Darkness is Black - 1. Chapter 1

Prone it seemed, or at least flat down on something. It is still dark, cold, the smell is overwhelming me, yet I am not able to discern what it is that I am detecting. Rotten maybe? That smell you get when the trash has been standing out on the sidewalk in the heat for too long. Or is it death I can smell? Is it a rotting corpse, something gone bad, very, very bad. Is it me? Can I smell me?

Why on earth is this ugly scent filling my olfactory glands with such intense power, and am I wet? This can’t be happening. I should be tucked up warm in my bed, enjoying a full nine hours of sleep before another gruelling day on the assault course. If this is a dream, it is the most intense experience of realism I have ever endured while asleep.

I move to roll over onto my back. I am wet! What is this… I’m cold, the shiver the wetness produces steals the breath from my lungs, winded, gasping, leaving me feeling panicked and…. afraid all of a sudden. Afraid? Fear so vivid and gripping so tight it cannot possibly be part of a dream. Pain is here, mental pain, physical pain, cold, pure, unadulterated pain.

It shoots through my body making me gasp out verbally. I suspend my attempt to reposition myself. Getting comfortable can wait if it is going to cause me this much pain.

My senses are still in complete disarray. I have no concept of my location. I know what my body feels, but nothing beyond the sensations coursing through my nerves, the smells and feelings that are flooding my waking mind. How long have I been asleep, and how can so much happen to me both physically and mentally while I’ve been asleep? Was I even really asleep?

A door crashes open somewhere behind me, and the voice of a man reaches my ears. I cringe. He is cursing and I can hear bottles crashing into some kind of container. Glass smashing and crashing as it is slams down, the noise makes me flinch and despite the pain I curl up to protect myself.

My movement catches the man’s attention, and he curses even louder. I hold my breath and curl tighter, waiting for the sting of an attack to wrack my body as he assaults me. I am not sure why I am expecting the beating, yet I am certain it is coming. I want to scream out as the fear absorbs me, but inside I know that my cries will only make the attack worse.

Why do I sense an attack is about to happen? My mind is certain that I’m about to feel extreme pain once more. Once more? Even in that split moment I am able to wonder what I have endured already, what pain I’ve learnt to accept. It is a fleeting glimpse of consideration yanking at my conscious mind as my body coils itself even tighter against the impending strike.

Something is very defiantly not right. My tongue feels thick and swollen in my mouth, my face is tender and hot, my body alive with arcs of fire, the sting of nerves alive from frustration, yet from my waist there comes a pain as intense as a knife boring into my skin, screaming through my mind. Surely the pain of a beating cannot be as bad as the torture of this contestant throb?

Yet even though I am expecting more of something sadistic, even though I do not know why it is that I should expect it, I find I can only hear heavy breathing, and then a hand reaches out and gently touches my shoulder.

“Ay Caramba,” I hear a voice gasp and the hand is quickly withdrawn from my body. “Mano, don’t move,” the voice instructs me. “I will get help.”

Help? That word sounds so friendly, so amazing. I wonder if I can actually relax my cringing wrap and await this help? Is this for real, or is he playing another game?

My assessment of my condition must have been well placed. This man wouldn’t be offering to summon help unless the situation warranted more than he could offer to me, I reason, however this realisation does nothing to calm my jangled nerves. I am grateful that the thrashing I’d been expecting has not materialised, but I am now scared to find out exactly what it is that has happened to me.

Has the house fallen down around me? Was it some massive natural disaster that tore me from the safety of my bed and dumped me in a strange place that has rendered me helpless and confused? Suddenly I am overwhelmed by a need to know what the hell has happened to me.

I am a fit and healthy seventeen year old boy. I am independent, popular and capable of looking after myself, yet here I lie, feeling as if I am wallowing in the gutter, incapable of looking after myself, and that realisation is devastating. I can feel my eyes burning as tears escape from my tightly clenched eye lids. My pride is crushed, and I feel insignificant and alone. Isolated, so scared. So afraid.

This is the worst feeling in the world, and while I relax my coiled protected body, I do not feel any safer. I only feel lost and exposed. Exposed as I realise I am not in control of my life, exposed as it dawns on me that something pretty awful has happened to me, and as much as I struggle to recall what has happened, I cannot.

