Page 22 of Veil of the Past
FLASHBACK I
ROMIRO
Age - 13
Isit in the corner, away from the harsh light of the bulb. My skin rubs against the concrete floor. My knees are pulled to my chest, arms tight around them.
Chains sway above, clinking together as a draft sneaks through the broken window. The air stinks of rust and decay, sharp and sour. The room feels huge, sounds bouncing off the walls. Most of the time, it’s quiet. Too quiet—until it isn’t.
When the noise comes, I wish it didn’t.
A scream cuts through, raw and sharp. A girl. Her voice cracks, breaking into sobs, and then stops. The silence after is worse. It stretches, waiting for something to follow. A slam. A voice. But nothing comes. Just the dark.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Days and nights blur together. They only come when they need to. They throw food on the floor. Bread that’s hard, soup that smells rotten. Sometimes they don’t come at all. The hunger aches, then fades.
Hunger doesn’t matter anymore.
Breathing fills the dark. Someone coughs, wet and rough, but no one talks. Talking makes this place too real. Silence is safer. So, we sit, lost souls in shadows, waiting for the next sound.
The bulb swings and shadows slide across the walls. Graffiti marks the concrete—names and scratches left by others.
One word shows up over and over:RUN.
I almost laugh. Run where?
The table in the center sits empty for now. Chains hang nearby, stained with old blood. My eyes flick to it before I can stop myself.
I don’t think about what happens there. Thinking hurts.
My nails dig into my skin, sharp and grounding. It pulls me out of the fog that always hovers, waiting to pull me under. I let it sometimes. It’s easier than feeling. Easier than knowing.
The door creaks open at the far end. My chest tightens, but I don’t move. Moving gets you noticed. Footsteps echo, slow and heavy. One. Two. Three. I count to steady myself. Metal scrapes the floor, dragging something. Someone.
I don’t look.
“Get up,” a rough voice orders. No one moves. A scream, a thud, and more dragging. The door slams, and the silence comes back, heavier than before. No one breathes. No one shifts.
The bulb flickers, and shadows twist on the walls. I follow them with my eyes. They mean nothing, but it’s better than looking at the chains, the table, the door.
She said we were going somewhere better. Her voice was soft, almost kind. Moms aren’t supposed to do this, but she did. The memory stabs at my mind. I push it back into the fog where it belongs.
The fog thickens, dulling everything. The screams, the chains, the stink. It wraps around me, cutting me off. The others fade. The room fades. Even the table fades. Just the dark stays, and I sink into it.
The bulb swings. Chains clink. A faint cry fades into the walls. I close my eyes and let the dark take me. It’s safer there.
10
ALESSIA
The door closes behind me with aclick, and the sound feels unnaturally loud in the silence that fills my apartment. I flip the lights on, the warm glow illuminating the familiar lines and curves of my furniture. The soft beige of the sofas, the sleek surfaces of the low coffee table, and the wide, expansive windows that stretch from floor to ceiling—all of it looks the same as it did when I left, but somehow it feels different.
I kick off my heels, the ache in my feet subsiding the moment they meet the cool stone floor. I let my shoes fall to the side, not caring where they land. I’m too tired to care about anything at the moment. Too exhausted to even think straight.
I walk slowly across the room, and my feet hit the plush carpet as I make my way toward the large sectional sofa that sits in the center of the living room. The cushions are soft, and inviting, their pale cream fabric glowing in the dim light. Unclasping my bra, I slip it off from underneath my dress and throw it across my living room. Those things should be burned; whoever invented them clearly hated women. I collapse onto the couch, sinking into the familiar comfort, my body feeling heavy with the weight of the night.
The city sprawls out beyond the windows, the skyline a jagged silhouette against the fading light. The sun has dipped below the horizon, but the afterglow still lingers, painting the sky in shades of pink and orange. The city lights are starting to flare to life, tiny dots of yellow and white in the distance, as if the stars have fallen from the sky to settle among the buildings.
I stare out at the view, trying to find some sense of calm in the familiar sights, but my thoughts keep drifting back to Romiro. I don’t know how to feel about any of this. The way he looked at me tonight, that mix of anger and something else—something I can’t quite name. I don’t know what to make of what happened at the restaurant; my body heats up, and goosebumps cover my arms just thinking about it. I replay the car ride over in my mind, the tense silence that stretched between us like a taut wire, ready to snap. We crossed a line, and I don’t know if I want to go back from it. I tried to make conversation, tried to bridge the gap, but he was so quiet, so distant, his eyes fixed straight ahead on the road, his hands locked around the steering wheel firmly. Maybe he regrets it? Maybe what happened was a mistake on his part, but for me, it wasn’t.
