Into the Blue Abyss

Little Charlie couldn’t see a thing, but he didn’t need to. The suffocating darkness pressed in on him like a smothering blanket, and his tiny fingers clutched the hideous Spiderman covers as if they were a lifeline. The fabric was rough against his skin, an unwelcome reminder of the bright, cheerful monstrosity his mother had forced upon him just that morning.

He’d hated them on sight—hated the garish red-and-blue web-slinger staring up at him with cartoonish eyes that seemed to mock his misery. Spiderman. Of all things. His loathing for the comic book hero was irrational, perhaps, but it burned as fiercely as his inexplicable hatred for the colour blue. Blue walls. Blue curtains. Now, blue bedsheets.

The walls seemed to hum in the silence, an oppressive reminder of his helplessness. He could still hear her words echoing in his head: ‘You’ll grow to like it, Charlie. Just give it a chance.’ But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. It wasn’t just the colour or the character; it was the way his parents never listened.

His father had spent three long days slumped in a haze of whiskey and rage, shouting slurred curses that rattled the thin walls of their small home. The yelling never stopped, each word sharper than the last, dripping with contempt. ‘Make her pay,’ he kept muttering. ‘Gonna make her pay for insisting on this stupid, worthless paint job. Blue. For that good-for-nothing boy.’

Charlie had heard it all—every venom-laced word, every promise of vengeance aimed at his mother for daring to ask for something as trivial as a new coat of paint. Even now, the echoes of his father’s drunken tirades hung in the air like smoke, staining the memory of those three torturous days.

But despite the shouting, the slamming of doors, and the acrid stench of alcohol that seemed to follow him everywhere, his father had painted the room. Possibly spite, possibly point-proving; Charlie remained clueless. What he did know was that when the job was finally done, his father stood in the doorway, swaying slightly, a satisfied sneer curling his lips.

Three days. That’s how long it took for the walls to transform from the warm beige Charlie had grown accustomed to into the cold, oppressive blue he now lived with. It wasn’t the serene, pastel shade his mother had envisioned. No, his father had chosen the darkest, ugliest hue he could find—a colour that swallowed the light, turning the room into a prison cell masquerading as a child’s bedroom.

When Charlie had been led into the room for the grand ‘reveal,’ he’d felt his stomach churn. The colour seemed to mock him, an extension of his father’s cruelty. His mother had tried to smooth things over, clapping her hands together with a forced brightness that didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘See, Charlie? Isn’t it nice? Daddy worked so hard on this just for you!’

But all Charlie could see was the darkness creeping in from every corner, the blue walls trapping him in his father’s simmering hatred. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His father’s laughter, low and bitter, told him everything he needed to know.

It wasn’t just a colour. It was a punishment.

‘What do you say, Charlie?’ his mother’s voice was tight, the forced cheerfulness barely masking her panic. Her eyes darted nervously toward his father, whose face had already begun to darken, his lips curling downward as he waited for a response. Charlie could see it—the storm brewing in his father’s expression, the flicker of rage lighting his eyes like a match about to set the whole room ablaze. He obeyed instantly.

‘Thank you, Daddy,’ Charlie said, managing to utter the words in a voice that seemed foreign to him. He stretched his lips into a smile, though it felt wrong, as if he were wearing someone else’s face. His stomach churned with the effort. He hated the walls, hated the blue, hated himself for pretending otherwise. But he’d learned long ago that playing the fool was safer than facing the wrath of his father. At six years old, he already knew the bitter truth: a bruised pride was easier to hide than a bruised body.

Now, as he lay cocooned between the garish Spiderman covers and the soft blue walls that seemed to mock him, Charlie could not see. The dimness, though less light than most children prefer, wasn’t why. On the contrary, Charlie’s eyesight was sharper than most, as if nature had given him that single gift to help him navigate the murkiness of his life. The blindness he experienced wasn’t physical.