Sirens scream in the distance, and in the background I can hear a voice chattering rapidly, though I have no idea whom it is speaking to, or what it is saying. I can only assume it is the same man that just told me he is fetching help. Help! Are those sirens screaming for me? I concentrate, listening to the intermittent and distant warble of the wailing emergency beacon getting stronger and stronger as it draws closer. Is this my rescue? Did I really need this kind of help? Oh please, what the hell is wrong with me?

Suddenly the darkness is driven from around me as a fierce burning light falls over me. Despite my closed eyes, I can sense the brightness surrounding me, and I am aware of doors opening and slamming, feet splashing along a hard pavement, and a flashing crimson glow in the background.

Voices are jabbering around me, and I become aware of bodies kneeling down beside me. The gentle voice of a woman is above me and she is talking to me.

“Oh my god!... Honey can you hear me?”

That must be me she is talking too. I open my mouth to try and speak, yet nothing comes out, I can only feel pain in the dryness of my throat, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth.

“Don’t speak honey, I can see you are in pain. We are here to help.”

The woman’s voice is comforting, and in a way, despite the fear consuming me, I feel grateful she is there to look after me.

“Bloody hell,” I hear another voice gasp. “What the hell happened here?”

It does nothing to inspire my confidence. This must be bad.

For the next ten minutes I am gently probed and prodded. I learn that two paramedics are working on me, checking my vitals, coaxing me into a position lying flat on my back, wires being connected to me via sticky pads I can feel adhering to my skin, gentle tugs against the tackiness of the pad as cables are aligned and connected to some monitor. The pain, oh my god the pain! I am freely shedding tears as they move me, yet through it all, I can sense I am in good hands.

“Please stop the pain. Please?” I plead.

“We will just as soon as we can honey,” the voice explains.

Stats, numbers, long words. So much language going on around me, my head is already in a muddle, and now this just adds to the overload. I just want to go back to sleep. This cold, wet stuff needs to come off. I struggle to get up to remove it.

I feel a sharp scratch on my arm, and the fight drains out of me. Numb in a way, aware, I am there, yet detached, as if I am away. Floating above it all maybe?

Stabilised, splinted, bandaged and strapped to a spine board, I am hoisted onto a stretcher. Covered in a blanket with wires falling from my hands and chest leading to a monitor clipped to the side of the trolley I’m on. An oxygen mask covers my mouth and nose, an IV drip feeding into my body somewhere below the blanket covering me.

Paramedics and police mill around me. Quiet questions murmured between colleagues and investigators. Concern painted in expressions and worried frowns worn on faces that do not know me yet fear for my safety and chances. Fading in and out, I am aware of some of things going on around me, yet not sure how long it has taken nor where I am.

My stretcher trolley gets wheeled onto an electric hoist which raises it to the standing level of the ambulance parked in the alley way that is the place my shattered, abused and broken body has been discovered in. Lit up by all these lights, the ugly similarities drawn from this reality and our mental assumptions of what life must be like living at the bottom of the gutter becomes clear to anyone gathered in the alleyway. This is where I have been lying for who knows how long, clinging to life in stubborn refusal to be held down and beaten.

The stench of rotting food, the filth of a street not cleaned properly for months. This is the stark visual image that faces everyone grouped in that horrible ally, the vivid truth of a set of circumstances that everyone is forced to confront. Everyone that is but me, who is blissfully unaware of the dark, dank evil that clings to the place I was dumped and left to bleed out, the place I was abandoned, left to the assumption that at some stage through the course of the night I’d expire and pass into the afterlife. Tucked away in the back of the ambulance I watch as a woman dressed in blue inserts a needle attached to a syringe into a tube running out of my drip, squeezing a clear liquid into the stream flowing into me. I can feel myself fade away into a black bliss. Safe at last, lost in a world of complete isolation. Nothing can touch me here. No one can torture me anymore, nothing can hurt me, and no one can break me anymore. I am secure in the shadows of oblivion, hidden from the world of cruelty I’ve just been breathing in.

