Chapter 18 Chapter Eighteen

Eve Christian woke up and sat on a mattress with a black stain that she now knew was probably old blood. In the tiny room with its peeling ceiling and damp walls, countless magazines litter the floor.She didn't wear glasses, her vision was blurry, she couldn't make out the covers of porn magazines, and she could barely see the discarded soda bottles and fast food wrappers here and there.Between the mattress and the mottled wall was a pink tennis shoe, the size of a little girl.How many times has Eve picked it up, held it, and wondered what it meant, whose shoe it belonged to.She feared the girl was dead.Sometimes, when he came into the room, she hid the shoe behind her back, afraid that he would take it away.This is all she has.

She never sleeps for more than one or two hours at a time, and she doesn't know how long it has passed. Time does not exist here.The dilapidated window on the other side of the room was filled with gray light. She couldn't see the sun, but only smelled the rain. She had no idea what he had done to Kristen and the children, and she only vaguely remembered those first horrible, utterly unreal hours, when he came to bring her food and water, staring at her in the dark while he It was as dark as darkness itself, wandering at the door like a dark elf. "How does it feel?" He asked her, his voice erratic and cold, "How does it feel to know that you are going to die?"

The room was always dark, and it got darker when he came in. "I'm not afraid, you can't hurt my soul." "Apologize quickly." "It's never too late to repent. God will forgive all your sins if you humbly repent." "God is a woman and I am her hand. Apologize quickly." "Shame on you for blaspheming. I did nothing wrong and I have nothing to apologize for." "I'll show you what shame is, and you'll be as sorry as she was." "Christine?" He left without answering.Eve heard noises from other rooms in the house.She couldn't make out what they were saying, but he was talking to Christine, it must be.He once spoke to a woman.She couldn't hear what they were saying, but she remembered footsteps and voices on the other side of the wall, and then she heard Christine's voice, and it was her, yes.Now that Eve thought of this incident, she couldn't help wondering if she was dreaming.

Christine!Christine!I am here.You are not allowed to hurt her! She heard her own voice echoing in her head, but it might just be a dream. Christine?Christine?answer me.You are not allowed to hurt her! Then she heard talking again, so she should be all right.But she wasn't sure, maybe she was dreaming.Perhaps she dreamed that she heard his steps in the corridor, the closing of the door.The whole process may only take a few minutes, or a few hours.Maybe she heard a car engine.Maybe it was just a dream, a hallucination.Eve sat in the dark, eager to hear about Christine and the children, but heard nothing.She kept yelling until her throat was hoarse, she couldn't see clearly, and she couldn't breathe.

When the sky is bright and then dark, his dark figure will appear, holding water and food in paper cups.He just stood there, watching her, but she couldn't see his face.She had never seen his face, not even when he first walked into the house.He wore a black hood with two holes cut out to show his eyes, and the sides fell over his shoulders.This hooded figure likes to poke her with the butt of a shotgun, as if she were a zoo animal, wondering how she would react when poked.He pokes her pussy and sees what happens to her. "Shameful," she said when he poked her. "You can hurt my body, but you can't hurt my soul. My soul belongs to God."

"God's not here, I'm her hand. Apologize." His God is very jealous. "You shall have no other gods but me." she is not here.So he poked her with the butt of his gun, sometimes so hard that he left black and purple bruises on her body. "Apologize quickly," he said. Eve sat on the stiff, blackened, dirty mattress. In this stinking, stuffy room full of garbage, she pricked up her ears to think, listen, pray, and desperately called for help.No one answered, no one heard, which made her wonder where she was.What is this place, why no one heard her cry? She could not escape, for he had deftly bent the wire coat hanger, bound her wrists and feet, passed a rope through it, and fastened it securely to the wooden rafters of the low ceiling.She was covered in bruises, bug bites and rashes, and her naked body was itchy.She could barely stand up, get off the mattress to defecate.But when she did, she was often so painful that she nearly passed out.

He can do anything in the dark, and he can see clearly in the dark.She could hear his breathing.He is Sombra.He is the devil. "God help me," she said to the battered window, to the gray sky outside, to God far beyond the sky, in heaven, "help me, God."