He saw the colours, shapes, and shifting shadows on the walls, yet the reasons behind them remained unclear to him. Why did his father’s fists land on his small frame when his words displeased him? Why did his mother’s soft reassurances sound more like apologies to herself than to him? Why, no matter how hard he tried to please, the anger never truly left his father’s eyes. The truths hidden from Charlie were due to his innocence, or what little of it was left.

Charlie, in his brief life, had seen ample darkness to recognise its presence, yet it remained elusive, a creature he sensed but could not describe. The beatings, yelling, and ensuing suffocating silence were overwhelming, yet somehow inadequate to understand. It was as though he lived his life peering through a blindfold, its fabric soaked not just with blood but with fear, confusion and unanswered questions. He yearned for unobstructed vision, but a part of him dreaded what he might uncover.

So, he lay still, clutching the hideous covers to his chest, his breath shallow and careful. The surrounding walls seemed to close in, their blue hue turning darker in the dim light, pressing down on him like the weight of the unseen. Maybe it was better this way, he thought. Not seeing proved protective. If the world beyond the blindfold proved to be as harsh as he imagined, he doubted his desire to see it.

The darkness of his room was a relief compared to the storm brewing just beyond the thin wooden door. Lying there, cocooned beneath the covers he despised, Charlie pressed his body deeper into the mattress, as though he could sink through it and escape entirely. The voices outside were rising again, sharp and jagged, cutting through the silence like knives.

‘You went an’ did it again, didn’t you, woman?’ his father’s voice bellowed, slurred yet venomous, each word a crack of thunder in the tense air. Charlie felt it more than heard it—the way his father’s rage seemed to vibrate through the house, through the walls, through him. Tiny tremors ran down his body, making his fingers clutch the covers tighter, as if their garish familiarity could somehow shield him.

He had long since stopped trying to make out the words. It wasn’t what they were saying that mattered; it was the tone, the rhythm of the argument, the way his father’s voice swelled with each accusation while his mother’s grew quieter, retreating into herself as she always did.

Charlie knew what was coming next. It was always the same. His father’s anger would boil over, spilling into shouts, slamming doors, or worse. And his mother’s apologies, her trembling attempts to placate him, would crumble like paper in the face of the storm.

Lying there, Charlie squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on anything else—the sound of his own breathing, the ticking of the cheap clock on his wall. But even those familiar sounds couldn’t drown out the tension in the air, thick and suffocating, pressing down on him as if it were alive. He felt powerless, trapped in his bed, in his room, in this life.

And still, the argument raged on.

‘You’re never there for me, Greg!’ His mother’s voice rose sharply, shrill with desperation, cutting through the muffled barrier of the door like a blade. It wasn’t just loud—it was trembling, a fragile mix of fear and defiance that made Charlie’s chest tighten. He flinched beneath the covers, curling further into himself, but his ears remained attuned to every word, every inflection.

That shrillness—it scared him, not because of its volume, but because it was the sound of her fear, raw and unfiltered. Charlie could hear it in the way her words cracked, like a breaking branch under too much weight. She was terrified. But there was something else too, something stronger beneath the fear. It was in the way her voice didn’t falter completely, the way she threw the words back at his father like tiny sparks in a dark void.

Charlie had heard this before, the moments when his mother stood her ground, however briefly. It wasn’t the sort of strength you saw in heroes or read about in books; it was quieter, more desperate—a woman clutching at the last shreds of dignity in a battle she knew she couldn’t win. Even so, she fought. She always fought, even when the outcome was inevitable, even when it would cost her another bruise or a broken spirit.

From his bed, Charlie felt the tremors in the floorboards as his father shifted, pacing or perhaps gearing up for his next verbal assault. The tension in the air was intense, like a thunderstorm on the verge of breaking. Charlie’s stomach twisted, knowing full well how this would end. Yet a part of him clung to the sound of his mother’s voice—high-pitched, trembling, but filled with a kind of strength he didn’t fully understand.