As my chariot of fire begins to roll from this forsaken corner of the city, I have overcome. I’ve beaten the odds and survived this far, I’ve frustrated intention and surprised everyone that’s come in contact with me since my discovery. Survival is my intention, strength is my key. A siren screams out into the night air, and speed carries me towards an A&E, where my battle in this war of survival will continue, but for now, I’ve just won one small victory in the struggle against hurt and pain, against the attempt to break and destroy me.

ooooooooooooooooo

Prone again, yet warm this time. Comfortable to a degree, I am not feeling the cold hardness below me. Is this my bed?

There is a smell again. Not sure I can make it out. It is a clean smell, a safe smell. Yes I think I know it. I am certain, pretty certain I’ve experienced it somewhere before, however I just can’t put my finger on it. Clean. That is the only word my mind can find to describe it.

My head rests on something soft. I must be home in my bed, these are pillows I can feel below me, yet as much as I am certain that I am in my bed I’ve never known my house to smell like this before.

Frozen, I want to scream. My senses have woken with my mind, and suddenly I am flooded by this overwhelming feeling of horror, no, not horror… Pain.

Oh my god, turn my brain off, I can’t deal with this.

Along with my senses awakening, and this realisation that pain consumes me so, panic grips me once more. Was my mind just cruelly playing tricks on me, fooling me into the illusion I am safe, warm and tucked up in my bed?

Am I just merely dreaming all this? My vivid imagination working overtime to take me on the most gut wrenching roller coaster ride of slumbering imagery, a nightmare of cinemax proportions?

No, I am fairly certain that this is real.

My distress has come to someone’s attention as there is a voice speaking to me. I can feel a hand gently resting on my shoulder, a voice speaking quietly into my ear, a warm breath caressing over my cheek.

It is a woman’s voice. Ok, so that means I am not in my room, a woman is not something I’ve had in my room in a very long time.

“Damian you are safe, just relax and try calm down.”

It is a friendly tinkle, the kind of voice you instantly want to trust. I have the sense that she is not a danger to me, and I can relax a little, although the pain still surges

“The pain,” I croak.

Since when did speaking become so hard? It is as though I am incapable of stringing a complete sentence together.

You know what, this whole game, this guess work, its all getting tired. I’m actually getting really bored of not knowing what the hell is going on around me. Frustration has set in, and I just want to scream. Scream away the pain, scream loud enough to wake my brain. Scream until I know, know or is it remember?

“Just relax Damian, I am going to give you something for the pain. You are doing really well, just rest and let your body heal.”

Heal? Is that what this is? Darkness descends on me again. The pain fades, the voice fades, the incessant beeping fades. I hadn’t even noticed the beeping until now.

The bed fades, the room is gone. Blackness, quiet, solitude is here with me. I am safe again. At least in this void, in this space I populate I am alone. Free of feeling and time means little to me.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

The passage of time has been really difficult to keep up with.

I know I have passed in and out of darkness many times, yet I have no idea if it is over hours, days or even weeks. Could I really have been lost in the vacuum of my internal space as long as weeks?

I don’t know.

There are constants in my life that I’ve come to appreciate. They let me know that I am in the same place, somewhere I know I am safe and being looked after. Yet as much as I appreciate this idea of security, I long to work out what has transpired.

The beeping. It was so frustrating at first. I have become used to it now. I know that the beeping is me. It is always there and when I hear it I know that I am alive. Alright and regardless of the pain and the frustration, that constant beep tells me that I can go on.

The voices. There are four of them. Well I am pretty certain there are more, but there are four that I know. Four I recognise. All women, all with voices I can best describe as soothing, professional, experienced. Yes, they know what they are doing, I can feel it when they bathe me, when they fuss over me, when they talk quietly to me.

It is a funny thing, I know a time when I’d have been horrified at the thought of a group of strange woman having such complete control over me. The idea of a woman touching me in such personal places, in such a personal way would have been enough to send me over the edge, yet here, I have come to accept it. Deep down inside I know that it is my best interests they have at heart, and that makes it ok.

Funny how your circumstances change the facts of life.

As I say, I do not really know how long it has been since this all began. I wonder how long it’s been since I last opened my eyes. What about since I last took a step? How long since I last ate something? Hang on, if I am not eating anything, how am I still alive?

Oh no, panic overtakes me again.

Is this whole world of darkness what it is like on the other side? No, that is impossible, for I can feel. There is no pain in heaven! But then heaven is full of light, and this is a world of darkness! Oh no don’t tell me I am in hell!

