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I feel like I'm being swallowed by darkness.   I can tell the walls are closing in on me inch by inch, suffocating me. The only light in this disgusting, empty room came from a cheap lamp in the middle of the floor. But none of that mattered anymore, because from the opposite side of the room I can see her glaring right at me, her wicked smirk forever burned into my brain.  In her hand, a blade glinted in the light.  Oh,she's smart.  I know, with no doubt in my mind, that she's tempting me, testing me to see if I'll attack her and rip that knife right out of her hand and slit her throat.  Yes, she's very smart, I'll give her that!  But I won't fall for her tricks that easily.  After all, I've been playing the same game for longer than I can even remember anymore.

But...I'll admit, I really want to do it.  I want nothing more than to take that knife and stab it through her chest over and over.  Or slit her throat.  Or even jam it in her eye sockets.  Either way, I want to hear her screaming and begging in front of me for a change. That would be wonderful.

Instead, I'm sitting here shaking — not in fear, but in hate, and not in excitement, but in pain.  All I ever hear anymore is her sickening laughter echoing in my head, mocking me.  By now, I'm more than certain that it's only hate that flows through my veins.  It's only screams and laughter that I hear.  It's only violent urges that coil in my stomach.  And, funny as it is, it's only pain that keeps me alive.  I am fire and she's the fuel.  Her disgusting smile and face are all I see when I shut my eyes anymore, and her very existence makes me sick to my stomach now.

She knows.  Yes, she knows very well.

This place is like a prison without bars.  Hell, it doesn't even have any doors!  I don't know how she gets around, how she leaves the room, but it doesn't matter to me anymore.  I just wish she'd stay gone.  I don't care if I'd rot down in this hell — if I'm not already — so long as I could without having to look at her face.

How long has it been?  I don't know.  How many days have I been stuck down here?  Is it months?  Years?  I lost count a long, long time ago.  Now, I can't even remember the day she brought me down here.  She probably dragged me, and I bet I was crying and screaming while she was laughing.  I gave up crying now.  Once I allowed my hate to take over, my sadness and fear vanished.  I stopped crying and screaming, hoping that someone would hear me beyond these thick walls and save me.  I gave up hoping that I'd be saved, that I'd ever escape from this hell.  I know now that there isn't a way out.

There are actually a few things I don't remember about this place.  I can easily recall every horrifying time I cried and screamed at the top of my lungs, and all the times I used my own fingernails to try to claw my way out past the walls.  But I cannot remember things like the few times I must've eaten, or when she enters the room.  I don't remember having a single meal in this place.  I don't even remember pushing myself past my limit and passing out suddenly.  I don't remember hearing a door open and close, or see her shadow pierce the darkness.  I can't even remember what it's like beyond these walls — what my life was like before this cage that became my home.

And I never want to sleep.  Maybe it's the only thing that still manages to terrify me.  When I fall asleep, I always wake to find myself chained to the wall, her dark eyes hovering over me and her laughter ringing in my ears.  I remember those times the most.  I would scream and scream as loud as I could, struggle to be set free, but it never helped.  She'd let me go, let me retreat to that same corner of the room that has become my safe spot, but I was forced to look into her eyes before that would happen.  The strangest thing is that when I look into her eyes, even now, I can see fear inside them.  If I listen hard enough to her laughter, I can hear the emptiness in it and what sounds almost like a scream.

What is she so afraid of?  She isn't stuck in this hell like I am.  Her body isn't so broken beyond repair like mine.  She isn't covered in wounds, fresh and dry blood or filth.  She doesn't have to feel blood trickle down her skin from her thousands of wounds.  She doesn't have most of her fingernails broken off from her many desperate attempts to escape this cage.  She isn't missing bits of skin on the tips of her fingers, having been peeled off while she scratched at the walls that trap her inside.  She doesn't have to worry about possibly opening her wounds up again.  She doesn't have to see wounds that were created a long, long time but never healed.  She doesn't have to bang her head off the walls to make sure she's even still alive — and be disappointed to find that she is.

But she knows everything I'm going through.  I can see it in her eyes, the way she's looking at me with such emptiness in them, her eyes moving all over my body to burn every wound into her memory.  Oh, but she doesn't care.  I know.  She never cared, otherwise I wouldn't be down here.  Though, even after all this time, I still have no clue why I'm even here.  It was that question that always invaded my thoughts constantly, but no matter how long I'm down here, I doubt I'll ever find the answer.  Why am I here?  At first, I thought maybe she wanted to kill me, but then I'd be dead by now.

She spoke sometimes, her voice always making my blood boil.  "Y'know, the game is much different," is something she repeated to me again and again, but I can't figure out what she means.  She always says it with such a calming smile on her face, her chuckles echoing somewhere in between her words.  It makes me so angry just thinking about it.

I want to spit in her face, knock her on the ground and kick her repeatedly in the stomach.  I want to rip her fingernails off, grab a fistful of her dark hair and bash her head against the wall.  I want to make her feel the pain I've been feeling for longer than I can remember.  I want to kill her like she did to me.

But what I want most of all is to kill that disgusting part of me that still wishes to crawl over to her and rest my head on her shoulder, to fall asleep in her embrace and feel her warmth against my broken body.  I want her to sing me one of her songs in that soothing voice of hers.  I want her to pet my head and read me stories.  I want to smile at her and see her smile back.  Actually, I can see it so clearly; us sitting on the couch, watching movies with popcorn and smiles on our faces, like a normal family.  It feels so real — maybe it's what our life was like before she caged me down here.  I hate how it makes me feel a smile tugging on my lips, how I have to hold it down with memories of everything she's done to me.

None of that will ever happen anymore, though.  She saw to that a long time ago when she locked me in this hell.  But I'd hate myself as well if I forgave her.  There is no way I could ever forgive her after all this.  I know that.  But if that's the case...then why do I sometimes sit here, hitting my head against the wall to remove those thoughts, to stop myself from loving her again?

I often thought about suicide, just ending it already.  But I don't want that.  I don't to live like this anymore, but I don't want to die, not yet.  First, I want to make her suffer, do to her everything she's done to me.  Oh, there are so many ways I'd love to do it.  Maybe I could chain her down like she does to me and rip each fingernail off, slowly.  Or maybe I'll carve all my pain into her skin — but that'll require a blade.  Or how about hammering filthy little nails into her body?  Oh!  I know!  I could do all of them and then end it by bashing the back of her head against the wall repeatedly, letting her see my smiling face as I rip the life right out of her and free myself from this hell.

Yes!  Yes, that's what I'll do!  It's just a matter of time, my dear sister.  That bit of fear that often lingers in your eyes?  Oh, you'll really have something to be afraid of.  I'll make sure you scream.  Hear me?  I'm going to make you feel my pain over and over and over, just like I was forced to for such a long time.  Yes, it's time this pain finally ended, my dear Anja.

My body freezes in place as the feeling of being watched engulfs me. My eyes move to meet with his and all too soon my feeling of security vanishes — it is crushed, twisted and thrown away with a mocking laugh in my face.