A Window and a Door
A Short Story by Joshua McCallan
Crack! The whip struck the young girl’s back; she bit down on her lip, refusing to give the man the satisfaction of hearing her whimper. Another Crack! She bit down harder on her lip; drawing blood. Every day for the past week, this torture had been happening. There was a woman, too. The young girl feared her the most: whatever sadism the man threw at her, the women would double, perhaps even triple in intensity. A third crack; this was harder than before and the young girl screeched in agony. Salty tears strolled down her cherub face. The man cackled; clearly enjoying the sound of pain that had escaped from his victim’s lips. However a fourth crack never came – normally after she made a sound, she was punished for making a noise. Instead a claustrophobic silence descended over the room. The child was unable to feel her wounds as her hands were shackled. All she was able to do was try and bring her ragged breathing under control. She blinked away the tears that stung her eyes. A soft whimper made its way from her mouth and she sighed almost inaudibly.
There was a wet noise from behind, and the child had to stop herself from retching. She did not want to bring about anymore torture than before it was necessary. She kept trying to slow down her breathing: she thought that if she managed to keep it controlled, the pain wouldn’t be as pronounced. She did not know why these people were doing this to her – she had long since given up trying to find an explanation for it. Each day the torture got worse and lasted longer. Her limbs ached and the flesh was cracked and broken. When the torture had caused a huge cut that had drawn blood, the torture normally ended for a few days, and even though things were still bleak for her, she naively believed that things had changed, that the torture would stop and that she would be allowed a normal childhood. Allowed to make friends and to graze her own knees. This was a quixotic thought, as this was never the case – whenever the wounds had sufficiently healed, the routine of pain would continue and the bleakness of her situation would darken once again.
She took a deep breath in and held it for as long as possible, before letting it out heavily. It seemed to go unnoticed, so she did it again, and again. Her body began to slow down its trembling, before eventually stopping. Her eyes, though still wet, stopped creating tears. The pain in her back dulled, and eventually numbed. She was as calm as she could be while she was in that shackled device. Her arms had gone numb from being positioned above her head in such a way for so long, and her feet ached from being stationary. She could barely feel her legs – though such a sensation had stopped bothering her after a few days. It was best not to concentrate on the problems she was facing; instead she would focus on her mind. She would create little sketches in her head to bring herself out of the world of fire and brimstone. She pictured herself as a strong warrior, protecting the innocent of the world from injustice and torture. People respected her – admired her; lauded her. She was the greatest hero of them all. Never would she be beaten. It caused a little smile to appear on her face; though it was a bitter one at that.
She allowed her eyes to glance out of the window. She was in the cellar of her house, so all she could see was the blueness of the sky. She ached to be out there, to be among other children of her age. It caused a hole in her heart to be isolated in such a way – and that didn’t include the torture. She wanted friends, she wanted to be able to leave the house whenever she wanted and come back whenever she wanted – she wanted most of all to have some form of affection displayed to her. She knew that if she ever got out of this situation, she would be a person that would be difficult to get to know and almost certainly bitter.
These people had destroyed her in every little way possible and she hated them for it; loathed them. She would have given anything to have an opportunity to do something to them, but as it were, she was stuck here – chained to the roof, waiting for these people to whip her again. Though she was enjoying the little reprieve she was experiencing. She took the time to stare at the sky and get lost in imagination.
However she was drawn from her dreaming by another crack. Unprepared for it, the young girl screamed even louder than before and whimpered heavily. There was a paroxysm of pain. The two people laughed uproariously. They shared a private joke, one the girl couldn’t hear, all she could hear was the sound of her incessant whimpering. The tears once again made their way down her face. She was in a cycle that she was desperate to break from. She sobbed and coughed, she was trying to not let them control her: it would just give them an excuse to hit her an extra time. A fifth crack. This time the girl slumped a little, her legs finally giving out – all the strength to fight and stand against these people had finally been sapped from her. Her eyelids closed slightly. They flickered and she only caught glimpses of the cloudy, grey sky.
“She’s going,” the man said.
The women grunted, “We’ll have to give her a reason to stay awake, won’t we?”
The man laughed in response. “What have you in mind?”