Anything but this.

Breath. You can’t be in hell. A voice.

“It’s ok Damian, just relax.” It is one of the angels. One of those ladies watching over me. Darkness and peace surround me again.

A voice. This is one I defiantly know. Recognition. Oh my god, my father is here. I am alive, I know I am. My dad is here and he is talking to me. I wouldn’t hear him if I were not here.

A sensation of touch caresses my hand. It burns. I can feel him touching me, stroking the top of my wrist with his fingers; they scorch their way across my skin, searing a line up my arm. And his voice. I always knew my father had a calming effect on me. He was always able to take me from a giggling high to a dead calm with just a few words.

Hearing him coo over me, and fuss about me, makes me feel so warm. I know tears are in my eyes, I can feel them threatening to burst the dam.

I recall being told that the sensation of joy can outstrip all other emotions and feelings your mind and body are familiar with. Maybe I read that somewhere? Right now, I can tell you that it is true. I have missed hearing that voice.

“Damian, my boy,” he coo’s.

I smile. I know he will like seeing me smile. See me smile? I am suddenly desperate to see my father. Darkness has gotten as boring as not knowing what the hell has really happened to me. It is time to change this state of affairs.

Willing my mind to instruct my eye lids to open I quiver. Wow, I never thought simply opening my eyes could be this much of a strain! I just want to see my father for heavens sakes. Open damnit, Open!

Scorching, god it is bright. Involuntarily I scream. It is as though I have woken on the surface of the sun.

“Dad!”

The beeping goes erratic, a bell starts to ring. Things are coming in and out of my vision, shadows, light, and colours. Everything is so blurred and unreal, then; something stands out for a split second. Confusion reigns, but there is one thing I know I am sure of in those fleeting moments. I saw my dad. His bold, noble and strong face looking down on me, his bright blue eyes alive, concern, surprise, alarm. Everything was written there in those eyes for a fleeting moment that I was able to focus. Chaos, pandemonium rained around me, and in all the fuss, darkness overtook me once more. That dark safe vacuum of freedom, once more entombed in nothing.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Time is a great healer, and it is after some considerable time that I am finally able to sit up in my hospital bed and have a conversation with anyone.

Drama aside, it has been one hell of a long road. I still do not know all that has happened to me, but there are certain facts that are hard to ignore.

Significant damage to my rear passage had occurred during some kind of assault. Damage that had taken several hours of surgical work to put right. What kind of assault you ask? It does not take much imagination to figure that one out, yet it is a word I chose not to use.

Infection has been difficult to fight as so much dirt and debris had been forced into parts of my body where dirt should never go. A surgeon can only clean a wound so much right? Bacteria and dirt can be microscopic and how is someone poking around in tight spaces supposed to see everything? So it is only natural that massive courses of antibiotics fought to keep the infections at bay.

Somehow my arm got broken; I don’t recall this happening, at what stage of the assault it transpired I do not know. Actually I don’t recall anything about the attack, very possibly the drugs that were found in my system being the cause of my amnesia. Or perhaps it is just my mind protecting me from the vivid evil of the attack.

Stupid. Damn stupid. I’ve always known that there is a risk in taking drugs, but when with friends it just seemed the right thing to do. I can recall taking them. Not sure I know which one’s they were, but the fact is that I took something pretty bad. At some stage along that trip, it all went wrong, and that is a pretty hard fact to deal with right now. Someone, potentially a friend took and used me in that state for their own selfish satisfaction, and then left me to whatever fate came my way.

Sever rope burns on my wrists and ankles would indicate I’d been tied down and fought against my restraints. The pain caused as they inflicted various bodily wounds on me even before the sexual assault would have had to make me struggle against the bonds holding me. Who would do such a thing?

The body can heal. The fact I am sat here in this bed is a testament to that, but the mind is a different kettle of fish. There are a closed unit of people that I trust right now. Four nurses, one doctor and my father. I don’t want to see anyone else. Some have tried to visit I am told, but I am in a secure wing and a private room, and for this reason alone I am able to insist that I do not want visitors.

