Chapter 10

I wake up with a throbbing face, shooting pain across my entire skull and forehead and the worst headache in hell. I am on my apartment’s cold, hard wooden floor, and for a moment, I have no clue where I am. My body is stiff and freezing from being here for a prolonged time in a very awkward position, like a dead animal.

Disorientated and dizzy, I turn on my side and throw up when the taste of blood hits the back of my throat, making me gag, and I realise that my face is covered in it. Feeling out my features, I can tell that my nose is a mess, blood crusted around it, and it feels like it could be broken at the bridge where it’s swelling badly and near unbearable to touch. Tracing it tenderly, so carefully with my fingertips and recognising the burning ache of a bone that must be cracked. My face already feels puffy, and even though it’s still so dark, I can tell I am entirely alone in my surroundings. It has that eerie feeling of emptiness that comes when you are truly alone