There was no response from the women. This caused the girl to feel even more terror. She did not know what to expect from her, but she knew it could only be worse than everything she had previously experienced. Perhaps they meant to kill her. That would have been preferable to the girl. The thought of death was a pleasing one; anything to have this pain ended would have been a victory in her eyes. She was bright enough to know that death was not what this couple had in mind – they were far too vicious for that. They enjoyed the tortured screams she emitted. It seemed to spur them on; give them recognition – let them know that they were doing a good job. What kind of people where they? Why would they do this? The pain from the previous hit had partially blinded her vision, she couldn’t anything see in front of her. She couldn’t wipe away the tears either to clear her vision: everything was hazy and difficult to focus on.
The man walked around to her face. He stared at her with dark eyes. He cupped her face in his hands and placed a surprisingly soft kiss onto her forehead.
“It’s okay, dear.” He said, almost soothingly.
Her head lolled into his palm. Her breathing was shallow. She was close to sleep, if it could have been called sleep – it was pain induced and she knew when she awoke, the pain would still be there – though perhaps worse than before.
The man continued to smile at her; continued to cup her face. She was lulled into a false sense of security. Her mind drugged on pain let her believe that this was the end of the torture. They had finally realised the wrongness of their ways.
No.
The girl was wrong. And oh, how wrong she was.
Her eyes jolted open and her head shot back as she felt the back of her shirt being lifted. The man’s eyes were no longer soft: they were filled with hatred and contempt. The little girl was panicked, unsure of what to make of her shirt being lifted. She soon found out.
She felt an enormous burning sensation in her back. She screamed louder and longer than she ever had done before. She felt the women carving something grotesque into her back. It felt like there was one thousand read hot pokers singeing her skin in rapid movements. She had never felt pain like this before. She tried to her best to stop herself from whimpering, but she couldn’t. Her entire body moved quickly to try and avoid the carving tool. The man held her down, forcing her to stay still. She wanted to beg for them to stop, beg for them to let her die. Beg for anything she didn’t care what, just as long as this pain stopped.
And stop it did... For a brief moment.
In that moment, she was able to feel the copious amount of blood dripping down her back – it was as if her new cuts were a waterfall and the blood the water. There was a deep throbbing sensation in her back. Her mind was now alert and screaming at her—begging her—to avoid whatever it was that caused that pain. She knew she couldn’t take much more of it. She had barely managed to stay conscious during that onslaught. She didn’t understand why her abuse had gotten this far – why had they suddenly decided now was the time to carve into her back? Did they want her to view these scars as gifts? Maybe they were ‘gifts’. Regardless of her parents’ logic behind it, she didn’t want to think about what would happen whenever it continued... if it continued.
Which it did.
The tool was plunged back into her skin. It was becoming more and more obvious that they had no intention of killing her this day as the blade did not go deep enough into her skin, though deep enough to remove flesh – enough to permanently scar her back. The women fastidiously removed the upper layer of the flesh; seemingly unmoved by the girl’s screams. Just as the women finished, she twisted the blade, just to give the girl one more final explosion of pain before it ended. The girl’s entire body arched forward. A soundless scream was echoing from her mouth. Pain and terror were etched across her face. Her legs twisted in on themselves and she threw up before falling into unconsciousness.
*
The girl awoke to find herself lying face down on her bed. Her entire back throbbed and ached. Her mouth was parched and her lips chapped. She was unaware of how long she had been out for, but she guessed that it had been a few days at least. She could feel some rudimentary bandages on her back. When she turned her head to get a look at them, she noticed that they had not been changed since she had been given them originally. She tried to being herself into a sitting posture, but it was impossible. The pain was heightened whenever she tried to move her body into any position other than the one she was currently in. So she lay there and thought about what to do. If this was the beginning of torture that involved carving her flesh, she figured that she would not last long. One such experience was enough to let her know that she was not able to cope with it, let alone umpteen times. Though, she was pleased with herself for handling it for so long – a small victory. She guessed that not many twelve year olds would be able to put up with such an experience for more than a moment.
She had nearly fallen asleep whenever she heard the voices of her two masters. They were hushed and quick, they assumed she was still unconscious, but were not taking any chances in case she could hear them – thankfully, she could.
“...coming around in two weeks,” the man said.
“Two weeks? Fuckin’ hell – are you sure she’ll be able to do anything then?” The women replied.
“She’ll have to be able. I’m not the one who carved into her back.”