Even the police have been kind enough to leave me alone for now. One officer tried shortly after I woke to ask me questions, but my silence seems to have bought me a reprieve from their desire to know the full circumstances of my situation. I am not sure how long this will last, but for now I am just happy being in the company of the five people I chose to protect me.

Sleeping is hard too. Flash backs are common. Who knew that the brain is much like a CCTV, capturing footage you did not even know you had seen, to be played back to you in teasing snippets, torturous episodes mixed and mashed together into a violent cacophony of images that terrorise your mind as you slumber. No wonder they call them night terrors! Not that I can recall them too well when I do wake, other than the image of a bloody broom handle and a man laughing, a laugh I know that I know, but cannot place.

They say that trauma is difficult to deal with. They say that everyone deals differently with stress. For me, I just like to pretend that nothing ever happened. Is that stupid of me?

ooooooooooooooooo

I have never stopped to consider how lucky we are be able to walk, breath, blink without thinking about it. Automatic reflexes to our inner program to live. Reactions of our limbs to our desires to move from one place to another. Actions I’d taken for granted, movements I’d never stopped to think about or reflect on.

Now however, now having been refined to a bed, lying flat on my back for god knows how long, I miss the freedom of motion. Being able to swing my legs over the bed and get up to go to the vending machine in the corridor was something I couldn’t just do at will.

No, movement below my hips was tough for me. I was so sick of bed pans and dinner in bed. I yearned to be able to get up and go to the window and stare off into the distance. To see people milling around in the corridor, yet not know what was happening beyond the four walls of my room is a feeling enough to make me want to scream constantly.

Yet as frustrating as this lack of freedom is for me, it pales compared to the experience of losing a portion of your mind. I cannot begin to explain to you the amount of time I spent propped up against the pillows, boring holes in my toes in an effort to recall something. Anything!

Just to be able to say this is what happened. I know how I ended up so beaten, so battered and bruised, lying in an alleyway. Used and abused. Taken for free, ravaged for pleasure I never knew that in chasing pleasure and acceptance in the swallowing of some insignificant pill, I was setting myself up, giving myself so recklessly to innocent abandon, sacrificing my body to the whim of who knows what.

Hollow. That is a great word to describe the feeling I have inside me. Something is missing. A whole chapter, an important chapter, one maybe I really don’t want to remember in clarity, but one I need to understand all the same. It keeps me awake at night. Tossing and turning, imagining the horror, vivid pictures streaming through my mind as I wonder, create scenarios for my own satisfaction. These nightmares I build in my mind lead to horrific night terrors as slumber claims me. Scenario’s played out in horrible detail, things I could never imagine a person being alive to go through.

These facts trouble me. I wonder where such vivid horror within my mind could come from, if in fact it is not my mind creating a reality for me from hidden memory. Some cruel trick of my mind, a subconscious effort to hide the brutal truth from me, yet allow me to become sensitised to a graphic horror story in preparation for what is to come.

It makes me feel ill. Constantly locked in the darkness of my thoughts, trapped in a world I do not understand, nor do I wish to speak of. It is easier to keep these horrors to myself. To whisper that it is even possible that such things could have happened to me is too awful to consider. What would people think of me? How would anyone ever look at me the same again? No, it is defiantly best that no one, ever, never, should hear of such things.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Freedom. Oh joy of heaven. I cannot explain how beautiful it feels to have fresh air flick through my hair on the gentle breeze. My smile must make me look like a mad man, but to see the green of the grass, the blue of the sky dotted with puffy white clouds, feel the warmth of the sun on my skin.

I am confined to a wheelchair yes, the discomfort between my legs more than I am able to cope with if I walk. I have been taking small steps. Made to stand daily by my physio, “exercise is your road to recovery Damian,” he always says. As a matter of fact he even made me walk myself to the toilet yesterday, refusing to pass me a bottle in my moment of need.

If eye balls could be daggers I’d have stabbed him. It was torture to have to hold it in as I awkwardly waddled my way to the ensuite room housing my private bathroom.

But that is forgotten today. Today I am happy. I have been allowed to visit the gardens, albeit in a chair I’ve always associated with disabled people, but today I’d happily be associated as a person with disabilities just to be allowed to escape the confines of my room.

