A Vulnerable Broken Mind Read online

  “You’re in Tuxton.” She told him.

  “Tuxton?” John repeated, confused. He had been to many cities across the country but had never heard of Tuxton in his life. “What is Tuxton?”

  The little girl laughed. “It’s the town you’re in right now, silly. The town is just a little ways that way,” she said and pointed in the direction that John had been going from the start. “At the end of the hill, you’ll see it.”

  “Thank you, that helps me a lot.” John said, managing to smile. He felt that it wouldn’t be best to show the emotion he was feeling in front of a ten year-old. It just didn’t quite seem right to him.

  He then stood up and looked in the direction that he would be heading. “Maybe you can show me where to go,” he said to the little girl and he turned around to look at her. But when he turned around, the little girl was gone.

  Startled, he looked around for her. He looked behind several trees but concluded that she was gone. He couldn’t understand how she could have disappeared so fast. He knew he couldn’t dwell on that for very long because he now knew where he was going. He took one look back to see if she would appear and when she didn’t, he continued on.

  Tuxton was a lot farther away than he had initially thought. The little girl had made it sound like it was just a short walk away. But minutes soon turned into nearly an hour.

  The moonlight in the sky was John’s only form of light. The trees were making it tougher for that light to guide John in the right direction.

  The longer he walked, the more dense the trees seemed. Soon, the light disappeared completely and caused John to stop dead in his tracks.

  He looked up to see if any portion of the moon was still visible. Far up, looking at his eyes through one of the branches was the man on the moon. As childish as it may have seemed, the moon’s stare brought him comfort. It seemed like his only form of contact, even if it was imaginary.

  Amber

  When you are rendered unconscious, all you have is your subconscious in front of your eyes. But your subconscious is just as uneven and unbalanced as life itself. It can show you joy or it can show your worst fears that make you curl into a ball and leave you weeping like a baby.

  Amber was in that world and her joys were nowhere in sight. She had been left in a dark hallway with walls, a ceiling and floor that were all a blank white. At the end of the hall was a door. Shining under that door was a light.

  With no other place to turn, Amber walked towards it. As she walked, she could see a shadow quickly pass by the door. Maybe it was her fear playing tricks on her. She might have just been seeing things.

  After taking a couple more steps, she heard a noise: the sound of a little girl giggling, echoing across the hall. The reverberations made the laughter sound creepy instead of soothing. Amber actually had to stop for a few brief seconds to breathe as her fear began to rise.

  She continued to walk towards the door and once she reached it, she hesitantly pushed it open. What waited for her was another hallway. This hallway starkly contrasted with the hallway she had just been in. While still very white, it was bright, almost cheerful. Amber’s eyes had to adjust to the sudden change.

  She wasn’t given much time to adapt to the change as she heard the giggle again. She turned to the right, where the sound was coming from. At the end of the hall stood, what appeared to be, a little girl. The little girl didn’t move; she only stared at Amber. If she hadn’t been giggling, she could have been confused for a statue.

  She could see it was indeed a little girl and Amber began to approach her; her fear had drained slightly. The little girl was a brunette with the most captivating set of blue eyes that Amber had ever seen. She stood still in a red and white striped dress.

  “Hello,” she said innocently.

  “Hello,” Amber replied with a smile. She knelt down so that she was face to face with the little girl. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

  “My name is Carol. What’s yours?”

  “My name is Amber.”

  “What are you doing here?” The girl asked rather suddenly.

  Amber looked at her curiously but then answered with the only answer she could think of. “I honestly don’t know. What is this place?”

  “You know this place,” the girl said in a whisper and then began to run down the hallway.

  “I know this place, what do you mean?” Amber asked in shock. She then began to run after the little girl. “WAIT!”

  The girl turned down another hallway. The environment began to change around Amber again. The light was beginning to disappear and turn back into the darkness. The white walls began to change around her. They faded into red brick. Amber turned around and the entire hallway had changed. The hallway she had just exited was no longer there.

  When she turned to face the direction that the little girl ran towards, the hallway had changed further. Hanging from the ceiling were several chains with handcuffs attached to the ends. The ceiling was leaking water from several different areas. Amber was now walking in puddles of water, trying to find the little girl.

  “Wake up, beautiful.”

  An even more sinister voice echoed, causing the fear to once again rush up her body. The voice was deep and gravelly and sounded nothing like her husband. Unlike most echoes, this one did not fade; it only got louder. Amber had to cover her ears as the vibrations caused by the voice got worse.

  She sat against the walls with her ears in agony until the sound began to fade into the darkness. Once the voice had faded completely, she stood up straight and away from the wall.

  When she was finally able to gather all of her senses and the ringing in her ears had stopped, she heard a quieter sound. It didn’t reverberate off of the walls but it still hurt Amber, but it was in a much different way.

  She now heard the sound of a little girl crying. The sound not only flooded her ears but it flooded her heart and soul. She then began to walk towards the sound. As she got closer, the crying became louder.

  As she turned another right, it led to a dead end. In the corner it was the little girl. She was curled up and crying. She hated the sight of any child crying.

