…her Jet Black hair hanging below her waist.

(Continued)


Again her delusional heart pounded aggressively against her deeply swollen rib-cage, each delicate, fragile bone broken and beaten, the skinny layer of damaged flesh on the outside representing nothing more than the skin of a mouldy, bruised peach. As the fire gushed up inside her lungs she forced herself not to scream yet struggling to control the unbeatable pain she yelped loudly with anger, gasping as she placed her hand over her mouth almost instantly after…

What if they heard her? Don’t be ridiculous Alice… there’s no one around for miles!

Quickly she slid the wooden panel back in front of the empty doorway with the hand that stung the least, all over her body she was in such an aching pain although she knew if that anyone found her she would likely end up in much worse. Insuring that the exit was well and truly blocked off, she pushed an old sideboard containing a timid amount of old books that had more than had their day, in front of it. Soon the cabin was in darkness, the long thick black out curtains shut off the rest of the world, the only light was from an old candle she had found in one of the half empty cupboards.

There was nothing much to the cabin of interest, it’s interior was cluttered with all sorts of rubbish: piles of untouched newspapers all with the same date printed on them, vases, diaries, boxes, smashed cutlery, furniture that hadn’t been used in decades. She had obviously been to this place before for now she had changed her clothes that she had kept within a tattered khaki rucksack, her leg wounds were now safely covered in old sheets and she wore thick gloves to hide her bandaged hands. It was lonely in the cabin… nevertheless she was used to that kind of alone.

As that night drifted by, the winter chill filled up the cabin with an almost supernatural presence; She tossed and turned unable to sleep upon the hardened sofa beneath the woolen Pea Green blanket she had clung to when she was an infant, the springs digging deep in her back. Now things were much different, she was a teenager and everything had changed! Finally giving into her insomnia, she again reached for her rucksack, the front marked ‘Alice’ in silver embroidery and then pulled out a checkered notebook marked with the same name. Quickly she began to scribble and sketch something into it, then she hid it once again plunging it beneath her green pea blanket and into her rucksack. Morning.