Erik

It hurts to blink. Everything feels sharp, cutting. His eyelids have turned into sandpaper. The room is dark, and the air is heavy. The narrow gap under the door brings a little light, and a muffled sound. But for him everything is too loud. Too many noises.

He should sleep.
He can't.
He doesn't want to.
His body feels strange.

The little boy shuffles in bed, turns from side to side. The blanket is too heavy, it suffocates. The pillows are too hard. He can feel the cold floor beneath him, reminding him that it is not far enough away from his body.

He wants to get away.
Away from the voices.
Away from the screams.

It's always the same, since the man who isn't his father has been there. Every evening. The same every time. First a whisper that gets louder, then a scream that gets louder and louder until he can't bear it any longer.
The voices coming and going. The man's hand is waving. This hand is big, it looks like... like something that can punch. He doesn't know exactly, but he knows it's bad. The woman, his mother, is crying. Her voice breaks, she trembles, and the words she says are no longer clear. She doesn't sound like the mom he knows.
A bang. Loud, like thunder. It pierces his heart, the last dark place in his chest. Erik holds his breath. He is trembling.
He pulls the door open and runs.
It feels wrong to run fast, but he can't stop. He doesn't want her to scream, doesn't want the man to scream any louder. But he doesn't want to stay there either, everything is too loud.
He stops, stops in the doorway. The kitchen doesn't look good. It doesn't look good, like mom. Broken.
“Madeleine, get up, don't act like that now!”
The man is there. He's there, and he's shouting, so loud. He's standing over Mom, and his voice is angry. It's a sound Erik knows, but he can't understand why it's so loud, why the man is shouting like that.

Mom is lying on the floor.
She is... she is... she's different.
So different.
Red.
Everything is red.

Erik observes his mother, but he can no longer understand why she is so quiet, why she doesn't speak. Why her eyes don't open. Her hair is tangled, lying on the floor, her eyes, her wonderful brown eyes, are closed. Her lips, they don't twitch, they don't move at all.
The man continues to shout, then presses something against her head, which quickly turns red.
The man is... startled.
Erik doesn't know the man, when he's like this.
The man screams again, but he can't hear him properly. The words are as if wrapped in absorbent cotton, becoming quieter, disappearing behind a veil.
Erik sees the man turn. “GET OUT!”
The words break over him like a wave. He feels them in his body, they penetrate through his bones, deep into his head. But his feet remain still.
Why doesn't his body move? Why can't he walk?
He wants to go to his mom, to her. But he can't.
He won't go.
“Erik, GET OUT, DAMN IT!"
He feels his hands trembling. The man grabs him. He grabs him by the arm, pulls him, forces him to look away.
“ERIK!” the man screams. He can't understand why the man is doing this.
Why... Why...
“Mmmm... Ma...” Erik whispers. A tiny voice, lost in the silence.
Why can't she hear him?
Why can't she hear him when he's with her?
The man lets go of him. The cold creeps over his back, everything feels wrong. Erik looks around. The man walks away. Mom lies there, remains so still. She doesn't look like his mom anymore.
Erik goes to her carefully. He creeps up to her and carefully places his hand on her forehead. Her skin feels warm. Her eyes are still closed.
“Ma...”, he whispers. Over and over again.
He sees the puddle of blood.

It is red.
It's... it's... red.
She is so quiet.

Erik stares and feels the surrounding silence, the silence that doesn't belong to him.
Erik lowers his hand, and pulls it away.

Strangers come, but Erik doesn't understand them. They say things to him, but he doesn't hear them. He only sees how his mom is drifting away, being carried away into the silence.
“The boy is retarded, not quite right in the head, he doesn't understand anything,” says the man.
Then Erik... is taken away, back to his room.
The door closes.