He wished he could protect her. Wished he could burst through the door and make it stop. But he was just a boy, too small, too scared. All he could do was lie there, listening, waiting for the inevitable. And hoping, in some small, desperate way, that this time, the sparks in her voice might start a fire.

Charlie had always admired his mother’s strength, even as a child too young to fully understand its depth. It wasn’t the loud, showy kind of strength people celebrated—it was quiet, steadfast, and unyielding in the face of a life that offered her little but hardship. She smiled when there seemed to be no reason to smile, laughed when joy felt like a distant memory, and kept moving forward, step by determined step, even as the weight of her husband’s rage bore down on her.

But admiration is a complex thing, and in the years to come, Charlie’s feelings toward his mother would be tangled with a bitter thread of disapproval. Only days after this night, Sara Violetta would leave—leave her son, her home and the life she’d fought so hard to endure. And yet, even in his resentment, Charlie would carry a quiet reverence for her strength, a piece of her he could never let go.

Her defiance had always been a source of friction with his father, Greg Violetta, whose need for control was as relentless as his temper. Greg hated her resilience, the way she refused to let his abuse snuff out the light in her eyes. It infuriated him, drove him to lash out harder, yell louder, as though he could pound that spark of independence into submission. But Sara never broke, at least not completely. That defiance, that unshakable core, was what drew others to her, what made her a source of admiration for so many—even if, in the end, it wasn’t enough to save her from herself.

Charlie, however, would never inherit her courage. As much as he admired her strength, it felt like a foreign thing to him, something unreachable and alien. While Sara had found ways to stand her ground, to push back against the tide of her husband’s wrath, Charlie could only endure, curling into himself like a leaf under heavy rain. He was his mother’s son in many ways, but her ability to resist the storm, to fight back no matter the odds—that was a legacy she hadn’t passed down. And it was one he would grow to regret not having.

’Never there for you!’ his father bellowed, the words slurring together in that all too familiar drunken drawl that made Charlie’s stomach churn. From beneath the hideous covers, the little boy could hear the rage twisting through each syllable, loud and sharp, like the crack of a whip. Greg’s voice filled the house, vibrating through the walls, drowning out even the faint hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

’What the hell’s that supposed to mean, Sara?’ Greg roared, his tone escalating with every word. ’I’ve been here for you, night an’ day, ever since we met!’ The words were a jagged mix of accusation and self-pity, their weight punctuated by the uneven thud of his boots against the floor as he stumbled closer to the doorway.

Charlie squeezed his eyes shut, as though that might block out the sound, but it never worked. His father’s voice was like a storm, rolling over everything in its path, impossible to ignore. The smell of alcohol seemed to seep under the door, mingling with the sharp bite of his father’s anger, creating an atmosphere so thick it was hard to breathe.

Greg’s drunken proclamations weren’t new. They were a script Charlie had heard a hundred times before, each word etched into his memory like a scar. And yet, they never failed to make him feel small, helpless, and terrified. He curled tighter under the covers, wishing he could disappear into the fabric, wishing his room—his world—wasn’t filled with walls that seemed to trap the anger inside.

Greg’s tirade came to an abrupt, jarring halt, his words snatched out of the air by the piercing sound of his wife’s scream.

’And that has always been the bloody problem, Greg!’ Sara’s voice, shrill and trembling, cut through the tension like a shard of glass. ’We met! It should never have happened!’

The words hung in the air, sharp and unrelenting, echoing through the small house. For a moment, there was nothing but silence, thick and suffocating. Charlie froze beneath the Spiderman covers; his breath caught in his throat. He had never heard his mother say something like that before—never heard her voice crack with that combination of anger, exhaustion and despair.

Greg was stunned into silence. It wasn’t the kind of pause that came with reflection or understanding. It was the kind that bristled with the promise of something worse. Charlie could almost hear the tension building in his father’s chest, the way his fury seemed to coil tighter, waiting to strike.