So sweet. I had never really thought of the air outside as sweet. Yet today it is intoxicating with all manner of smells I have forgotten. Chatter meets my ears, and my heart skips a beat as I become aware that there are other people around me. This is daily life as we automatically expect it to be. Yet to me this day, it is magical. People stood chatting, laughter and giggles. Cigarette smoke, a car horn close by. So many colours.

When you are deprived of these things, words are not adequate to explain how much you are moved when you are once more allowed to feel a part of it. I can feel the moisture in my eyes threatening to become tears. I don’t want to cry, but the feelings within me are overwhelming. I didn’t know how much I’d missed this.

And then…Well. My heart truly did skip a beat. Actually I am not really sure what happened, for everything I have just been appreciating, all the things that have been moving me to tears, just seemed to fall away, fade into insignificance.

Golden honey locks of hair, skin bronzed as if it had lain on the beach recently, and eyes. Green, emerald green eyes. Oh hell, that face. I am lost in that face. He is beautiful. Stunning. High cheek bones, a firm set chin, lips in a slight pout, the cutest button nose. It is the eyes that…. That what? I don’t know, yet I can’t look away from them. I have only seen a face, yet already I am moved to think of the word love.

A split moment to be emoted that much? Something is wrong with me!

Suddenly I become aware that as intensely as I am studying the features of this glorious face, it is peering back at me. Those eyes are watching me? I can feel the heat rise to my face in a furious blush, and I force myself to look away. Did he see that?

I’ve not even met him, and I’ve embarrassed myself. Oh wonderful. I glance back to where he was to find he has risen and is approaching me.

I never knew my mouth could go this dry in that many seconds. It has only taken a moment for him to cross the distance between us and say, “Hello.”

In a quandary of fear, emotion and just pure smitten lust, my tongue has gotten stuck to the roof of my mouth, and I can only nod in his direction with a feeble attempt at a smile.

“Storm,” he says, stretching out his arm in a handshake.

I stare at his hand for a moment. Stare? More like scientifically examine. Long fingers; ripples in his skin where his knuckle joints meet his wrists, a dusting of fine blonde hairs cover the outer skin of his hand. Big for a teenager, I wonder if he is a swimmer. They are meant to have big hands aren’t they?

Uncertainly I reach out to take his hand. Warm to the touch, it has an electric quality to it, making the hairs on my arm stand on end and I have this amazing tingling feeling running the full length of my arm.

“Damian,” I stutter, vainly attempting to smile once more as I look up at this hunk of manhood now stood over me. For the first time I am aware how lean he seems. Wrapped in a dressing gown I can’t see all that much above his knees, but still there is a pretty good shape under that cloth I am sure.

And back up to that face. Painted with a smile now, sunshine in all its glory did not come close to the power of his expression. His? I can call him Storm now can’t I? I know who he is. My eyes roll in my head and for a split second I feel faint. This kind of thing does not happen to me, yet here I am still holding onto the hand of what surely must be an angel sent from heaven to torment me.

I hear a chuckle, and look up. It is him, sorry. It is Storm, laughing. Is he laughing at me? Suddenly I feel sick, snatching my hand back to wrap it protectively around my chest as I cross my arms in a huff.

“What’s so funny,” I scowl.

“I was just thinking how much you remind me of my brother, he was another one of few words and expressive facial features,” Storm explains.

“Oh,” I say, feeling foolish. “Where is your brother?”

He looks down, his natural pout becoming sad and his eyes becoming dark and broody. In a flash my sunny happy boy has become a storm cloud true to his name. My boy?

“He…um” pause. “He’s in a better place I guess.”

Oh man, once more I feel the fool. That can mean only one thing, and suddenly the concept of sense and sensitivity rings clear as a bell in my head. I admonish myself mentally for not listening closer to what I was being told.

“I’m sorry.” It sounds inadequate as it leaves my mouth.

“Yeah me too,” he agrees. “Mind if I sit with you for a while? There’s only adults out here. It’d be nice to spend some time with someone my own age.”

“Heck yes,” my mouth shoots itself off.

‘Slow down Damian,’ my mind screams at me. ‘Don’t sound too desperate.’

Storm moves over to a bench seat and plonks himself on the wooden surface with a grunt as I wheel my chair closer.

“You got a light at all?”

I frown. “A light?”

Storm glances at me with a flick of a smile. “Yeah, a lighter. You know…” He pulls out a box of cigarettes from his pocket.

