1: Ceiling Fans & Bourbon

A faint orange night lamp from somewhere on the right prompted the awakening. 

Yanire blinked rapidly, trying to understand where she was despite a great dizziness overwhelming her senses. The first thing her mind was able to register in the fog of regaining consciousness was the ceiling fan. She was unsure how she came to be in this place but the ceiling fan was not immediately familiar to her. It was in the modern American style with five blades spinning at a slow, steady pace overhead. As the fog began to lift, it left behind a question, where had she seen this ceiling fan before?

Her head felt a great pressure about it and her ribs were either bruised or broken- not that she was all too familiar with the difference. It was likely she'd had an ordeal of some kind, perhaps she was in a hospital? Her eyes started to squint at the room and slowly the possibility was eliminated. Hospitals would have technologies around, maybe the murmur of other people, and she'd have been in a much more uncomfortable set of bed covers.

Too soon, the voice of another person came from beside her. Her mind was not able to piece together what they had said or who it may be but she knew it to be a man's voice. For reasons unbeknownst to her, the hairs on her arm started to rise.

"Are you alright?"

All at once her spine felt like ice encased it as she recognised this voice and her eyes snapped onto the source. As soon as she registered the mess of dark curls on his head and the faint scent of bourbon about them, she knew exactly who he was. The shocked reaction had little effect on Martien, who continued to adjust the damp towel on her forehead while stroking gentle circles on her lower arm. She shivered in discomfort.

Yanire retracted her arm as though his touch had cut her and her eyes widened in shock. The corner of Martien's lip tugged downwards but he held his composure, looking over her as if to take a visual analysis of her injuries.

"It's alright love, you've been through quite a lot."

Yanire's stomach started to churn with disgust as she scanned the room frantically. She had seen this same room everyday for nearly eight years- in fact, not a single detail had changed. The furniture was all deep red wood with a general color scheme of brownish red and periwinkle blue. The woman realized with great horror that the bedspread hadn't been changed either. This was her and Martien's old bedroom.

"You-"

The words stumbled out groggily as she started to try and get up from the bed. Martien smiled and interlocked their fingers by taking the hand closest to him. Yanire realized quickly that her other hand was handcuffed to the bed, as was the opposite one of her legs. She thought to flail and see if freeing herself from the entrapment was an option, but settled for pulling her hand away from him pointedly.

"How-"

The question held no real weight or conviction to it as she spluttered and tried not to lose the little bit of sanity she was gripping. The ache in her head and the fire in her ribcage along with the discomfort of being in the same room with the absolute last person she wanted to see- it was far too much for her.

Her face fell flat quickly to hide the fear and she calmed herself, going numb to everything for the immediate moment, a skill that being married to Martien for six miserable years had taught her. The man had clearly only become more deranged since the last time she had seen him- being tucked into the back of a squad car. 

"Be careful darling. You're still very weak from the explosion."

"Explosion?"

Her voice was raspy as though she hadn't had water in far too long and it hadn't been used in a while. On cue, Martien reached over to the glass at the bedside table and pushed it to her lips. Yanire tugged her head away from the glass, locking eyes on him with a silent refusal. The rage in his eyes was well-hidden, but Yanire had known him far too long not to catch it.

"You've grown so disobedient without me, what a shame."

His voice was dripping wet with the thick southern accent he played up to get his way and the sickly feeling in her stomach returned. Yanire shut her eyes tightly. This was one of the most frequent mind games that Martien liked to play on her before. He liked to pose things as though Yanire depended on him and perhaps at that time she had. When he realized that Yanire was attempting to flee him by retreating inside of her mind, the thin layer of composure he'd been holding came loose. 

His vascular hand grabbed her chin roughly, forcing her to look back at him as he rose, hovering over her at the bedside. Yanire's expression was devoid of all emotion- which strangely seemed to make the man even angrier.

"Don't make me remind you how to behave, Yanire."

The green in his eyes was darker now, hands controlling as they adjusted so her chin was angled almost painfully up at him. She thought to be calm for a moment, being that this was a very common behavior from him, however she just wasn't used to it anymore.

  Quickly, far too quickly, the anger slipped and Martien's eyes began to grow red around the edges with an unusual shine to them. To this, Yanire felt her skin crawl and the hair on her arms rise. This was a completely alien thing to her and her chest tightened in complete horror. The version of Martien that she had known during their marriage was entirely incapable of showing vulnerability, to the point that seeing it in Joeri would sometimes prompt him to leave the room to regather his senses.

"Oh my Yanire, my sweet Yanire."

The tone of his voice unsettled her deeply- somewhere far beneath the usual scale of fear that one feels when being confronted by a past abuser. There was something unusually nervous about it, something of desperation hiding in the tremor of his lips. She had known Martien to be cold and controlling- those traits she could accept. However it was when people became desperate that they truly became frightening: a cornered rat is always the most dangerous. 

When he saw the fearful look swelling in her coffee brown eyes and the way she flinched if his movements were too fast or unpredictable, the tears slipped out freely down his chin and dampened his neck. 

He let go of her chin, caressing the sides of her face gently instead as his lips trembled and he muttered soft apologies. Yanire's fear only deepened, alarm bells going off wildly as she tried to find some semblance of familiarity in this set of actions from him. 

Just how crazy had Martien Bijvank become?

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