Backdraft

There was only one rule: don't open the door. My daughter insisted, adamantly tapping her foot, arms outstretched a mile, blocking my every attempt. The babe, the child, mine, rolling her hazel eyes, flipping her long beaded hair, all with that added aries flare.

"Fire," my astrologically aligned kin shouted at the top of her soon-to-be preteen lungs.

Fire...

But in the sleepy hour, I crept downstairs many a night to the door in question, a scratched-up grey basement door in dire need of a paint job. Never hot to touch; cold stale air rushed from a bottom one-inch gap warranting further curiosity.

Each encounter yielded a migraine, a brain-squeezing pain so intense, my would-be turning hand, halted, dropped to my side, and surrendered to my daughter's demands.

Back to bed and back to sleep meant nightmares, a place where monsters pursued me, and the fires of hell swallowed me alive.

And daytime afforded me only temporary comfort. Daily living, distractions, round and round the merry-go-round, but the urge to turn THAT knob never ceased. I was obsessed, an addict I became, reaching, struggling, retracting my hand from that damn door over and over.

This went on for years until one day...

My sixteen-year-old daughter came home from school and found me on the floor, belly crawling, squealing like a stuck pig.

"Mom, you didn't!"

My insistence finally got the best of me and the memory door flung open.

Full inferno; blast from the past, I remembered what her father did.

I remember finding the knife under his pillow and my little girl's tale of Daddy standing over me holding it, blade pointed down while I slept.

Trauma smothered me, choking my lungs, and burning my soul to its core.

...

My micro horror fiction entry is based on my real-life trauma from time spent with an abusive man. My three-year-old daughter walked in on my ex holding a knife over me while I slept. She saved me and is my hero.

Thanks for reading!