The Safe Establishment

5 months ago

Two words.

Every trauma, heartache and pain she’d been through was summarised in two words.

Safe space.

Who would have thought, that something so seemingly pure, words that once could elicit the calmest emotions in her, would now become the bane of her existence? Her worst nightmare come to life. Her death.

“Thank you, Corin, for making us your safe space,” the automated voice chanted in its usual falsely cheery tone. Sara looked up from her diary where she’d been discreetly jotting down things in her journal. She watched Corin come into the hall where she and the other girls slept, but she couldn’t meet her eyes. Even when Corin looked in her direction.

She noticed that the others refused to meet Corin’s eyes as well. The new girl must have been shaken to the core by what happened to her in the safe room and was probably looking for someone to sympathise with her. But no one was going to. Sara had learnt that the hard way. In this establishment, they were all alone.

As Sara watched Corin walk silently to her bed, the only tell of the trauma the young girl had faced was the slight limp in her step, she thought sadly of how happy she’d looked on the day of her arrival. Through the keyhole of the Governess’ office, she’d seen a woman who she supposed was Corin’s Mom, dropping her daughter off in a place she was sure was “safe hands.”

“I hear a lot of good things about this place, Ma’am. Are you sure she’ll be okay here?”

The Governess fixed the smile she gave to all the parents who walked through her door. To all the unsuspecting girls who were hooked on her every word and were enraptured by her calming voice. The smile she’d given her a few months back.

“Mrs. Grey if there’s one thing you should know about The Safe Space, is that we are what our name is in every sense of the word. So, I assure you, Corin will soon be free of whatever troubles her. She’s in a safe space. So soon, she’ll be just right.”

Mrs. Grey had been convinced. Corin too from the trusting smile she’d given the Governess. Little did she know, Sara thought as she crept back into her room. Little did she know that this establishment and everything in it would rob her of everything she knew about the word, Safe. No one was safe in these walls. No one had ever been.

Sara was jolted from her painful reverie by a pair of eyes peering down at her from outside the bug net.

“Will you stop that?” She glared at Corin who gave her a small smile. Or what looked like a smile, from the corner of her ashy lips.

“Can I get in?”

“It depends. What do you want?”

Corin shrugged. “What were you thinking about that was so painful?”

Sara went instantly alert. “How do you know that?”

Corin gestured towards her clenched fists. “Your palms are bloody. Your fists were clenched too tight so your nail must have dug in or something.”

Sara immediately folded her arms behind her as Corin opened the net and sat on her bed. “Stop being so damn nosey.”

Corin chuckled. It was a dry, bitter one. “In here, I have limited options for entertainment.” She looked at Sara again. “So....would you like to tell me what you were thinking so hard about?”

“You.”

“What?”

“I was thinking about you. About the day you came.”

As Corin’s smile momentarily shattered, a look passed between them. A look that began an unbreakable friendship. A friendship borne in sorrow and misery. In a world of unending pain and anguish, these two became each other’s only reason to remain sane. Safe.