This week’s flash fiction is based on a prompt I saw on Pinterest. The prompt is pretty simple: her skin is carved with scars that someone else earned. It seemed interesting, so here we go.
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Anorah gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. The knife dug deeper into her arm, avoiding any arteries but inflicting more than enough pain. That would scar. Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she didn’t open her eyes. It would only be one more scar out of dozens.
Dozens of scars that she hadn’t earned but bore for love. These days, she wasn’t even sure why she suffered this anymore. Was he really worth her long-suffering and her silence in the face of pain he himself allowed to be inflicted?
“Give up on him. He isn’t worth this, Anorah.” Her tormentor’s breath was hot on her cheek. “He’s letting us do this. He’s too apathetic to do anything. You’re just taking the punches for him. For a man who doesn’t even care.”
She swallowed hard and opened her teary eyes. “I’m not going to give up on him. You want me to give him up? To let him fall into your hands? To let you drag his soul into the darkness?”
“You know what we want. We’ve told you. Why do you keep fighting? He’s going to end up under our sway eventually whether you die or live.”
She shook her head, a cry sticking in her throat. “I won’t give up on him. You can do whatever you want to me. You can even tear me to pieces or rip my heart out of my chest. But you can’t make me step out of the way or tell you how to get to him.”
“So you’ll die to protect him?” The man’s dark features twisted into a snarl. “What calls on you to do such a thing, hmm? He. Is. Not. Worth. It.”
“He is.”
He dug the knife deeper. “He’s not.”
She choked on her sob and shook her head. “You’ll never understand because you only know how to take. You don’t know how to love.”
“Love? Don’t think that nonsense means anything. He doesn’t love you, so why suffer for him?”
She smiled past the pain, the ache in her heart worse than even the pain in her arm. This man just didn’t understand. “He has hurt me more than you ever could. He destroyed my heart. You’re just destroying my body. But I forgave him anyway. I forgave him because I love him. I don’t love him because he’s good or perfect. I love him because I chose to, and I won’t change that choice. Ever.”
He growled and drove the knife through the fleshy part of her arm. “What could possible inspire you to love him? He’s a monster!”
Her voice strangled as the pain overwhelmed her, but she got the words out anyway. “I love him despite what he’s done because I have been loved unconditionally despite what I’ve done.”
Her tormentor twisted the knife, and white hot pain seared through her. Her mind blanked, and blackness fringed her vision. In the distance, she could hear herself screaming, but the pain no longer touched her. Then the blackness swallowed her.
~~~
That’s it for this week’s Flash Fiction Friday. Hope you all enjoyed. Have a great weekend, everyone!