Trapped

"Don't let her get away"

He gripped his hands tightly around my upper arms and slammed my body agressively against our bedroom door. I let out a pain filled groan, which turned into a deep sob as I begged him to calm down. "I told you never to embarrass me like that again, Alethia!" He screamed just inches from my face. "I'm sorry!" I cried out repeatedly in between sobs. "You are constantly doing things that make me look bad or embarrassed me, and I'm sick of it!" He screamed again. "Michael, please calm down and tell me what it is that I did so that I know and can promise that I will never do it again." I tried to reason. That was the first day the physical abuse started. He wouldn't speak to me for three whole days after that. I found out later that the reason he was so angry with me was because earlier that night we had gone out to a restaurant and when the server came to our table to take our order he told her what we both wanted, just like he always insisted on doing. When he got to telling her my drink order, he asked for a soda, but I had told him just a moment before that, that I wanted a sweet tea instead. So I interrupted to say, "Oh, actually, can I get a sweet tea instead, please?" I didn't think anything of it, I was just correcting the order. Other than a few times during dinner that something seemed slightly off with him, I never would have even guessed that anything was wrong at all. Dinner seemed like it went great. It wasn't until we got back home that he started going off. That was after 2 years of being together and 1 year into our marriage when I was 19 years old. Some people might wonder why I didn't leave that night, and to be honest, I'm not completely sure why I didn't at least. I thought about leaving, but after his three days of silence, he came home with a couple of gifts for me along with some food and a movie to watch as a make-up date. He apologized for pushing me and promised never to do it again. I loved him, and I suppose I just wanted to believe that it was just a mistake and that he would never do anything like the again, but I was also scared. Now I'm 21 years old, and when I look back, every single day of my life, I wish I would've run for my life that night. Though I'm not sure if it would have mattered if I had tried to run back then anyway. I realized he had slowly become abusive during that time, starting off with little things here and there that were emotionally abusive and eventually leading up to the physical. Maybe that's why I didn't leave, or maybe because I was young and too naive, I'm not really sure, but after that things just got worse and worse and everything went even farther down hill from there. We've been married for three years now, and he would never allow me to leave him. I tried once, finally, about six months after the first physical incident happened, but with him being a very successful lawyer thanks to his father passing down the business, he used every resource at his disposal and a few of his friends on the police force found me. He told them to lock me up in jail for a couple days to teach me a lesson about how blessed I am and lucky I should feel that I get to be married to him and not out on the street. He practically had me on lock down for a year after that until we got new neighbors who began to start questioning things and I convinced him that I would never try to leave him again and that I'm happy to be his wife. Now, even if I dared to try to run again, I have nowhere and no one to turn to. He pretends to volunteer and do charity events for all the women's shelters in the city, he's friends with many powerful people and every officer in the city, he's successful and so good at pretending to be the good guy, that no one would ever believe he is actually the most vile and awful person outside of his close friends who are equally as awful, and on top of everything else, he has left me completely dependant on him. He caused me to distance myself from my family and eventually made me cut contact with them entirely shortly after he began getting physical, he never gives me enough money that I could save up in secret, not to mention he demands I give him the receipt for everything so he can count every last cent to make sure i'm not hiding or stealing any from him. He won't let me get a job or make friends or anything at all. I'm entirely reliant on him to live and to put it simply, I'm completely trapped, and I'm absolutely terrified of him. I might die if I stay with him, but if I try to leave, my fate could be so much worse.

