When the Circus Came to Town

The bleeding stopped by the time we arrived, but in the place of the bleeding was a swelled up bruise. And I was sure that there was some mark on my side, seeing how heavy the blow was. But it was most likely covered by my fur. He dragged me up the stairs leading to the door. Thankfully there were only two of them for me to hit my already throbbing head against. Then came the splintery floor. I picked up at least 3 one-centimeter long spikes of wood with my chest, and more smaller ones on my legs and under my chin on the way to my inevitable prison.

He locked me in my room.

It was nothing to look at. Walls with no paint, mold growing from spaces in the ceiling, a desk I made when tinkering that had a broken leg, and bed with rusty springs protruding through the single sheet that was on it. Even the window that was higher than I could reach was slightly cracked. The door was the only thing that was solid about the whole space. I never really slept on the bed, I always left the house. In fact, I left the house as much as I could. Only occasionally did I go back there, and that was to eat during the winter months because there was nothing growing at that time for me to indulge myself on. Even then I tried to scavenge what I could from under the snow.

The door locked from the outside and there was only one key, he always had it. He dragged me into the dark room and dropped me on the floor, my face throbbing in pain and the splinters under my skin only amplifying it.

"Now this is where you're going to stay until that thing passes."

Not a word was said in response, only silence and an aura of sorrow and pain hanging over me like a thick cloud of dark grey smoke. As he walked out the room I laid there on the floor, attempting to ignore the stinging pain of the dirty floor on my newly acquired splinters, all the while listening to his heavy hoofsteps, the door slamming shut, the click of the lock sealing my sentence.

I cried, The salty tears making the broken skin on the outside of my cheek sting with more pain than it was experiencing prior. I laid there on the floor silently sobbing, the tears running down my face and landing on the floor with a small plopping noise. The horror that I might never see what that blur was and the sense that I was caged like a dog, at the mercy of the stallion that drew no moderate amount of blood just today tore at me, pushing more tears out of my eyes, only to intensify the pain that he inflicted earlier. The pain was bittersweet, the fact that he could inflict such a sensation was terrifying, but the reason why he did it was euphoric. I grinned at the thought that I had the capability of defying him, even if only for a moment. So there I laid for what must have been an hour, becuase the already low sun set over the horizon, silently sobbing but smiling all the while.

Then I heard it.

A sound that took me out of my state of sobbing, a sound that took me away from the room I was in. It brought me to a place apart from reality, a happy place of sorts where all my pain that hadn't already faded away left entirely. It was coming through the window. I got up from the floor and stood on my hind legs, using the wall under the window for balance. I couldn't see out of the window, it was too high up. I slid my makeshift desk over to the wall for height, not concerned about my family hearing the noise. All of it caused by the rusty metal screeching across the floor could have woken even the heaviest of sleepers with a start, so you could probably guess my surprise when I didn't hear "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THERE SQUIRT?!?". So disregarding the thought of him catching me looking out the window, I climbed onto the wobbly desk and did just that. What I saw made me drop my jaw in awe, but I quickly closed my mouth again because it hurt to open it.