and she needed to fix it. You noted where she put down her van key, on the table near the door. You kicked her square in the back right before she stepped onto the trapped stairs. She slipped. She tried to grab the railing. It fell off. She tried to grab you. Too late. You slammed the door, locked it with the spare key you found, and ran to the van key. You got in the van, you were free. There was no way she could catch you even if she was still conscious after that fall.
Something happened with the van. You lost control, couldn’t regain it, what she did to you didn’t make driving any easier anyway. You crashed into the tree. How long were you out? Movement, rear view mirror. Your working eye darts to catch it. Her. Blood trailing down from her forehead, smeared across her face, most likely from several times wiping it out of her eye. She limps. Her face is contorted into pure rage. You’re pretty sure she doesn’t love you anymore. Hey, dumbass, you know about “objects in mirror,” and all that? Get fucking moving!
You try the handle. Doesn’t work, crash must have messed it up. Go through the windshield. Wait, the weapons you grabbed just in case, get a knife first. You slide off the hood and try running from her. You limp too. You’re slower. She shouts something. You shout back “I’m sorry!” You’re dizzier from the crash than you noticed at first. You look back. She’s closer now. You scream some more apologies. Hey, your face is on a surface again. Told you you were dizzy.
She rolls you over and presses you down with a hand around your neck. You see that face up close. Now there’s satisfaction in the mix. You apologize more through a nigh-closed throat. Her eyes, then hands, dart to your arm. Oh yeah, the knife. Not yours anymore. She relaxes a bit, leaning up straight, straddling your torso with her knees. You plead for forgiveness. She’s grinning listening to you.
“Do you want to lose your other eye or your other hand?”
“Please I’m sorry I won’t try to escape again you don’t have to-” Her hand returns to your neck, nails digging in hard enough it feels like her hand is wrapped around your throat itself. She screams the same sentence up close. Her breath is hot.
With a brief increase of pressure to punctuate her anger, she releases your throat. “Eye it is then!” You cough. That’s not your choice. No, that’s not your choice, fix it! She already has her hand pressing into your face lining you up!
“No-” you grab at her hand over your face with your intact hand, and push away at the forearm of her knife hand with your former hand. “No, no, do the hand!” You’ve thought too much about what happens if you lose your sight completely. It can’t be that.
“Too late!” She starts pressing down, knife getting closer to your good eye. You’re too weak to stop her, the knife creeps closer and closer. You start up the apologies again. Nothing happens. The knife is so close it’s blurry. You close your eyes. You scream. You feel the knife press against and start to dig through your eyelid. You scream. Your eyelid gives. You scream. You wake up. You scream.
The ground is soft now, and you can’t feel her on top of you anymore. It feels like you’re in bed again, and you’re introduced to the idea that it was a nightmare. But it’s the middle of the night, and in the darkness, you can’t help but still feel as though your sight is gone. You reach up to touch your eye and it feels intact, but you need to know. Your blood runs cold as you hear her voice from upstairs, yelling something down to you. You woke her up. Terrified, you feel your way to the underside of the bed and hide in your own arms, screaming one muffled apology. The door unlocks and you hear her footsteps descending. “What the fuck is going on down here? Are you alright?”
“Pleasedonthurtmepleasepleaseimsorryjustturnonthelightspleasedontcomedownhere-” She tries to get a word in but your torrent of terrified yelling just continues and continues. She turns on the light and you quiet down to just whimpers, satisfied that you can see again.
“I need to make sure you’re not, like, killing yourself down here or something. What the hell is wrong?” Her legs are visible from under the bed.
“Ihadanightmareimnotkillingmyselfpleasestayovertherepleasedontbemadimsorryiwokeyouup-”
“Alright, alright, I’m over here. You wanna tell me what it was about?”
“Please don’t make me tell you I can’t tell you-”
“Fine, you’re fine, you don’t have to. Do you need anything?”
“Please just leave the lights on and go away I’m sorry-”
“Alright. Try to get some sleep.” She walks back up the stairs, you hear the door lock again. You crawl out from under the bed and look at everything you can, comforting yourself that you still have your eye. That supply run is supposed to be today, and the plan was real. You cry yourself back to sleep after a while and wake up.
Later in the day, while she’s on the supply run, you put the spare key back where you found it.