Michael has me on a strict schedule. Since he can't lock me up at home, he made it to where he will know my every move throughout the day still. First on the list today, Michael gave me twenty dollars and told me that I needed to go to the grocery store to buy him some new drinks to go with his lunches. They're special teas imported to the country in glass bottles. I had tried to carry a box worth of them into the house and accidentally tripped over one of his shoes that he left too far out from their usual spot with all of our other shoes and I accidentally dropped all of the drinks, causing them to all shatter in the door way. A mixture of glass shards and tea covered the floor and wall. I spent the whole night having to pick up every piece of glass with my bare hands and scrubbing the floor and wall so that they wouldn't be sticky because that was my second punishment. He gave me two punishments to "teach me a lesson." One for making a mess and one of ruining his drinks. I'm sure you can guess what my first punishment was. So I threw on a long sleeve shirt to cover the bruises on my arms and layered makeup on my neck so that no one could see the hand print shaped bruises that wrapped amount my throat. I make my way to the grocery store perfectly on time and text him a photo of me inside the store to prove that I was exactly where he said I was supposed to be. After sending him the photo, I walked back outside and walked around the corner to the usual spot I sat at and just enjoyed the peace. Well, as much peace as the city noises will allow that is, of course. It's a different kind of peace than that, though. I just enjoy sitting outside in the sun and being away from home for a while. Away from him. He times me so since the beginning of his schedule, making I've taken a little extra time each time consistently, so he would think that is just how long it takes me at the store. It was a lot harder the first couple months because he would come with me to the store, usually staying in the car but a couple times he came in with me and I had to create other reasons why it takes me that amount of time. I took a deep breath and then let out a heavy sigh as I let my face fall into my hands. "I wish I could escape this never-ending nightmare," I thought to myself as I sat back up and peeked at some of the bruises closer to my wrists. Time was quickly running out so I ran back into the store to grab his drinks and then decided to use the remainder of my time walking the long way home going down back roads behind all the main businesses. I have to walk every where since he doesn't trust me to have my own car that I could leave him with and he won't hire a driver for me either because he believes I will start sleeping with any guy I have the chance to sleep with. "Eli, use the knock-out gas on it!" I heard someone yell from just around the corner. I peaked around to see six guys surrounding this horrifying creature. It's body looked like it was made up of muscle tissue with no skin on any part of it, but it was a pale infected yellowish color and had abnormally long arms and legs that extended into sharp talons. its face was contorted into a never-ending smile, and its eyes were big and wide with no eyelids. I was shocked and disgusted by its appearance. Smoke filled up around the monster that I can only assume is the knock-out gas that I heard one of the guys talking about, and they covered their faces and backed up. The creatures eyes suddenly darted towards my direction, and I couldn't help but let out a scared yelp and lose my grip on the glass bottles in my hand, causing a loud shatter. My breathing was irradic, and I could feel my heart beating faster and faster as the seconds passed, and I realized that this was reality and not a dream, though I'm still not totally convinced. All six men shot their gaze my way with wide eyes. All of them suddenly seemed more panicked by my presence than the monster that they were looking at completely unphased just moments ago. I finally broke free from whatever made me feel glued to the ground and started to run. "Dont let her get away. We have to stop her!" One of the men yelled from behind me. Three of the men had started chasing after me, and they were easily closing the gap between us that I created from my head start. One of them reached out for my arm and grabbed a hand full of the material from my shirt, stopping me from running and pulling me back into him. He wrapped one arm around my waist with both of my arms trapped inside as well, and one hand covered my mouth so I couldn't scream. The man holding me was at least 6'3 and very fit. He has a short buzz cut hairstyle that's lighter brown in color, and that's all I can really see from him. One of the other guys started reaching into a bag that hung around his chest and looking unsure of what to do he grabs a cloth out of his bag and hesistently dabbed some liquid from a small container onto it. He was quite a bit shorter but taller than me still at around 5'10. He has shaggy brown hair that reaches the top of the glasses he's wearing, and his body type is muscular but thin. The last guy stood off to the side exchanging concerned looks back and forth between the other two and stood ready for a fight if any thing else were to come his way but looked totally helpless when it came to me and what to do about me. His hair was blonde and styled with a little bit of gel. He had a black piecing that dangled from one ear and tattoos all up and down his right arm. He looked to be around 6'1 and was on the skinnier side, but his arms were finely toned. The guy with glasses looked at me and said, "Sorry about this." As he placed the dampened cloth around my nose while the bigger guy had my mouth covered still. I had no choice but to inhale deeply as I tried to get any air that could escape through the corners of the cloth and fill my lungs with fresh air. There was a strong scent of chemicals, and in a matter of seconds, I felt my body go limp and darkness collapsed in from all edges of my sight until I lost consciousness.