Beneath the covers, Charlie clutched the fabric so tightly his knuckles ached. He wanted to cover his ears, to block out the awful sound of his parents tearing each other apart, but he couldn’t. He had to listen. It was as if hearing it all gave him some semblance of control, as if knowing what was coming might make it hurt less when it finally arrived.

The silence stretched on, until Greg’s voice returned, low and dangerous, slurring with a venom that sent a chill down Charlie’s spine. ‘What did you just say?’ he demanded, his words slow and deliberate, each one dripping with barely contained rage.Top of Form

When Charlie was younger, he couldn’t see. The world around him was a blur of shadows and sounds, a place where the darkness wasn’t just in the room but in the spaces between the people who were supposed to love each other. It was just Charlie, all alone in the quiet void of his bedroom, wrapped in fear while his parents’ voices rose and clashed just beyond his door. His older sister slept soundly down the hall, oblivious, her dreams untouched by the turmoil that kept Charlie awake. He couldn’t see her, couldn’t call out to her. All he had was the sound of his parents’ anger, sharp and jagged, piercing through the fragile walls that separated them.

And then the argument shifted. His father began to cry.

It was a sound Charlie wasn’t prepared for, one that froze him where he lay. His father’s sobs were raw and unguarded, like the howls of an animal in pain. The man who loomed so large in Charlie’s life, who struck with fists of fury and roared with unrelenting anger, was suddenly reduced to something small, broken, and incomprehensible. Charlie didn’t know what to make of it. The tears should have been a relief, a sign that the storm had passed, but they weren’t. They were worse. Because those sobs didn’t just linger in the air that night—they lingered in Charlie’s mind, haunting him for years to come.

As he grew older, the memory of that night returned to him in flashes, vivid and unshakable. He would think about the sound of his father crying, how it seemed to strip away everything he thought he understood about the man. And he would think about his mother’s words, sharp as a blade, cutting deeper than any physical wound. Together, they painted a picture of a love that had curdled, a bond that had become poisoned by the very promises meant to sustain it.

Charlie often wondered how things might have been different if his parents’ love had stayed strong, if it had remained a warm, private thing shared between them instead of spilling out into fights and tears for their children to witness. He thought about the vows they must have spoken on their wedding day—words like ‘forever,’ ‘faithful,’ and ‘unbreakable.’ Words that sounded so certain when whispered in the glow of happiness but could so easily be twisted, slaughtered by betrayal and resentment.

In his quiet moments, Charlie would imagine those vows bleeding away, their meaning lost in the cracks of time, replaced by the bitter echoes of what they had become. Love turned to anger. Trust turned to suspicion. Forever turned to never. And all that was left was the darkness, the sobs and the silence that came after.

Lying in his hideous bedroom, beneath the suffocating weight of the much hated bedcovers, Charlie bore silent witness to the unravelling of his parents’ love. At six years old, he saw something no child should ever have to see: his father crying. Greg Violetta, the man who so often loomed over him like a storm cloud, sat at the edge of his son’s bed, his broad shoulders heaving with sobs that shook the mattress.

‘Mummy lied,’ Greg choked out, his voice a broken mixture of sorrow and fury. ‘Don’t you see?’

Charlie stayed as still as he could, pressing himself deeper into the bed, as if trying to merge with the mattress and vanish altogether. He knew what was coming. He always knew. The sobs were only a prelude, the tremor before the earthquake, and soon enough, they would twist into something far more terrifying. He wished, more than anything, that he could disappear—find a shadow to melt into, a crack in the wall to slip through. But there was nowhere to hide. There never was.

The soft blue walls of his room offered no sanctuary, only a cruel reminder of his father’s drunken handiwork, a prison disguised as a child’s bedroom. The walls seemed to close in on him, their oppressive colour turning darker with every passing second as his father’s anguish turned sharper, hotter.

’She fuckin’ lied to me!’ Greg’s roar shattered the fragile quiet, filling the room with a rage that made Charlie’s heart race. The words hit him like a physical blow, reverberating through his small body as he cowered beneath the covers. Dread clawed at his chest, growing heavier with each breath.