“What are you doing smoking?” I ask scornfully, regretting the words the instant they have left my mouth. The scowl on Storms face says it all. ‘Just a little too much like mother duck Damian, jeeez you are doing real well here boyo.’

“You don’t approve?” Storm asks.

“Um….erm….well, it ain’t really my place to say, but yeah it’s a bad habit. Makes you very unkissable!”

‘Holly shit, did I just say that?’ I think my eyes are the size of saucers and I must be a colour close to a fire extinguisher right about now. Storm roars with laughter. ‘He’s laughing? ‘Oh my god, YES! SAVE, albeit in a very unusual fashion.’

“Um, pretend I didn’t say that,” I bleat shyly. “I mean yeah, it’s none of my business if ya smoke, it’s just….”

“Ya I get it, it’s a bad habit,” Storm chuckles, tucking the cigarettes back into the pocket of his robe.

His grin is infectious, and for the first time in days, I am in a good place.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

My toes flex in time with the beat, it is Supermode piping into the headphones tucked into my ears. Dad brought me my iPod a few days back and it has been a lifesaver. I love my music.

There is talk I am to be discharged soon. My stitches have been removed, I can walk, a little awkwardly at times yes, but still, I can walk again. The cast from my arm has been removed for a smaller, better fitting version, and the burns around my limbs have healed nicely. Infection under control, and I am feeling almost strong again.

Mentally I am not too sure. I still do not remember much. I am not sure I ever will. Lab results have shown up the presence of a number of substances, one in particular being a drug known as scolopine. Well known in South America for producing a robotic like sense in its victim, submitting without question to whatever is wanted by whoever has drugged the individual.

I don’t recall taking any such drug, but apparently after the effects of the ketamine I’d agreed to try kicked in, I’d not even have noticed where or how I was passed the drug. One thing is clear, someone had targeted me, planned to subject me to an experience I am grateful I cannot remember, but one that haunts me daily.

My counsellor tells me it will take time. I don’t really enjoy those sessions. She’s ok as a person, nice enough. It is just all the questions she asks. I never know if I have answered right or wrong. I mean she told me that there is no right or wrong answer, but if that is the case why does she write so much while I am talking. I feel like I am giving away too much.

Does she think I am a bad person? Did I ask for this and get what I deserve? It is all so confusing. She is quite impressed at my will power to live, to over come, to go home, and try to be normal, but I am not so sure that is my will power. It is just that I can’t stand this place anymore. I love my four angels on the nursing staff. I respect my surgeon and doctor. I even quite like the porters.

And then there is Storm. He was discharged last week, but every day he is here to visit me. Without him, I would have gone mental in here. Dad is really cool too, he is here every night after work, and he has helped me through the police statements and the endless lists of questions that they keep coming back to. I wish I could help them, it bothers me that I don’t know who did this to me, I sense that I do, but cannot force myself to recall. I just want to go home!

Time. My counsellor tells me it will take time. If it is going to come back, it will do so in its own time. I cannot force it apparently, and slowly I am beginning to accept this, but still it is hard. The days are passing by slowly.

Today they are talking about discharging me. I have to meet with my counsellor first to get her assessment and make a fixed appointment, then meet with the doctor to get his sign off, and if that all goes according to plan I get to go home. Oh please let this happen. I cannot stand it much more.

Do you have any idea how much my own bed appeals to me right now, and as bad as dad’s cooking can be, oh god I would kill for one of his roast dinners. To my joy the two of them arrive together and we begin to talk.

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Learning to love is an adventure. For me it was a road that I had to walk along really carefully. It was not long after my discharge from hospital that Storm admitted to me that he fancied me, and if I was not put off by the fact that he liked a boy, he’d quite like to go out with me.

Put off? Has this boy got any fucking idea how hot he is?

I was thrilled at the concept of having a boyfriend. I was even more ecstatic about the fact that he is very nearly the best looking boy in the country. I have to say nearly, as if I were totally honest, it’d be Ryan Phillipe that I’d kill to go out with, but beggars can’t be choosers, and Storm is the very best thing next to Ryan, so I’ll settle to be content here with Storm.

