Chapter 1 - The Voice In The Dark
The closet smelled of cedar, old winter coats, and my own suffocating terror. I was eight years old, huddled in the farthest corner beneath a row of heavy jackets, my knees pulled to my chest. Outside the wooden doors, the house of was screaming. My face actively ached—a hot, throbbing pain radiating across my cheek where I’d just been hit. The skin felt tight and swollen, and my jaw locked hard as I ground my teeth together to keep from letting out a sob. I pressed my small hands over my mouth, terrified that the sound of my ragged breathing would bring them back. The sound of porcelain crashing echoed in the kitchen, followed by the heavy, trembling thud of footsteps that made the floorboards beneath me vibrate. My father's voice rolled through the hallway like thunder, jagged and slurred with rage.
"You think you can just hide from me?!" He roared, his voice cracking with terrifying, volatile rage which made him unpredictable. "You think you can just lock a door and I won't find you?!
"Please, Richard, Stop! Just stop!" My mother wept on the other side of the door, her voice frantic and breathless. "He's just a boy, Richard, please - leave him alone!"
"Get out my way!" He snarled, a heavy crash following as something else shattered against the wall.
"Make it stop," I whispered in the dark. My chest heaving as a violent sob tore through my small throat. "Please, please, make it stop."
My heart hammering so hard against my chest it felt like my ribs were going to break. I couldn't breathe. The air felt too thick, too hot, in the closet. I was entirely alone, trapped in the dark, paralyzed by a deep helplessness that made my knees weak. Then I heard the heavy, dragging footsteps stop right outside the door. The doorknob jingled.
A sharp, icy wave of pure panic crashed over me. I locked up completely, my throat seizing so tightly i couldn't even draw in air to scream. I pulled my legs closer to my chest. I braced myself, biting my lip, waiting for the door to fly open, for the light to blind me, for his anger to find me. But instead of his hand grabbing my shoulder, a sudden, bizarre warmth washed over me and spread through my chest. It felt like a drop of hot water spilling into a glass of ice water, spreading rapidly through my veins.
"Don't bite your lip like that, Isaac. You're going to make it bleed like that." A voice murmured
The voice didn't come from the hallway. It didn't even come from inside the closet. It resonated directly inside my head, incredibly soft, steady, and melodious — a woman’s voice, carrying a calm authority that belong in my chaotic house.
"Who's there?" I gasped out in my mind, too terrified to speak aloud
"Someone who is going to keep you safe," she responded. The panic that had it's grip on me just a second ago began to recede, like a dark tide pulling back from the shore. "You're shaking, Isaac. Your heart is beating too fast. You cannot handle the weight right now. Let me take it."
"How?" I whispered internally
"Just step back," she whispered, her voice wrapping around my frantic thoughts like a warm blanket. "Close your eyes and walk into the quiet part of your mind. Let go of the controls. I will hold the door."
I was too exhausted, too terrified to fight her. In my mind, I felt myself take in literal step backward, retreating into a deep, silence space behind my own eyes. The moment I let go, the physical sensations changed. I didn't feel the floorboards anymore. I didn't feel the scratchy fabric of the jackets pressing against my fabric my face. I was suddenly watching my own body from a distance, looking through my own eyes as if I were sitting in the back row of a dark theater.
On the outside, my eight-year-old body trembling. My breathing instantly smoothed into a slow, perfect rhythm. My right hand rose, moving with a fluid, deliberate grace that clumsy eight-year-old me shouldn't have possessed. My small fingers reached out, pressing firmly against the inside of the door, bracing against the door as the doorknob began to jingled again.
Through my own lips, a soft, reassuring whisper echoed into the dark - a voice that carried my pitch, but a completely different, mature cadence.
"I am the perimeter" my mouth whispered "Nothing gets past me.
Sitting in the quiet darkness of my own mind, completely insulated from the terror outside. I felt a strange, profound sense of relief. For the first time in my life, I wasn't alone."
"Who are you?" I asked her from the dark. Her voice echoed back to me.
"My name is Isabella. And as long as I am here, nobody will hurt you ever again."