Charlie clutched the blanket tighter, willing himself to disappear. He tried not to cry, tried not to make a sound, because even the smallest noise could draw his father’s attention. And when his father was like this—drunk and broken, his pain spilling over into fury—attention was the last thing Charlie wanted.

His father poured another glass of whiskey, the amber liquid sloshing carelessly over the rim and onto the floor, though Greg seemed not to notice. The sharp scent of alcohol filled the room, mingling with the stale air of anger and despair. He stood, swaying slightly, the glass trembling in his hand as he took another long, deliberate swig. The whiskey didn’t quiet his fury—it never did. If anything, it sharpened it, turning his sorrow into something cruel and unrelenting.

Beneath the covers, little Charlie fought to control the trembling of his small frame. He bit down hard on his lip to keep the tears at bay, his hands clutching the blanket so tightly his knuckles turned white. Fear gripped him like a vice, cold and unyielding, but he dared not let it show. Weakness was dangerous. Weakness drew attention. And when his father’s gaze was already clouded by drink and rage, the last thing Charlie wanted was to become the focus of that terrible storm.

In the spare room down the hall, his mother had locked herself away, a self-imposed exile that left her son to face the monster alone. Maybe she could hear Greg’s drunken muttering, his angry, uneven steps as he paced near Charlie’s bed. Maybe she couldn’t. It was impossible to tell. What Charlie did know was that she wasn’t coming. She never came during these moments, her silence as loud as his father’s fury.

Charlie’s heart pounded in his chest as he felt the weight of his father’s presence looming over him. He didn’t dare look, didn’t dare peek out from beneath the covers. He knew Greg was there, standing over him, the whiskey in his hand more a weapon than a drink. The soft blue walls of his room seemed to close in, trapping him in a space where there was no escape, no safety.

And so, he lay there, holding his breath, clutching his fear as tightly as he clutched the covers, praying that his father would lose interest, that the anger would burn itself out before it found a new target. But deep down, Charlie knew prayers were for a different kind of world—a kinder one. Not the one he lived in.

‘Don’t you see how she lied?’ Greg’s voice had lowered now, quieter, almost conversational, but that calmness was deceptive. It was the eerie stillness before the inevitable storm. Charlie barely had time to brace himself before the ritual began. The first blow landed hard, jerking his small body beneath the covers.

The beatings were not new, though they never hurt any less. They had become a twisted routine in Charlie’s young life, as ingrained as bedtime stories might have been for another child. Greg’s anger seemed to demand an outlet, and from the moment Charlie was born, it had found one. A punch, a slap, the sharp crack of a belt—it didn’t seem to matter. Each strike felt like punctuation, a way for his father to vent the pain and rage he could not contain.

Charlie tried to shield himself, curling into a tight ball under the covers, but it was no use. The blows found him anyway, each one breaking through his flimsy defences. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to be somewhere else, anywhere else. Fear clawed at his chest, an unrelenting force that no amount of hiding could subdue.

And then came the screaming.

’She lied to ME!’ Greg roared, his voice cracking as it rose to a terrifying crescendo. The words seemed to echo in the small room, bouncing off the soft blue walls, filling the space with their venom.

(Not…like…sun…down.)

The room felt smaller now, suffocating. The air was thick with the smell of whiskey and sweat, the sounds of Greg’s rage and Charlie’s muffled cries trapped in the walls like ghosts. And through it all, that single phrase continued to ring out, louder and more jagged each time, until it was all Charlie could hear.

’She fuckin’ LIED to ME!’

His name was Charlie Violetta, and he could see now. Through the haze of fear, the suffocating weight of his father’s fists, and the endless echoes of rage, he could finally see. The darkness no longer blinded him. It illuminated the truths he had tried so hard to ignore, the ugly pieces of a puzzle that had always been there, waiting for him to put them together.

You’re not going to like me when the sun goes down…