By This Time Tomorrow

Ralia looked through the damp window into the rain soaked promenade. Does it ever rain lightly, she wondered. She extended her gaze.  The tall evergreen trees stood still as if in defilement of the driving rain. She kind of envied them; they were always green, fresh, come rain or shine.  But her contemplation of the greenery was cut short as the reality of what she must do now ascended to her head for the numberless time. 

Right from when she could put her thought to logical sequence, she decided that she would have to leave if she must stop herself from committing an atrocious act.  But she stayed back because she was not sure if she would meet a different world out there. But how would she know if she didn't try it? Supposing she tried leaving and it turned out worse than she had imagined. But could there ever be a situation, a place, that massacred the spirit like the one she had suffered during her meagre years of life?

Her body shuddered at the flashes of memory that raced through her head.  She was thirteen, but she felt she looked thirty. Everyday that passed seemed to add a year to her advancing age.  She felt she was aging at a geometric rate.  The dread, better still, the disdain of what was going to happen to her three days from today propelled her mind and she decided to end it all.  She would have to do the unthinkable now.  That was the only way she could kill the rot that corroded her mind.

To be continued...