Chapter 7- living

"What did I do wrong?" I asked myself the millionth time as I floated in the bubble.

I had no idea how long I had been swimming in this limbo

The tortures had been continuous

The pain never faded. If it did, someone would always be there to inflict more pain.

It was an endless cycle of hurt, pain, and hunger. For lack of a better word, it was hell.

As I floated in this godforsaken place endless parade of men and one monster would come to me.

They would burn me, poke at me, staring at me, somehow give me migraines that would stay with me for days.

I had no sense of time touch, and I would lose my hearing from time to time because of that green monk.

All I had was darkness, and the darkness was the only thing that didn't hurt me.

I sometimes fantasied about disappearing into the darkness into a world where they couldn't reach couldn't hurt me.

I tried to kill myself by starving myself, but it was no use. I couldn't reject something that I was never offered.

Every few days, the old lady would come into the room, and she presses her hands like she was praying, and all my shit and all my urine floating around me would disappear, and milky white substance would replace it.

Whatever it was, it would circle around it and then directly enter my skin, and I think it was some sort of food because even though I always felt hungry, I wouldn't die.

"Why don't you just kill me" I would shout at the men who would come down to my dark corner.

"Why torture me? I'm just a small child any one of you could kill me, why do these things to me just kill me," I yelled at them.

But it was all in my head. No actual word came out of my mouth. Nothing I said mattered; nothing I said was ever heard. The men continued as if doing these things were normal to them.

What did I do to deserve this, the fear, the pain, the hunger,

This hell

Then just like that, they stopped

After one of the old lady's visits, I was there waiting for one of the men to come.

For them to come and re-begin my nightmare

But nobody came,

I waited for a long time, but nothing happened. No monster came, no strange came even the potbellied man disappeared.

'This is worse than torture' the thought was constantly in my mind

As I waited in the darkness, I felt more afraid than ever. While waiting for the nightmare to begin, my imagination went wild.

I imagined every possible scenario as I waited there. It was worse than the torture the pain.

It was the fear of the unknown I don't know how long I waited. It might be years; for all I knew, it sure felt like that to me.

Then one came it wasn't a man I had seen before he was dressed in a white robe with a symbol of a red star rising like the sun behind a yellow city embordered on his back and some Asian characters.

I never really could tell the difference between Japanese kanji and Chinese characters.

He came closer to the bubble where I was floating, reached in, and picked me into his arms.

Unlike the other men who waived their hands and I would just float toward them.

He took me gently in his embrace, and I could feel his care as he took me towards the light away from my comforting darkness.

The further away we moved from the room where my horror bubble was located, the more afraid I felt.

I decided to be entirely still; throughout the time I stayed in that horrible place, I gained some control over my limbs but not over my bowl so much.

As we came out of the room,

the first thing I felt was the pain in my eyes

Not so different from that day

the day on which I came into this world

and like that day when eyes adjusted to the dazzling light first the thing a saw was the same old woman,

I first saw the one who cleaned after me in the bubble

The man holding me gently handed me to this old woman

It had been two months since my nightmare ended

After I was handed over to the old woman whom I later came to realize was called granny Yu

She took me to what could be described as the most excellent house I had seen

it was a square 1 Storey building with the middle part there was a garden with pool with giant Bonzi looking trees and different types of flower bed all over the place.

She took into the largest room in the house, and a new life began

For two months, she took care of me, fed me, exercised me, and nursed me in every possible way

She brought all these magical things to me, pills, stones and other items which made me stronger

In just a few days, I was able to crawl my bowel movement was under my control

but I couldn't help but feel empty. I did notice her care toward me, but I had gone into self-pity

I was depressed all day long, and I kept staring into nothing, imagining my previous life what I would have done differently

The mistakes I made and the wishes unfulfilled

I felt that I didn't belong here, that I didn't deserve this bloody world that had been granted to me. I wanted to go back.

Back to my old life, back to my old world where I thought I belonged

In the last few days, I started to understand the language of this world unintentionally without even trying. I don't if I was a Genius or it was something else

The days passed in limbo, and I was so depressed that I wanted to kill myself again

Again, by starving myself and again, granny Yu wouldn't let me die.

She kept feeding me if I wouldn't eat something, she would bring that milky white liquid that my skin absorbs itself

This was my life for three years, three bloody years I waited for my strength to come, which would

allow me to walk. I could end this horror of life during the day. All I could do imagine was my previous life with a lot of different scenarios, and during the night, I was plagued by these nightmares of me going back to that bubble in the darkroom

Then after years of wailing in self-pity,

I had a vision, or it could have been a hallucination

There I was in the middle of the courtyard sitting on a patch of grass, wallowing in self-pity,

staring into the sky

Then I heard my father's voice

"Hey David what u doing," he said

I turned toward where the voice had come from, and there, he was sitting right Infront of me wearing his favourite ice hockey jersey and his denim jacket with old khaki pants, the oddest pair of clothes, but that's what he liked to wear he was buried in that attire.

"What are you doing son?" he asked me in 'The Voice.'

The voice he used when he was mad, he rarely ever used his voice the voice I was so afraid of the voice I had come fear because it meant that I had deeply disappointed him.

That I had failed his expectations, he had only used this voice three times in my life each time I had something unforgeable horrible.

After the third time, I never wanted to hear that I did my damnedest never to allow him to use that voice.

And today, here he was Infront of me using this voice for the fourth time

"What are you doing son," he asked me again

I opened my mouth to answer no words came out

"I raised you better than this," he said

I wanted to shout at him, "you are dead, I buried you", but I stayed quiet

"didn't I? answer me, boy," he asked, leaning in staring at me

" you did" was all I could say. I felt like I was back

way back when was when I was 16 years old and stole money from him

"Then why are you doing this," he said in a normal voice, the 'THE VOICE' disappearing

"Doing what?"

"Trying to die, son."

I was quiet at that

"Did I raise you to see you die, son?"

"No, but I'm already dead," I told him in an angry tone

"Yes, you did, but you hear you are now aren't alive with a new life, aren't you?"

"It's hell, this life isn't worth living," I told him

"Why is that son?"

"They tortured me in every possible way", I shouted at him

"Then punish them?"

"How?"

"BY LIVING, BY SURVIVING" he shouted at me, startling me

I stared at him in utter disbelief

"I didn't raise you to see you die and she isn't raising you to see you die", he continued.

"Promise me son you will live no matter what."

With that, he started to fade.

"Promise me son" was the last thing I heard him say

I began to cry. I hadn't cried for a long time.

"I promise dad" was all I could say to the empty air

And live I did, I started to live I started to learn the language,

I started to talk with granny Yu, and I started to feel a little happy with my new life

I started to celebrate my birthday with granny Yu,

they were a small affair, always consisting of only me and her with a small banquet

we went on walks, and we read stories. She taught me to write

And this continued till my 10th birthday when my life changed for a second time