You little shit…you remember what I told I’d do the next time you got in my way.

It was an old nightmare.

It tore me out of a restless sleep and I jerked upright in bed, covered in sweat and panting for air. Like there’d never be enough of it, oxygen sawed in and out of my lungs, but no matter how much air I dragged in, the pressure in my chest didn’t want to let up.

I was in the fucking closet again.

The same old nightmare, over and over again.

“You got out, Mac,” I grunted to myself.

The sound of my own voice echoing in the silence of my room didn’t help much.

I’d never admit, not even to myself, that my hands shook a little as I wiped the sweat from my forehead, wishing I could wipe away the evidence of the dream just as easily.

But dreams this old, embedded this deep, they wouldn’t be dealt with as simple as that.

I could never remember that first time he locked me up, but I’ll never forget the first time I freed myself.

By then, I’d gotten used to the beatings before he forced me inside with a shove when no one was looking. That cold, conniving expression on his face as he pushed the doors shut was already seared into my awareness, whether subconsciously or not.

The pathetic desperation in my voice as I pleaded with him, begging him to do whatever he wanted with me. Just leave Micah alone, okay? Please?

The smell of sandalwood mixed in with my terror and his strength, the salty stench of sweat fused into the ferrous odor of blood. My blood.

The dwindling light that transitioned to all-encompassing darkness for a time until my eyes adjusted and clung to the thin sliver of light flowing in from the lock he’d turned. He’d taken the key with him. He may have taken the key to prevent me from getting it, but that single act created the means for me to finally escape.

It took years. Years for my tiny hands to get big enough, for my eyes to adjust to the blinding darkness, for my ears to process the sound of each click as the key did its job and turned each tumbler in the lock with incremental precision. Too many years for my mind to process how to undo the work of that key.

One day it all clicked.

He took the key…but what if something else can be a key?

I wasn’t even locked up when it came together. But that was a good thing. Being temporarily outside of my prison when I figured out how to escape meant I could plan for the next incarceration. That was when I hid the first tool. Then a second and a third.

The first was a stick. A twig, really. But strong and hard, with an unusual bend at one side that made me believe it could be useful. And its breadth tapered off from about the size of my thumb to the width of the tip of my little finger.

The second tool was one of the toy soldiers’ bayonets in a set my great aunt had bought me. It was a small thing, not even an inch and a half long, but made of metal and strong. It was perfect.

My last tool was one of my mother’s butterfly hairpins. I found it below the dresser beside my bed and knew it was hers.

 I was also sure it could help. Mother was too weak to protect us from him, but she tried when she could. It was somewhat fitting that something of hers was part of the plan to rescue us. She loved us all. It wasn’t her fault that God was so cruel he made her too fragile to shield her innocent children from harm. Wasn’t her fault that one of the babies she loved so much had been broken almost from birth. At least a thing of hers could be of use.

I slid those precious tools into the tiny but rough grooves in the wood inside my prison. He’d never look for it there. He hated being in tight spaces. That was the reason he locked me up in the first place. He thought I’d be as claustrophobic as he was, and I’d feel the same terror.

Was that all he wanted?

To hurt us? Scare us?

Or was he looking for something even uglier, even then? Was he capable of such devious machinations?

Sometimes, I thought he was. He was broken inside and he wanted to break us, too. He wanted to prove he was the strong one, that we were weaker. Maybe he hated the fact that we had each other and he had to put a stop to that, had to divide us, had to break us down until he was the only one left standing. Maybe he wanted to turn us into useless lifeless rag dolls that got thrown out with yesterday’s garbage.

Maybe, even then, he wanted something more final…to end us.

Or maybe he was just plain evil.

Too broken to see the damage he did.

No matter what he really was, one thing he had was too much freedom. One day that would end. I kept hoping it’d happen before he ended us.

The door could only close slowly now. I was growing. Every day I could feel my strength catching up to his. He’d push and I’d push back, and although the door always shut me in, it gave me hope. One day I’d be as big as he was. One day I’d fight back and win. One day he’d realize the only option was to stop before I stopped him for good.

My only wish was that I’d thought about finding a way to get my baby brother inside with me.

If only I’d seen this prison as an escape in itself.

At least he’d be safe with me.

At least he’d still be around.