Chapter Three – Hope

"Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!"

I was sitting on my bed, in the wee hours of the night munching on a bag of Doritos knowing that I would not be able to go back to sleep. My clock had shown the time to be, unsurprisingly, about 2 am. I woke at the same time, night after night, and I seemed to have fallen into a pattern. I would wake up, try to bring my rapid heart back to normal, and clench my fingers tightly around my covers as I tried to shake the dreams away. Then I would turn the lamplight on, grab a bag of whatever snack I had placed on a table beside my bed and proceed trying to fill in a hole that probably could not be filled. I tried hard to be quiet, to be still, aware of the time. Aware that I was not the only person in that small room I called my own. However, it seemed that no matter how hard I tried; at times, it seemed an impossible feat. When I turned my head, stilling my moving fingers in the bag, I then met the sleepy unraveled face of my roommate.

The day after, I decided to shut myself from the rest of the world, and I slept. I slept for hours. A dreamless sleep and ironically enough it was the best sleep I had had for a long, long time. It felt as though I was floating on air in a vast plane of existence. A dark peaceful realm that was calming and comfortable. A sanctuary conjured up by my subconscious mind to help me recover from the tumultuous strain I had suffered. However, that day, that night was the last night I had a restful night’s sleep.

Night after night, I woke up.

I woke up drenched in sweat, heart pounding, breathless. I woke up feeling as though I had just run a marathon, as if I had been running for my life, as though I was trying to escape a danger that would lead to my ultimate demise. When I close my eyes, when I try to calm myself, all I see is this smothering darkness and I feel inside me this overwhelming sense of fear. I am haunted by the dreadful memories of that night. My unconscious self being attacked during my most fragile state, in the darkness of night.

I feel empty when I wake up. In the pit of my stomach, there is this void that cannot be filled. This indescribable hollow source ripped open and persistent in devouring my essence bit by bit. A hallow pit that cannot be closed. It is like being hungry, but without the hunger pains. I feel so vacant inside, as though my guts are no longer inside, there are no muscles or blood pumping through. Just this insatiable worm within, biting bit by bit the substances you try to fill the pit up to the brink with.

And I do.

Every night when I wake up, in the false tranquility of the hours of darkness, I eat. Mostly snacks, chips, pretzels, popcorn, etc… I try to fill up this empty space inside that is constantly present. Nothing works. Infact, it seems as though the opposite is happening, and that frightens me so.

"What the fuck?"

Elena eyed me, a look of shock suspended on her face. She glanced at the clock beside her, then at me, then back again at the time in disbelief. As though she could not believe her very eyes. It was an amusing sight to be sure, but her flabbergasted expression was disconcerting to say the least. It was the first time she had woken in the middle of the night to find me stuffing my face. I flung the hand holding the Doritos towards her.

"You want some?" I asked, acting as though once again that there was nothing out of the ordinary about her waking up in the middle of the night to find me awake eating like I hadn’t eaten for days.

"No" She said, shaking her head in denial, eyes flickers on and off sounding very much perturbed, "I don't want some. I want you to turn off the lights so I can go back to sleep"

I turned out the lights, and while Elena returned to her imperturbable slumber. I lay on my bed feeling anxious, there was no tossing and turning but my eyes adjusted to the dark and I couldn't help but just stare at the ceiling. It wasn't long before I heard the sound of Elena's snores occasional echoing the room. I tried to think of nothing, or think about anything else but... I tried to think about school, about the many assignments I had but that led to guilt. I was having a life, going to school, interacting with my friends while my brother was not. But thoughts of my brother always led to the one thing I didn't want to think about. So I would try and think about work, but I would always realize that I had a dead-end job that didn't pay much, and that led to the overwhelming hospital bills yet to be paid and that led to other things. I tried to clear my head but trying to do so was time consuming. Yet somehow the excise helped me sleep.

But it wasn't long before morning came and I welcomed the day. Because though my nights were horrid to say the least my days were better.

The day started out fine, the alarm rang and to my surprise Elena was already gone because I knew she was not a early riser. It did not feel like I had gotten any sleep at all and I felt exhausted. I took a shower, brushed my teeth, rinsed my mouth and left shower room feeling quite refreshed. It didn’t take me a long to find a presentable outfit, nothing glamorous. A pair of jeans, a simple gray t-shirt, and a jean jacket. Grabbing my assignments, I rushed to my first class. I had two classes the entire day, one was Modern Art and the next was Journalism with a three hour break in-between. It was just after I had finished my modern art class when I was going to the cafeteria to meet Delia when I heard my name being called.

"Ms. Jenkins"

The neutral lilt of the voice, the English accent that penetrated the air, the old-fashioned greeting bound me like a spell. It sounded like the remnant of an old dream, the sound of my last name being called in such a way. It did not sound quite real, just like then. I had hoped, perhaps foolishly, but I had hoped that it was over.

Holding my breath, I turned around. Standing in collected calm was a man of a certain age, a vision from the certain past. A thin older looking man donned in glasses, lanky and tall. Standing in front of a sleek black car, wearing a very expensive looking suit, and he was a very strange, an antithesis to the mundane surroundings but he possessed a strange aura that was utterly false.

"May I please have a moment of your time?"

I felt my heart drop to my stomach at the statement. It was all too familiar; this vision mirrored a visage of a previous encounter.

That was the first and last time I met him, and now here he was. I stood and looked at this seemingly harmless older man and couldn't help but feel I had been bamboozled. His timid appearance certainly made me choose a path that led to the encounter that had changed me everything.

"What do you want?" I asked in a biting voice, hard and striking. I wanted to stay calm but I could already guess to what his intentions were. He was Hermes in the flesh, and though I didn't want to persecute the wrong person I couldn't help but want to shoot the messenger. Was I fooling myself all this time? During the days, I was able to act as though everything was alright. I had pretended and pretended well but now it was turning up that my pretending was for nothing.

I thought it would be rather difficult, at first. At first, I did not think I could pull it off. I thought everything that happened to me would be so apparent, that it would be so obvious that I had fallen in sin. I prayed to god that it would not be so plain that I had finally given away my virtue. That it would not be so evident that I had degraded myself, given myself over to a stranger, had lain on a bed willingly while he used my body for pleasure. At first, I had thought that those that knew me well would know. However, it was not to be.

It seems as time passed, during the mayhem of passage of days, I would hardly think of that night. There was so much to do, school, work, assignments, exams, etc. I hardly had time to play, for clubs, and parties or social gatherings. Delia had ceased speaking to me for a long while, angry at the slight she perceives I made when I didn't show up at the club. It took forever to get her to start to speak with me again. Perhaps that is what helped me so.

Perhaps, the distractions given by the mundane of every ordinary day helped me forget. Or perhaps, by focusing on other aspects of my life, I was able to push the memories of that night out of my mind. Perhaps, it was because during the day I did not dwell on the un-pleasantries of the past, at night my subconscious self would not suffer me a restful night. And now it seemed that I couldn't pretend forever.

Hermes, as I had taken to call him turned to the car, and opened the door retrieving something. A creamy colored rectangular box that Hermes placed in my reluctant hands, as well as a gift bag. I could see shoes in the gift bag and looked at old Hermes in suspicious confusion.

"What is this?" I asked, feeling the pit in my stomach open up a bit.

"Master Liam would like to invite you for supper" He said.

12 days, 10 hours and 41 minutes was all it too and needless to say, my day was fast becoming the horror my nights had always been. I had known all along that I couldn't run away even though these past few days, hope had almost made me think otherwise.