I am asleep.

I know that, because it has been four days since I left that place and I haven't gone back. But I also know that I am afraid, and I know that I can't fight this tidal wave of fear, and I fear I will drown in my fear.

I am there. I am. The white-washed, stained walls enclosing me, trapping me, making me start to hold my breath when they close it, and release it, with not-relief and relief, when they retreat. The broken desk, one leg broken at the base so the whole wooden structure tilts, tilts, and is trash simply because of a weak link, a broken link. The floorboards, old wood that is broken in the corner, jagged, splintered edges that lead to a hole that in the dark leads to nothing but in the light leads the dirt, not far below. The dirty windows, showing the inside the outside and not showing the outside the inside, because that would give me comfort, and no, no, we can't have that. The single light, a bulb hanging from the cord in the ceiling, with a cheap, blotchy, faded light but it's all I have, and I cannot survive here without it. The trash littering the floor, empty cans and smashed glass bottles and riped plastic bags, thrown away but not really, because they can't be bothered to find somewhere other than my prison to throw what they don't want, right with the thing they want so much, right with the thing they hurt and love.

Because in a twisted way, it's the same thing.

And I am here. I am here, tied to the chair that has become my own, and it is not yet a weak chair, because all the legs work and it holds me up, so it is not trash. And I am all alone, but I am not, because there are demons and monsters and them, creatures that hate me and what me to go, who tear away at my walls, and my walls are weakening but they haven't fallen yet, because I have will; I have will to hold up my walls, to fight back, even if it is with my mind and not my body. Because my body, my physical, can be repaired. It can be transformed, it can be used, it can morph me into another person. But that doesn't happen to my mind. My mind is strong, my mind is a hundred feet high, but when it breaks, it will be forever, and there is no doctor in this cruel world that can heal a mind, and my mind, if my walls fall all the way, my mind will never be a mind again, it will never be mine again. 

On the fifth day of the fourth week of the third month, my walls that were once so high were two feet high, and they had began to plant their boots on the other side, on my mind. 

I know this is a dream, but I can't help my fear, no more than the moon has stop orbiting the earth, in an endless cycle. My fear is an endless cycle, and I cannot see the end because there isn't one, and I am trapped, and this fear will always be with me, and my fear will always be me.

In my dream, as I sit here, my cheek throbbing and my hand stinging, the white walls started to look ever so slightly blue. 

And then the door, which was closed before, creaks open, and the second man appears. He is the one with the big, thick fingers. He is the one with the broad shoulders and shirts that somehow look wrong on him, like a suit three sizes too small. He is the one with the lowest voice, deep and throaty and hoarse. He is the one with the big boots, and he is the one that is the most rough, the most physical anger to let overflow, onto me. 

He walks up to me, and kneels at my feet. People are said to do that in respect; to bow down to their king, their queen, their ruler, the one that has the most power and holds the most power over the one on their knees. But he does it to get to my eyes level, he does it to taunt me without saying a word, he does it for his own amusement.

As he does, as he shifts, in the corner, where there was once a broken floorboard, there is flat, smooth, clean floorboards, and a white, pristine, sharp light, tall and bright, the lampshade with a jagged hole, but it still doesn't belong here, that light. 

As I look down, because I can't meet his eyes, the floorboard below my unbroken chair is flat, it is smooth, it is shiny wood. The man snarls, and I look at him, because I know and he knows I don't want to, but I have to, because it is a rule. 

"Hello, Mir," he says, and I nod in response, because in four months that this man doesn't like it when I speak when he doesn't want me to and he likes to be answered. I have been here for four months, and I am back here again, and now it is a second nature. It would not have been long after four months for it to become a first. 

"It has been a long time," he says, in his deep voice, and he doesn't laugh, because it wasn't a joke. It has been a long time, four days, because in the space of a third of a year, four days is a lot. Four days is a lot, here, where life hangs by a thread and these unpredictable men holds the shears.

I nod again, and I blink, and when my eyes open again, against my wishes, the man is still here, but, strangely, the wooden structure, the desk, in the corner is whole. The legs, all four, are straight and even, symmetric. Perfect. And even though scratches, red scratches, are running up and down and across the wood, this desk isn't trash. So what's it doing here? This is a place for trash to be stored, and for four men to come in and out, checking up on their trash and making sure it is still trash, making sure it is still their trash. 

"I wish it was winter," the man says distantly, which is unusual for this man, because he is usually direct and straightforward and the one to immediately give me pain. He is unpredictable, today, and I don't like it, because I can smell the cause of his unpredictability and it's on his breath; the sickening sweetness of alcohol. 

"I love the snow, you know. It is so easy to bury someone in the white," the man says, and when I look again, I am not tied to the chair, and the chair is dark wood and smooth and new and perfect and it is not trash. I am not tied, but I don't move, because running won't help, and nothing will.

The man looks at me. "Do you wish it was winter, Mir?" This is a direct question. This is a question that I am supposed to answer, quickly, now, with words. I untie my tongue and speak, and as I do, an empty picture frame appears on the wall.

"Yes." When I piece together a word, a picture appears; a bloody knife. 

"Good." The man nods, satisfied. The trash is still here, but it is crisp, it is clear. "Good Mir." Another picture, a knife, clean and glistening, framed in black, appears on the ever so slightly blue walls. 

And then the man aims a punch, brutal and quick and hard, at my face, and when I can open my eyes again and the blood is splattered across the perfect floors, a glass vase of thick, red water appears on the desk that isn't trash, not just yet. 

And then I blink, and I wake, but the lampshade is still jagged and the floorboards stil have blood and the pictures are still knives and the desk is still scratched and the vase is still filled with blood that looks to be mine and the man is still here, kneeling to me like I am king and he a servant, and I am still dripping blood. 

I am awake.

And he has invaded from my dreams to now. 

~~~

Hi guys! Sorry for not updating sooner... But this chapter kinda gave me the chills when I wrote it... So I hope it gave you them too!!

Fun times.

Haha. Comment, please!