“Fuck you! You whipped her like there was no tomorrow,” the women retorted, her voice showing the world just how annoyed she was at the man’s comment, “besides; we both know that it had to be done. You don’t want a slave that disobeys her master, do you? Besides, she’s broke now.”
The man grunted in agreement. “Either way, we’re getting a pretty sum for the whore. Certainly worth birthing her, eh?”
The women cackled and a wet noise came from the other room.
The girl’s eyes were a-wide with horror. So their torture had borne a purpose – she was to be sold off to some man as a slave. They were going to reap the benefits of her suffering. Thousands of scenarios ran through her head. What if the master she was being sold to was worse than her parents? What if he beat her more viciously than her parents? What if he was buying her so she could be killed by hounds? What if he made her do... grown-up things to him? Though what if he treats me well? She thought. It was certainly a possibility, but she knew that a life of a slave was one that was simply less than ideal. No matter how hard she tried to find a positive in being separated from her parents, she simply could not. She certainly did not want to be a slave, but what choice did she have? There was no way she could even try and persuade her parents to keep her here as their slave. What would be the point? There was no money in that. She had no idea of what to do when another idea entered her head. It was risky, and it terrified her hugely, but it seemed to be the only way to avoid her fate.
Escape.
Yes.
As soon as she was able to walk again, she would get herself out of here. She knew it would have to be attempted whenever it was dark and when her parents were sleeping. That would give her an advantage of getting out of the house before they were aware of her being gone and that might give her the lead she needed to get out of the country. But where would she go? She would have to stow away on a ship – she simply did not have the money to pay for a voyage and Ship Captains were only compassionate up to a point. The Free Territories she figured would the best place for her to go to. She had heard her parents say that if they were ever caught that any one of the City States in the Territories would be a good place to hide – no one really cared what your past was. So it was perfect for her.
She was not pernickety about which City State she got to, as long as she got to one. It didn’t matter to her, as long as there was an ocean and a river between her and her family, she did not care.
She smiled a little. She now had some dream to look forward too. For the first time in a long time, the girl had hope. Hope in the future – it was still a bleak future, but considerably less bleak than it had been five minutes prior.
*
The two weeks passed slowly, and the girl had carefully formulated a plan to bring her to freedom. She would escape in the early hours of the morning and lock the door as she left which would give her more time to get out of the slum in which she lived. She had a vague idea of where the docks were, but that was merely a formality now. She still had to get out of the house first. That was the cornerstone of her plan, if she could not get out of the house; nothing else had any chance of happening. She had no help – this was entirely up to herself. It was a severe form of self-help. She was excited; on edge. But for the two weeks, she had had to try her very best to act as normal – to give her parents little in the way of any indication of her plans to escape. They hadn’t changed at all, really – the only difference was that she had been allowed to recover for those two weeks. She assumed it was because of the buyer – he clearly did not want physically damaged goods.
She waited for the morning with baited breath. Whatever belongings she had were wrapped up inside a makeshift backpack. She was ready for the night when it came. She did not know what to expect onboard a ship, but at this point and time anything was better than the shambles she called a room.
She bit her nails, she slept, she ran through the plan in her head – she did anything to avoid idle waiting.
The early dawn came and with it, a clear teal sky. She was aching to go. She waited until her parents were in bed before she rose. She took the backpack and slung it over her back. As it touched her back, she hissed slightly. It was still sensitive to touch and would probably forever be sensitive to touch. She tiptoed towards the door and opened it slightly; just enough so that she would be able to fit through – her door squeaked whenever it was opened entirely.
She continued her cautious walk into the kitchen and took a knife that was lying on the table. She moved into the living room—which led to the front door—she could barely contain her anticipation of open air. She carefully opened the door and took a step outside, however, her side nudged a glass on the table beside the door, and the glass fell and shattered. The girl’s entire stomach lurched forward and anxiety tinged her face.
She saw and heard her parents’ bedroom door open. Her father looked at her, and anger contorted his scarred face.
“You stop right there, you bitch!” He snarled.
She didn’t think twice, she jumped through the door and slammed it shut. She jammed the knife in the hinge and twisted it onto its side: meaning it would take longer for them to be able to open the door – giving her the valuable time she needed.
The girl sprinted from the slum. She sprinted towards the sounds of gulls in the early morning sun. Oh, what lovely sounds they were – the sounds of freedom.