  She walked up to the little girl and kneeled by her side. “It’s okay, the noise is gone,” she said, trying to cheer the girl up.

  The little girl lifted her head. Her tear-filled eyes stared right into Amber’s. The piercing stare of her blue eyes was still striking, even with tears. With one blink of her eyes, the tears ran down her face.

  Wanting to make her feel better, Amber wrapped her arms around the little girl, trying very deeply to console her.

  “It’s okay, it’s gone,” she repeated to the little girl. “The man is gone.”

  The little girls weeping stopped suddenly. She then lifted her head enough so she could look up into Amber’s eyes again. “No he’s not.” She said in a whisper.

  “What do you mean?” Amber asked.

  “He’s here,” the girl replied, her voice lowering in volume. It was at this point that Amber realized that the little girl was not staring directly into her eyes. Instead, she was staring up at the side of Amber’s head, making it seem as though she was staring up at the ceiling. As she stared, her eyes bulged in great fear.

  Amber immediately looked up in the same direction but saw nobody there. She looked back at the little girl, shook her head and smiled, trying to calm her down as much as she could. “There’s no one there, sweetie.”

  The little girl shook her head and closed her eyes. “He’s closer than you think,” she whispered. After she said that the world around Amber began to change again. It was beginning to fade away. The hallways began to dissolve and turn into nothing; all that was left was pure blackness.

  Amber then looked back at the little girl and the little girl’s blue eyes stared directly into hers. It was a burning stare that made Amber feel like Carol was seeing into her soul.

  At that point, all of the tears were gone. The little girl stared at her with the
utmost seriousness that was beyond her years.

  “Stay calm,” she said and Amber couldn’t hide her suspicion. She wanted to say something but the little girl interrupted her. “He’s coming to get you. Please, stay alive,” she said and after that, the world around Amber went completely white as she felt herself being taken out of the world she was currently in.

  It all seemed so real to Amber. As her body finally set down into reality, she realized that everything she had just experienced was nothing more than a vision within her head.

  The reality she found herself in was not the warm and cuddly reality that she was used to. While her senses were not yet fully there, she knew that she felt extraordinarily cold. She opened her eyes to escape the darkness but when she did, the darkness did not go away.

  This caused her to panic and she realized that she was blindfolded. She tried to move her arms but to no avail. Both her hands had been cuffed and were raised up above her head.

  She was in a kneeling position. The floor was cold beneath her knees. It definitely wasn’t a comfortable floor in a house. It felt like cold, hard, and rough concrete. Every time she tried to move, her knees would scrape against it, causing her pain.

  The coolness of the air on her skin made her aware of her nakedness. She was humiliated.

  As she tried to move, a door opened and she jumped. The door was heavy and loud. It’s creak echoed throughout the room. She heard footsteps.

  Amber was on the brink of going hysterical. Her breathing began to quicken and it felt like her heart was going to jump out of her chest. The footsteps got closer to her.

  “Well, look who’s finally awake.” A man had spoken and his voice slithered as if it were a snake; it was the kind of voice that sent shivers down your spine no matter if you were a child or an adult. “You’ve been asleep for a couple of hours now.”

  “Who…who are you?” Amber asked, her voice shaking from fear. The footsteps stopped right in front of her. While she couldn’t see, she knew that he was kneeling down towards her. She could feel and smell his breath. A foul stench that pierced her nose and she could not avoid it.

  “Well, I could ask you the same thing,” the man said in a whisper. His fingertips brushed through her hair. Her entire body shook and she tried to turn her head away from him but she couldn’t escape him.

  He gave a harsh laugh and walked away from her but didn’t leave the room. “Found you out in the woods. Couldn’t let such a beautiful thing go to waste, so I brought you back here.”

  “Wh…Wh…Where is here?” Amber asked, her body continued to tremble.

  “Let’s just call it your new home,” he said with a laugh.

  Amber remained silent after hearing this. Her mind was full of questions. If he had found her, where was John? An answer to that question came into her mind and scared her even more. She fought to erase that thought out of her head.

  “I was expecting to hear a thank you,” the man said, suddenly and sarcastically. He laughed a little more. “I thought you might be a little more grateful. Don’t worry, I’ll find a way for you to show your gratitude.” The way he said those words, the slither of his voice, made her cringe.

  Her discomfort didn’t go away as she heard him walk towards her again. His steps were like shots to her heart. With each step, her heart rate picked up another notch. Her breathing intensified as the steps stopped right in front of her. While she couldn’t see him, she could feel his eyes staring at her.

  “You are beautiful,” he said. His voice was very close to her face; his breath once again invading her nose; however, she didn’t even attempt to avoid the smell because she knew that there was no way she could. “We’re going to have so much fun,” he said with a sickening chuckle

  To Amber’s complete horror, she felt a hand begin to slide up her stomach. Her insides began to churn with disgust as she whimpered and tried to turn away. The hand continued to go up and then roughly clamped down on her left breast. She screamed at the top of her lungs. She was so loud that the echo it caused actually hurt her own ears.

