Primal Scream Blog Fest - Plus a little piece of "me"

I don't write horror, Raquel, so this is about as heart pumping as it is gonna get. On a side note, it's been days since I've put the essence of my own being into this blog and I feel a little lost. With all these blog fests, contests, A-Z challenge reflections, "I" have been hiding in a corner of my brain, hypothetically listening to albums which shaped my own music style, and watching my detached hand post on my blog, all from above, it seems. So, instead of you just thinking that this blog fest post, is just "another" blog fest post, I am going to admit something personal which may conjure up a little intrigue. Although this scene is in my novel, it is based on a personal experience. It doesn't happen 'exactly' like it does here, but it's quite similar. Um ... yeah, I also wanted to ask you: How often do you draw from personal experience when you write? So anyway - here is my entry:


“Get up!” she screeched, yanking on my hair.

“Owww!” I was confused. I thought the pain on my scalp was the onset of a migraine, for a spilt second.

I half awoke and looked at her, and from a half-squinted eye saw her dark silhouette surrounded, like a noir femme fatale, in gleaming sunlight from the kitchen window behind her. Her shoulder-length fiery red hennaed hair may as well have been blowing in the wind like a Charlie’s Angel. As she lifted her cigarette to her mouth in what seemed to be video-clip slow motion, she enamored her face with smoke as she let it slowly ooze from her nostrils. The beam of sunlight filled with cigarette smoke, and I watched it float above my bed in beautiful patterns.

“Get up, I have to go to the supermarket.”

“And why do I have to get up for you to go to the supermarket?”

“I need you to drive me.”

I had just gotten my license. My mum didn’t have one. Waiting for Dad to come home was just not justifiable. She was bordering on one of her crazy bipolar rages and nothing could stop it.

“I’m on holiday. Can’t you let me sleep?”

“Get up NOW, you selfish little bitch!” And with that she dragged me out of bed by my hair, twisting and flinging my head around as if tenderizing an octopus. I was on the floor kicking and screaming before the pain got the better of me.

Unable to stand up in fear of being hurt some more, I flung my arm against her shins as hard as I could and crawled along the carpet and out of my bedroom door. I locked her in. Fear shot through me at the thought of what she would do to me when I let her out. I heard my own heart beating over the sound of all my belongings being smashed or wiped from my shelves onto the floor. She was screaming so hysterically that her words were incomprehensible. Everything went silent. I asked if she was okay, with my ear to the door, but she didn’t answer.

I sat and leaned my back against the door, contemplating going in. I noticed sunlight creep through the crack below. She was opening the blinds. After hearing her smash the window, I heard a sound like scratching wood along with a desperate groan. I found myself holding my breath, scared to move.

I observed my hand shaking as it opened the door. She stood with a piece of glass in her hand. Blood was smeared all over her face and through her hair. She stood as still as a mannequin, watching her mascara-tinted tears trickle down her cheeks in the wardrobe mirror. Above the mirror, in the wood of the wardrobe, she had used the piece of glass to engrave the word empty. Still looking at herself in the mirror, she said, “Look at me. I need to retouch my make-up.”

Don’t miss out on my contest! There a critiques by professional editors up for grabs!