Chapter 77 CHAPTER 77
Slowly, the darkness deepened, becoming absolute.
No light. No sound. No sensation except the terrible, relentless pulling at my core, causing me so much pain that I was forced to internalise.
And then came the whispers.
They started soft, barely audible. Then they grew louder, clearer, twisting into voices I knew.
Voices I never want to hear in my mind, their impact in real life was bad enough.
"You're worthless, Alira, a useless waste of space that I married out of curiosity. You aren't even that good in bed. I'm so happy I never got you pregnant even though I would have loved to watch you suffer through it alone.”
Jake's voice. Cold. Venom-filled.
It took me back to moments where I wondered why he'd married me if he hated me so much.
"We never wanted you,” another voice replaced his. “That's why we left you at that place. A child is supposed to bring joy and fulfilment. Your birth led to our death and yet you have the guts to be upset at us. Ungrateful child!"
It was a woman's voice I barely knew. My mother, maybe. I'd never know. It just made sense to believe it was her because these were thoughts I'd heard in my own head a while ago.
Now regurgitated and coated with black tar, and sent back to me.
"Freak!” It changed again, this time more masculine. More recent. “You don't belong here. I have been told to kill you and I will, I'm just going to toy with you first, break you down into tiny pieces mentally and then when you're at your knees before me, begging me for mercy, I'll kill you!”
Kovar.
The memory of him drowning me came back and I began thrashing again until it stopped.
The voices faded.
Because one memory rose above all the others.
One memory I'd spent my entire life trying to bury.
I was eight once again, trying to make sense of my new reality.
It wasn't as crushing as the last orphanage, no bullies, thank goodness.
In fact, I'd made an actual friend.
A little girl like me with a pigtail hairstyle and two missing front teeth.
Her name was Maisie.
I've tried to forget her name and now the guilt hits me.
The memory didn't care how I felt, it rolled on, bringing to explicit light things I'd sought to forget.
I'd taken pills to forget them.
I'd allowed them to take me to that scientist so it could be wiped and instead, I got my mind hacked to bits and my body pulled beyond its limits.
But I digress.
The memory was set on the day after people came for adoption and my pain was momentarily forgotten as I became that young, innocent girl again, watching the orphanage.
Three kids were taken.
There were fifty of us.
Sadness reigned in the orphanage, everyone thought it would be them.
Not me though, I knew I was meant for the system even at that age because I had been moved from one place to another but never a permanent home.
The sadness persisted through dinner, even lively Maisie was as quiet as possible. I don't remember the sadness being this deep.
When it was time for the final bell, the superior Warden, a thick white lady with a bulbous behind and a very Christian gown that flowed as she walked came out and began chasing us all off to bed.
I didn't run like others, no matter how much I tried to force my body to run, I couldn't.
I didn't have control of my movements. I couldn't panic. Just kept walking.
“Hey, you! Run off to bed right now!” She screamed, her voice making other children run faster.
But not me.
She didn't need much to get angry, Miss Kate, always ready to scream your head off or whip you with something. One could say she maintained a tight leash on us all.
“Run you troublesome child! Alira!” She thundered behind me but my feet maintained a normal pace, not leisurely but I was now the only one in the hallway.
My lips tried to move, to tell her I was trying, but I was not in control.
Her hand left her side, and I felt the slam at my back, a scream left my tiny body and my feet finally set off, running down the hallway.
“That's what you get for being disobedient! I'm going to ship you off to Russia soon, I can't stand your crap anymore!”
Her words followed me to bed, a deep fear locating me as I struggled to sleep.
Eventually, I did, but it wasn't a peaceful one.
I'd been having these nightmares for years now, but it was different this time around.
The stakes are higher, the demons meaner, the fire, blazing.
In the dream, I screamed, ran, and roared.
In reality, my power answered.
Something burst out of me, defending me from unknown attacks, even though I was perfectly safe.
But I didn't feel that way.
So when another scream rang out, one that wasn't from me, I jerked up.
I woke up to fire.
Not small flames. Not a candle-knocked-over type of fire.
A volcanic eruption of flame that poured from my body like I was the source, the epicentre of an inferno.
Physically it didn't look that way. It was just a spark, I knew that much but deep down I felt myself unleashing more fuel and the fire burned brighter.
I kept crying, screaming, trying to rein it in, to stop terrifying people and making them scream but it. just. kept. getting. worse.
The beds closest to me were already engulfed.
I heard more screaming.
So much screaming.
"FIRE! FIRE! GET THE CHILDREN OUT!"
The other matrons ran in, pulling girls from their beds, dragging them toward the exits.
But some beds were already consumed.
And Maisie, I heard her scream first, she was in the Fourth bed from mine.
Rather, under it.
I rushed towards her as nobody was seeing her as she tried to hide from the heat and the crackling windows.
“Stay away from me!” She screamed, “You did this! You're a demon!”
What…
Maisie never blamed me for what I remembered, but in this memory, she was dying, the bed collapsing on her, and she kept screaming at me.
Nobody came close to us, prioritising everyone else.
I stood in the middle, unburnt and she, screaming in pain and… something else, was fading right before my helpless eyes.
Suddenly a hand yanked me out and took me outside.
By the time the fire department came, five girls were dead.
Three more died in the hospital from their burns.
The voices now were many, screaming profanities in my head.
“Monster! You killed us! You hurt us! You burned us!”
Over and over and over again.
Memories of her bones jutting out of her body flanked my memory, images of the burnt marks, the dead, open eyes, and the body count all assaulted me.
Until I reached the zenith of my pain tolerance.
Until something bled into my subconscious, not grief and guilt, I'd felt that for the nearly two decades that followed the incident.
This time, I was livid.
“STOP!” I screamed, my lips suddenly working.
“Murderer,” it whispered.
“I WAS A CHILD! I WAS ABANDONED! I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I WAS DOING!!”
The voices dissipated the longer I yelled.
“It's been seventeen years! I refuse to keep carrying this burden. Kill me if you wish but no! I won't carry this burden for one second longer!”
Silence reigned but I felt something inside of me. It wasn't my patience that ran out.
Something had broken inside of me and as the leech tried to speak again, a power I didn't know existed in me responded.
Hard.