Burning Bridges : Damned If She Does, Damned If She Doesn't

They kept showing up, day or night. Mio tried to accommodate at first until it became too much to handle.

How is one expected to keep things cordial when these beings lack even basic human decency, like some undead with rotting brains in their skulls?

Photo by Patrick von der Wehd on Unsplash

When Mio refused to open the door, they would keep banging, scratching, and ramming it, kicking up a fuss outside, like zombies relentlessly chasing the living to death.

The phone and doorbell would keep sounding until the door was opened.

They brought chaos and even invited the unknowns—be it human or some otherworldly entity—into her personal space. She didn't even know these people or these things.

They came, touching everything, forcing their opinions on her, wanting to dictate everything about her, including her hair and her pets. They even wanted to get rid of her pets.

It’s worse than accidentally letting a cult recruiter into your home.

How can one have peace when these kinds of beings, with values so unreasonable, keep inviting themselves in, taking up one’s space, kicking up a mess, and trampling all over one’s place?

This kind of violation really felt like a rape of privacy.

How can she be safe when she knew they were bringing all kinds of nastiness through that door?

How can she be at ease when everything they did and said felt like a calculated scheme, as if they were trying to flush her out of her own space?

There were times she hid inside her room, feigning illness. They would come banging on her bedroom door. So the next time they came, she turned off everything in her room—TV and phone—and lay motionless under the blanket.

She didn't even dare to open her eyes in case they’d hear that. She even held in her urge to go to the bathroom; the flush, the door opening, all the sounds—it's exactly like watching a zombie movie: one move and they’ll come for you.

Just try to imagine being hunted in your own home. How would you feel?

She was losing her mind, but she distanced herself. She created her boundaries. She protected herself. She had to care for herself instead of caring too much for what they think.

To have to be considerate of them should be completely out of the question by now; they never treated her humanely, so it’s impossible to treat them on the same level as any other decent person.

It's her safety and sanity that matter most, and she has every right to prioritize them.

Sadly, those zombies don't have manners; they just won't get it. They will just keep trespassing. They don't care, they don't give a shit, they do whatever they like, even at the expense of harming another person.

In the end, these relentless zombies left her no choice but to set fire to every bridge, burning all others in the process, because their influence would inevitably extend through any remaining connection.

Social media and all common connections were cut off because they would stalk her posts and the people around her.

It’s impossible to get away without a scratch but it’s the only way now to keep her sanity intact.

When all that's left are bridges to nowhere, they get offended because she made it hard for them to reach her.

They’d get angry; they would catapult stones and pots of burning oil from afar, stopping at nothing to sink their teeth into her.

They detest any resistance to their aggression. Everything else in their path becomes collateral damage; it has no consequences for them, only for Mio.

And don't expect any pity, for they are heartless; zombies don't have a heart, it's only a piece of rotten meat in that rib cage.

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I've chosen to write parts of Mio's story out of chronological order because her experience is simply too overwhelming, too complicated, and too difficult to articulate linearly.

I have written some episodes of her story over the past couple of years, and since it's a developing one, I'm unsure if I'll be able to write it all completely.

These narratives will be compiled under my Cinderella Must Die collection.

The working title, though seemingly terrible: imagine all the antagonists from famous fairy tales ganging up on Cinderella. That's how dire Mio's situation is.

I cannot claim this is purely a work of fiction, as it contains elements of actual events. I also cannot label it as non-fiction, because it’s Mio’s truth. I can only change names and certain details to safeguard my protagonist. For now, let's just label these as narratives.

©Britt H.

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More about the person behind the writing in My Introductory Post