Page 13 of Teddy Bear

His voice was no longer human, but animal; he himself was pure rage, blackness, darkness.

- Is this a thank you for everything I've done?

He looked at me, ravaged, wild, and furious like a sick dog, a dog ready to tear every piece of living flesh with its steel jaws, stripping it to the bone, pouring every atom of its hatred and suffering upon me.

Salty tears ran down my cheeks.

The whole universe broke inside me; I was helpless and weak from the shame that descended on me worse than the icy swirling cold of the tsunami itself. I was glass, crushed and ground; I was thousands of pieces of essential destruction itself.

I started sobbing like a little child, until I was knocked to the ground by a hard slap that numbed my whole face.

Petrified, stiff, unable to take even the smallest step, I watched as my father sprinkled the toys with gasoline from the bucket he dragged into the room with me right in front of my eyes, and then threw a small, burning match directly on the unprepared, innocent stomach of "Mr. Bunny".

The smell of smoke quickly filled the whole house, and the flames of the orange, burning fire turned my plush collection into a faceless black, plastic-cloth mass.

In front of my eyes, together with them, burned the last faint memory of a happy childhood, a child's carefreeness, chastity, and happiness that I tried to keep alive, like the thinnest, most hidden, weakest blue flame inside the barricaded chambers of my heart.

Every bit of self-respect, self-confidence, and love that I forced myself to at least pretend to have, like a thin paper, burned in front of my eyes.

All my dignity was burning before my eyes.

But worst of all, in front of my eyes, was burning all the love of a little girl for her father, her hero and protector, from now on and forever.

The screeching of police sirens stung my ears, and the smoke almost completely filled my lungs. There was no more air, only black, tarry, sticky guilt that threatened to suffocate me.

I had a double and blurred vision of my father kneeling and crying on his knees, watching the fire of my childhood while the police officers who had just broken into our house handcuffed him and took him to a police car.

I'm not sure if I was alive or dead on the short walk from my room to the ambulance.

Mother stood outside in the terrible wind whipping through the cold January night, clad only in a thin sweater which she clutched tightly over her withered chest and shoulders.

3.

The ice in Danny's eyes makes me freeze. I don't like it when he undresses me with just one look.

-Lizzie, we have to go deeper.

He speaks to me as I bite my lower lip and nervously tear the dried part, opening the old wound that I won't let heal, constantly biting and tearing it, bleeding again.

I taste the iron taste of my blood on my tongue as I simultaneously twist a long strand of brown hair around my finger. I've always had a really hard time sitting still.

-Deeper?

The dose of insecurity is palpable in my voice, because I'm really not sure what's deeper than this.

I let him hypnotize me and put me in a trance state to break through the blockades I have on a conscious level.

I let him undress me so he could peel off the shame and pain I was feeling, bit by bit.

I let him play with my sexuality in the most perverse way possible to relieve me of the constant guilt.

I allowed him access to my visions and images of my subconscious to process the traumas and defense mechanisms and come to the key points of my emotional and psychological breakdown.

I let him do all this, in the hope that I could be free again.

In the hope that the sense of haunting, mortal guilt could be resolved, worked out, recognized, crushed, and turned to dust, so that I could function as a normal human being again, without having to torture and punish myself, feeling unworthy of every breath I take.

- Yes, Liz, deeper. For this to work, you need to hand over complete control to me. As long as you resist, the chains will never break. You have to accept whatever is waiting for you on the other side of the tunnel, darkness or light.