Free Betraying Innocence by Airicka Phoenix

until she started screaming. Then someone was always there, pulling her back from the brink of insanity, back into the black abyss, only for it to happen all over again.
    Then came the nightmares, a blurry mess of noise and colors. The smell alone was enough to send her reeling. The repugnant stench of blood, of decay, of something dead, punched a hole into her gut. Her stomach churned even as she fought to throw off the heavy blanket of terror pulling her under. The smell was always followed by screams ; horrible, deafening screams that drove into her ears like spikes. They clawed at her brain until she wanted to just tear it from her skull and throw it against the wall. But all of that was nothing, nothing compared to the tapping.
    Tap.
    Tap.
    Tap.
    Each careless rap of her father’s fingers on the tiled counter sent a chill down Ana’s spine. She watched his steady drumming with a thick ball of bile lodged in the back of her throat. The sour tang of it lathered her tongue, making her want to gag every time she swallowed. Her nerves jittered, grating with every relentless tap, tap, tap.  
    The tapping! God the tapping! It was always there, pounding into the cavity of her skull. It never stopped. Always tapping. Tapping . Tapping . She heard it every night. It beat against the walls, the floor, the ceiling like a trapped creature searching for a way out. It was everywhere. And when it wasn’t scurrying behind the walls, it was toying with her, making her see things, making her wake up in places she didn’t belong. She couldn’t stand it anymore. Three weeks of torture and she could feel herself slowly beginning to slip. The walls of her room, they kept pushing in on her, suffocating her. Every morning she woke up drenched in sweat and feeling trapped in a tomb with the tapping in her ears. She wanted to scream. She wanted to tear her hair out. She wanted to … her gaze flickered to the block of knives on the counter. Her hand jerked, knocking into her spoon and sending it clanging in the bowl. The sound jolted her. She came back to herself, breathing hard. Tears of frustration lodged in her throat.
    “Ana? What’s wrong?”
    “I need to go!” she cried, shoving out of her stool, sending it careening and screeching across the laminate.
    “ Go?” Mom’s gray eyes were wide against her stunned face. “Go where?”
    “ Anywhere.” Her feet tangled together. She slammed into the island, but determination spurred her up and moving. “I can’t stay here anymore! I can’t stay here!”
    Panting, Ana tore out of the kitchen, ignoring the shouts of her parents as she thundered down the hallway and out the front door.
    Late August greeted her with an umbrella of gray clouds and the scent of rain clinging to the muggy air. The ground beneath her bare feet squished as she pounded down the path. In the distance, thunder boomed. But she kept running, trying to outrun the world. It wasn’t until it began to pour, turning the dirt to sludge, that her legs buckled. They collapsed beneath her and she just sat there in the middle of the road, soaked, shivering and completely alone.
    It was undetermined how long she huddled there in a puddle of filth, listening to the whoosh of rain and the hard thump of her heart as it fought not to explode. But the rain slowed from dumping buckets to a light drizzle, and maybe that’s what saved her, because there was no way the car racing towards her would have seen her in time otherwise. It just managed to skid to a fishtailing stop.
    “What the hell are you doing sitting there?” a voice boomed over the rushing rain.
    Ana had no energy to look up. It was taking all her strength to remain upright. She was just so tired and the ground was so soft. She just wanted to sit. Please, just let me sit! But hands were suddenly there, grabbing her, tugging at her, pulling her until the only sounds were the reminiscences of the rain in her ears and the squeak of something in the background.