The Hostage by Maria-Anna Maridi (16, Greece)

[Content warning: sexual assault.]
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I look around me. I feel my entire body falter. I’m alone. A tear trickles down my face. One more. And another, and another. I can’t breathe. Where am I? How did I get here? I’m afraid. Never in my life have I felt so vulnerable, debilitated. Never in my life do I recall feeling this way at all. I was never susceptible to fear; rather, I was apathetic, strong. I feel an urge. An inexplicably powerful urge to escape, to return. The urge surges from my stomach and leads me to release a scream of exasperation; a sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.  A determination to escape. With all my tenacity, I try to push myself off the chair. It's no use. The ropes further scar my body. My wrist begins to shed blood. What have I ever done to deserve this? 

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I stare back into the sheer white wall. My eyes, stuck, looking at that same wall. All I can hear is the sound of my breathing. Breath, after breath, after breath. More spasmodic. More laboured. More throbbing. Each time. I look down at my legs. They're wounded. Lines, horizontal lines that cut into my flesh. Then I remember. Him. Groping me. The tears, they gradually became paralyzed as I stare back into the wall.  I screamed. My consciousness, my thoughts, my feelings are all numb. He grabbed me. Stronger this time. At the thought of all of this, I can't stop shaking as my breathing becomes even more heavy, frequent. I tried. I couldn’t push him away. Transferring back to reality, I feel my soul escape my body,  leering at me from above. The strong, young woman I once knew. Dehumanised, trembling, scarred. 

Just a few weeks ago, I was that girl, the one at the top of the class destined for a bright future, having poured my entire soul into my work. My entire life I had aimed for success, made precocious assumptions of the lucrative life I would live as an assiduous, successful young woman. Now I don’t even know if I will live to see that day. At this moment, staring into the infinity of the white walls, for the first time it occurs to me that I may not survive, I may not make it out of here alive. Just then I gradually realize what has happened, what the future holds. Kidnapping. Sexual assault. These are the kind of things I would read about in the newspaper, or write essays about for school. Something so distant, yet so close to the heart.  Never could I had preconceived that I would be the one. That it would be me who would undergo all this. I feel my body and my soul separate. My consciousness is roaming about these four walls. Glaring at what is left of me. A wounded body being judged by a stigmatized soul. 

A creak. I can’t quite place where the sound is derived from. I hear another one. Closer. Yet another. And another. And another. I then feel the ropes that tie my arms to the chair slip free. I sense something crawl up my arm. And just by that I know. By the invasion, by the contempt. It is him. Him. My surroundings blur, my senses diminished, my consciousness tainted. I don’t know when, I don’t know how. I am being pushed onto the wall. Scars being formed. That very second. Incurable scars, never to be healed. The scars go further than my skin. They rip every fibre of my being. Shatter my soul, stigmatize my mind.  I feel his hands. I feel them run all over me. Disoriented; I feel my body shrink. Untameable. He rips whatever clothing is left on me. I am bare. An unshielded prey at the mercy of its predator.  There is nothing I can do. It's him against me. And he'll win every time. As much as I resist. As much as I fight him. He will always dominate over my vulnerability, my powerlessness. I feel my entire being abandon my body. I shut down. 

I open my eyes. Back in the chair. Same four walls. 

Each breath, I feel his hands, his hands crawling down my body. Each time I close my eyes, I can see it. I can see him. On me. Pushing me against the wall. I can espy myself tremble. My body. It isn’t the same. It isn’t the same as before. The body that once was my home; it isn’t anymore. It is now a place of hostility, of animosity; not my home, not anymore.  I want to escape it, to be strong again. I know I can’t. I can't go back. Back to before. Myself won’t be myself anymore. My thoughts; they won’t be mine anymore. Even in this state of utmost apathy, I am there. I am reliving it all again. Sitting in this room, all alone, I am finally confronted by what I am most afraid of. My thoughts. Myself.  

I am a hostage. Hostage in body, hostage in mind. Hostage to my predator. 

My thoughts, my senses, my consciousness; all blurred, crumbled in my mind. 

A light. Different from the sheer white of those, those four walls. It blinds me. I hear them. But it can’t. It can’t be. “Mia,” the sound of amity echos again. Is it? No, it can’t be.

 But it is. 

The sweet familiarity is too conspicuous to ignore. A man in a uniform. An officer. He is untying me from the chair. Behind him. It is them. It is truly them. My friends. My best friends. 

“Always and forever, through thick and thin” we have always told each other.
 
I guess it's true.  

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