Pretty When You Cry
an excerpt

“Now, scream for me.” The maliciously amused male voice was answered by the sound of someone sobbing, begging with unintelligible words.

That someone was me. I only know that because there’s no one else around for miles and Hyde would never beg or sob.

There is nothing but the weight of this body on top of mine and the lines of white, hot pain. It’s all I can focus on really. And then the rest of the world dulls in the wake of pure agony that sears from the bottom of my throat all the way down to the middle of my chest in a straight line. Hyde lifts up his knife so that I can see the blood on it, see him lick it clean. While he’s taking care to retrace each line he’s made I finally find enough air at last and scream.

“Yes, that’s it my dear, scream. Don’t hold back. Scream for me.”

I keep screaming, and screaming, and screaming until I’m reduced to choking on sobs again because there isn’t a sufficient amount of air in my lungs for any more screaming. Hyde releases my wrists so that he has two hands to inflict pain on me and I make a desperate attempt to shove him off of me. Instead I just end up clinging tightly to the edges of his leather jacket, pleading as best I can.

“Please.” I choke out what words I am still capable of. “Please…Why?”

He lowers his mouth to my ear as he whispers something I can only half make out above my own loud gasping and sobbing and the pain.

“Because you…my dear…my…”

In time with the last word pain explodes across my chest as he carves an x above my heart, maybe even through it. That all important last word is lost to me.

Everything is lost to me now. There is only darkness, which I pray is death.

My world didn’t always consist of pain. Hyde wasn’t always in my life. I’m not sure why, but the two are one in the same.

For almost eighteen years I lived in a world of goodness, happiness, warmth, and affection. I never even had an inkling of what pain and fear were until Hyde. The day he first showed up was the beginning of my end. And I don’t even know why…