I am kind of shy about my body right now. It is damaged and I can’t hide the scars. So yeah we’ve been going out for a while, but the most we have ever done is kiss. He tried to put his hand up my shirt once and I just about freaked out.

I felt really bad, but the thing is Storm understands. He is going through his own battle with guilt. He was driving the car the day they had an accident which killed his brother. His folks have been really messed up about it, and he blames himself for so much. In a way, allowing me to be there for him, kind of gives me a purpose to life right now too.

I mean that is kind of selfish, but truth be told, we both lean on each other to get through the pain. It works. And there is a kindred spirit between us. We don’t need words to know a hug is in order, or that someone really does care.

Dad and I had a chat shortly after I got home, and he kind of asked if things were happening between us. At the time we had not started going out as yet, but I did tell dad that I kind of liked Storm. He said he figured that, and had suspected my inclination for a long time, but was waiting for me to find the right time to tell him.

Dad is so cool. I wish he would find someone to make him happy. Mom broke his heart I think. He says that when people fall in love too young, sometimes it can happen later on in life. The idea of falling out of love sounds very strange and thing is I am not sure that dad has ever really fallen out of love with mom, but one day she just up and left. Talk about a sucker punch.

This is a cruel world in so many ways, but through it all there are times that golden sunshine falls on our life for a time. Right now, I have come through a whirl wind of trials and tribulations, I am still getting over them to be honest, but one day at a time, together with the help of my dad and Storm, two men that love and care for me very deeply, I am learning to get by again. Life goes on and we find a way to heal. I guess that this is true for all of us, even my dad too.

I have had the very last visit with my counsellor today, and credit where credit is due, she has helped me put a lot of this into perspective. There is no easy way to come back from trauma, but with help and some inner strength we are able to do pretty amazing things. One day I will be able to stand on my own two feet and confront my inner demons without fear or hesitation, overcome and move on. I am working towards that day. I will get there.

For right now, well right now, I am happy walking along the pier holding Storms hand in the darkness of the evening. We have just had an amazing meal, and at the end of the pier he has just uttered the most amazing words in the world to me. Nine months. Nine whole months I have waited to hear him admit he loves me. And tonight for the first time ever he just has. The moon is huge over the bay, the stars twinkle bright in the sky and the water laps below us. How perfect can it get? Romance; who would ever have thought that my boy, my very own Storm was a big soppy romantic at heart? Tonight was just perfect, and in a world of turmoil tonight is a night I will never forget.

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On the 15th May 2009 a DNA ping on a central data base triggered the opening of a cold case file for a Detective Nigel Holden. A file landed on his desk detailing the vicious kidnapping, rape and torture of a young man called Damian Fuller of Holloway Falls nine years before.

A traffic accident involving a twenty eight year old man, who had been drunk and under the influence in a vehicle that had left the highway hitting a bridge before crashing into a ravine below had prompted police to take a DNA sample to use for identification purposes.

Initially the DNA had yielded no results and as the man had remained a John Doe, the sample had been submitted to the national data base for an analysis and had triggered the alarm on the cold case file of the 2000 rape of Damian Fuller. Subsequent investigation had finally identified the John Doe as one Benjamin Reynolds a former Holloway Falls resident that had joined a travelling circus not long after the rape. At the time no inference had been made towards Reynolds as a suspect, and so he was never listed on the case files.

As he’d been a part of the travelling circus since the age of nineteen, he’d never been in trouble with the law until the time of the accident and for this reason his DNA had never come to the attention of the authorities until the accident.

No one ever knew what had triggered the attack on Damian, and it was never discovered if it had ever occurred again elsewhere. The case closed with an accident along a lonely stretch of highway, where a lone man in a truck suddenly left the road and crashed to his death.

As Damian had relocated to Hawaii several years before, it was decided that there was no real reason to inform him of the discovery and the case files were closed as solved, No Further Action Taken.

In Hawaii Damian and Storm live running a jet ski business off a sunny beach on the main island. Life has a way of giving people who’ve had it rough a break every once in a while, and for these two, this was their lucky break. Blissfully happy, the past stays washed away behind them by the waves of the ocean they get to play in every day. Together they are strong, alive, well and in love the way we all wish we were. Sometimes goodness can come out of badness.

Thank you for reading. Please leave your thoughts as a comment.