The Alleyway

As I walked through the labyrinth that was my neighbourhood, I adjusted my headphones and lowered the volume of my music to focus on the sounds that I could hear around me. The sounds of dogs barking on the terraces of moulding flats...Pounding of footballs on the fences of back gardens...The static of the radio blasting reggae music on a Thursday afternoon. I was almost home, I just needed to turn this corner safely and it was a short 3 minute walk from there, but then I heard the scuffling and grunting of teenagers play fighting in the alley way. Calmly, I thought 'Okay, maybe I should just turn back and go the long way home. After all, I was not that late home...right?'. As I started to turn around slowly a familiar voice called my name from the corner, and the sounds of scuffling stopped. 'How had anyone seen me?' I thought. My older brother's friend came jogging around the corner and proceeded to greet me with a fist bump. Nervously I replied "Hey what's going on?", and he of course assured me that he and his friends were 'just playing around'. Soon his friends joined the conversation and they all seemed so cool, I felt my shoulders loosening and my posture became more relaxed as I was sure that these people were...safe.

'Lets play hide and seek' my brother's friend said playfully, and I agreed because we were already having so much fun. Eventually, I found myself running around with a group of teenagers, and as the street lights turned on I started to get quite anxious. An emotion that quite obviously showed on my face. My brother's friend suggested that we played hide and seek in teams to make it more competitive. Enthusiastically, he held my hand and said: 'We'll hide together, it'll make it harder for the others to catch us'. I agreed, of course, he's older than me and that means he will definitely keep me safe. Half an hour later, my brother's friend and I were running around the neighbourhood looking for the perfect place to hide, ducking and dodging behind the block of flats we had reached the garages behind them. It was a desolate area, so quiet that you could hear the rats and mice scuttling in between the bins. Everything seemed darker, and the only thing keeping us from not being able to see each other's faces was the one street light in the corner next to the alley way. Nervously laughing, I gestured towards the streetlight and suggested that we could hide there in the mean time because I didn't really like how dark it was. Abruptly, he wrapped his arms around my waist and tried to stop me from going towards the light, pulling me further into the corner and closer to his body. As confused as I was, I couldn't scream or say: 'hey! what are you doing'. I just struggled helplessly in his arms whilst feeling his heavy breathing on my neck. I felt like a mouse that had been caught in the chokehold of a merciless cobra. Feeble and weak.

Finally he let me go, and I stood there...tired and disorientated. I tried to form words but the fear swallowed them up as I opened my mouth. The skies were no longer blue, they had turned a murky black, and in the moonlight I could see one side of his face...grinning. So he took advantage of my naivety, my pride and my beauty when he unbuckled his belt and pulled down my clothes...I was a doll and he was my owner. Pulling...tugging...rubbing...hurting.

When I went home, my lips were sewn together.