Victim of Circumstance | UNDER RIGOROUS EDITING

Chapter 38 - Valeria & Pius

||Valeria||

"Shhh Valeria." Chantel hushes me soothingly. "You're safe. It was just a dream sis. You're safe. He is... he's not here." She whispers in my ears.

My hands are shaking. Legs quivering. Lips trembling. Heart banging against my ribcage dementedly. Body soak wet from sweat. My face the cradle of bouts of stinging tears rushing down my cheeks. My eyes are in pain. Burning with cold-burn as a result of excessive weeping. I am overwrought with emotions. My body is overspend. I don't know how much longer I can take this no more. It was gone and I thought all was roses and chocolates. I started celebrating too soon. Way too soon because its back.

But this time around with an excruciatingly painful bang.

It's the same dream. It's always the same dream. It starts with me seeing Chantel at the scene and then I'll start screaming, throwing a tantrum until I'm given an injection that knocks me out cold. Within the same dream I'll wake up to my scream, begging for mercy at whoever it is that has done me unjustly by taking away my dignity. The sounds of his low grunts and curses will dominate the sounds mixed with my screams. His voice included. His words, 'You're going to pay for that you dirt bitch. I've been eyeing you for far too long. I'll have you tonight no matter what.' His voices morphs into a malicious laughter.

Gaining consciousness—still within the same dream—I'll wake up covered in hungry flames that devours everything that's within my reach, somehow with me included. I would scream, cry, run around looking for ways to end the stinging skin from the fire until the dream suddenly fades into Doctor Hoveka's voice, where he's telling me 'You're pregnant Valeria.' And before I know it, I'm finding myself sinking deep into the roaring ocean with salty water attempting to penetrate all and every hole, with me fighting for life and air to breathe.

It's accompanied by Ann and Pius' voices, where I would hear Ann hissing, 'Just... get out of my life. I don't need your poison in my life. Your presence, your sight, everything that involves you disgusts me. You're nothing.' And Pius' voice coming off in disdainful humor, 'I. Hate. You. You were an easy play and now I'll bask in the glory of watching you fall apart all over again.' And before I know it, I'm woken screaming at the top of my lungs by the cold kitchen knife buried deep within my gut, drawing a flood of blood out of my body as it oozes in bits and bits and the burning pain wrecking my already hellacious world apart into another quadrillion pieces—simultaneously.

"I just want it to stop. Please... make it stop." I cry.

"It's okay boo." She murmurs. "It was just a dream. He's not here. You're safe."

"I want it to stop." I whimper. "When will it stop? I don't know if I can take it anymore."

"I know sissy." She says looking gravely pained with furrowed brows. "I know."

It all started last week. Last week on a day that was supposed to be a normal family day out. The worse of all in a restaurant where the memories flooded my mind like a load of high-pressure water being splashed on me. I started whimpering, shaking violently as the tears started cascading down my face ceaselessly. My brain stopped working. Everything in my surrounding stopped making sense. I didn't know what I was hearing and seeing. And it just took one word out of his mouth and a whiff of his cologne.

In just a split second my mood waned from exuberance to a sulky shaky mess drenched with tears, snot and sweat. Because I'd finally met my maker. The person who deprived me of human dignity. He was standing right in front of me and I couldn't move a muscle much less say anything. The questions I wanted to ask faraway. The pain I wanted to inflict a distant dream. Something that became an impossibility at the hands of many possibilities.