  The hand then quickly relinquished her breast and clamped firmly onto her face, rendering her silent. The echo from her scream disappeared and all she could hear was his heavy breathing. His breathing told her that he was angry. “I don’t like ungrateful bitches.” His grip grew tighter; Amber felt like her jaw was going to cave in. “We’ll, I’m going to make you thank me whether you like it or not!”

  He then let go of her and began to walk around to her back. Amber’s head shook back and forth in panic, even though she couldn’t see him. She felt him tamper with one of the cuffs around her wrist. To her shock, the cuff opened up and her wrist was free. He quickly switched to the other.

  In her mind, she began to think that she would run as soon as the other cuff was loose. She wasn’t given that option as he grabbed her by the hair as soon as the second cuff was loose. She screamed once more as he aggressively pulled her to her feet.

  She swung her arms around and on her third swing, made contact with his face. She heard him grunt like he was amused.

  “You truly are a bitch,” he said and he threw her by the hair to the ground. Unable to anticipate that she was going to be thrown and being unable to see the ground, she put her hands out too late and landed badly on her right wrist. She could feel and hear her wrist break as it made contact with the floor.

  “Oh no!” The man shouted with complete sarcasm as she laid on the floor crying from the pain. “That must have hurt. Let me help you,” he said. His foot pressed down on her broken wrist.

  She jerked her body around and did everything she could to get free. Every time it felt like her wrist was close to getting free, he would press his foot down harder.

  When the pain became too intense for her, she stopped moving all together. Mentally and physically, she was drained and defeated. “You’re going to thank me and you’re going to like it,” the man said, his tone dark and ominous.

  He then lifted his foot and grabbed Amber by her broken wrist and pulled her; she shouted in pain. He laid her on her stomach. “Get on your knees,” he demanded and Amber could distinctly hear the sound of a zipper; she didn’t move. She was stunned by what he was demanding because she knew what was coming.

  He did not respond well to Amber’s lack of movement as his foot pressed against her head. “I don’t like it when people don’t do what I say,” he said scathingly. “GET ON YOUR KNEES,” he shouted more forcefully. Amber then began to cry; she was completely petrified to point where she couldn’t move at all.

  “Have it your way then,” the man said and Amber felt the man’s foot lift off of her head but the relief didn’t last long; she felt an excruciating pain hit her in the head. She drifted into a blackness that went beyond the blackness of the blindfold in front of her eyes.

  Chapter 3: Tuxton

  When you’re lost, your mind is either in panic or complete hopelessness. You try to find your way out, but your mind is too far lost to care. You want your mind to run but it’s in a slow and agonizing crawl.

  John was in that state of mind. He felt trapped in these woods; forever doomed to walk for all eternity in a circle, which had no turn to get off of it.

  John had been walking through the woods for (what felt like) hours. He was tired, hungry and drained of all hope. His mind kept showing him images of Amber, the only image that could possibly keep him going at this point.

  He had been walking straight, as the little girl had told him. A little girl that he had not seen since then. His route had been nothing but an endless barrage of trees, branches and bushes.

  Suddenly, the trees disappeared in front of him, as well as the ground he was walking on. With no time to react, he rolled down a hill. Bushes, rocks and sand hitting his body with great force.

  The fall ended quickly but it wasn’t painless. John was hurt in several places. He was covered in dirt and sand and felt like he was going to pass out from the pain. It took all of his stre
ngth to get back to his feet.

  He looked up at the hill he had just fallen from. It was so steep that he had no idea on how he had survived.

  He turned around. He had expected to see more trees in front of him but his eyes were greeted by a small village. It consisted of four streets total with a long line of small buildings on each of them. Each building was made of old and rotted brick. If this was Tuxton, John was almost certain that it was deserted.

  The village was strangely located in a crater as the hills and trees surrounded it.

  None of the streets were paved and there weren’t any signs of life in the area. There were cars parked on the sides of the streets, but all looked rather old and could have been sitting there for years.

  As John prepared to walk into the village, a pair of headlights shined upon him. He jumped from surprise and saw that the headlights were from what appeared to be an old black police car. The car reminded John of the police cars he had seen from any movie made or set in the 1930’s. There was no town labeled on the car. All that was on it was the word “police”.

  John stayed precisely where he was, not knowing what to expect. He tried to hide the fact that he was shaking but knew that he was failing exponentially.

  All John could see was the vague silhouette of a man in the car. The driver’s side door opened and the man who came out was indeed a cop. He was a tall, fat man in a khaki colored uniform with a cowboy hat and a huge white beard. He looked like a cliché cop from an old western, aside from the modern day uniform.

  “Are you alright, son?” He said in a gravelly, kind voice. “Do you need help?”

  “Officer, I was in an accident just up the hill and my wife has gone missing…I…I don’t…” John had started off okay but had begun to ramble as he tried to explain everything as fast as he possibly could. The cop put up his hands to stop him and walked up to him.

  “It’s alright, you can explain at the office,” he said. “Until then, we need to get you to a first aid kit. You’re pretty banged up. Hop into the front seat,” he said and John slowly got into the passenger seat of the car. Once they drove off, it took them at most two minutes to get to the office.